Sweet Riser

Here’s a product that was brought to my attention that I wish was around years ago!

I bring you the Sweet Riser. I remember back in my youth trying to build a drum riser in my moms basement and rigging one up that, looking back, I’m surprised didn’t kill me.  Trust me, stealing truck loads of plastic milk crates from the nearby grocery store stacking them two high and putting a couple pieces of plywood on them isn’t the safest way to build one…not to mention, the grocery store gets REALLY pissed off about their milk crates disappearing! But let me digress from my self incrimination…

Sweet Riser builds drums risers and stages. Does a drummer NEED his/her own drum riser? Probably not but I know I have played a few places with big stages but no riser and if I had had a portable riser I would have enjoyed the show much more…sorry as much as the music being the important thing, image is a close second to me…but enough about me. 

I wasn’t able to get an actual riser from them to review but what I can see from their webpage and knowing a little bit about carpentry, these things look pretty solid and the company stands behind them 100%.

There are three main sizes of risers, small, medium and large, each size having a couple variations of depth and height, Height being either 16 inches or 24 inches. 

Prices range from $399.00 for a 6’6” x 5’4” x 16” high riser to $799.00 for an 8’x8’x24” high riser (which with my drum set…I would need the latter). They also do custom sizes.

Would it be efficient to have a riser at a gig? Sweet Riser has a video showing one being set up in 2 minutes, eleven seconds on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GQa8o1PavI). I’ve seen drummers take longer than that to get one drum on stage!

Now this product isn’t just for drummers. Any facility/venue that hosts music events, whether it be a club, theater, church, etc, can use one of these. It may or may not be cost effective for a drummer to shell out $500-$600 for a riser, depending on the drummer, but this is a pretty good price for a club or church who will use it consistently. 

So if you’re in the market for a riser or a stage, give Sweet Riser a call! If I’m ever in the market for one, I plan on calling them!

The Drum Foundry Layout Mat

Here’s another one for the builders! 

This is a cool little mat that has multiple uses! Are you tired of taping a head and hoop onto a shell to layout the holes? This is the answer!

The Drum Foundry Layout Mat is good for shell sizes 6” to 24”. Not only that but it lays out 6 hole, 8 hole and 10 hole patterns, has a snare bed layout AND it shows if your shell is even the slightest bit out of round! Yes, this thing is pretty cool! I have one and I use it religiously. I almost forgot! You can also use it determine bass drum spur placement!

I’ve seen other ones out there, I’ve even had someone email me one for free (not for review, just because) but I realized after I downloaded it and looked at it, my printer doesn’t print 28x28 sizes so it’s not really that useful.  There are a couple layout mats selling on ebay, two in the UK and one in the US, the US one goes for $50.00 plus $18.00 shipping. The Drum Foundry Mat goes for $44.99 from the Drum Foundry webpage.

Overall I love this thing, I use it in all my drum building! Drum Foundry has some pretty cool gadgets for building drums. Maybe they’ll see this review and offer some stuff up for review! *wink*,*wink*, *nudge*, *nudge*.

Happy Building!