Matt Halpern Snare Drum Things I know about Matt Halpern: he plays with Periphery; he plays Meinl cymbals; he hits hard; and, having walked past him at a drum show once, he’s quite a lot bigger than me. I might watch what I say from here on in… Ok, so seriously, the one
Zildjian Raw Crashes I looked up the term ‘cymbal’ on Google and it said ‘a musical instrument consisting of a slightly concave round brass plate which is either struck against another one or struck with a stick to make a ringing or clashing sound.’ Ok, so it says round… Wikipedia’s opening line is, ‘A cymbal
Pearl Sensitone Heritage Snare Drums Well over a dozen years ago, I reviewed a bunch of Pearl’s Sensitone snare drums. I don’t remember which ones they were now, but I remember doing it and that I liked those drums and the overall concept of the Sensitone line, and while I never bought one it
Paiste Masters Thin Cymbals These are, in short, really nice cymbals. I thought I’d just get that out of the way first. Paiste’s Masters Thin cymbals are, as the name suggests, thin models but in [largely] bigger sizes, and that thin aspect is very apparent when you play them; even in the hihats. These cymbals tell
Vic Firth Rute-X ‘The feel and response of a drumstick with the volume control and alternative sounds of a rod product.’ I think if I could just leave the review at that sentiment from the Vic Firth website, I would. It pretty much says what you need to know really. I hate to think how
One of the several new products from Gretsch for 2021 - which seems strange to say in October 2021 - was the Gergo Borlai signature snare drum. The drum has a 14x4.25” 1.2mm sand blasted brass shell with 45’ bearing edges, eight small double-sided lugs, 40-strand snare wires and 4mm die cast hoops. You also get a Lightning
I’m sat here with what seems to be a riot shield in my hand. In all seriousness, obviously I know what it’s for and the type of thing you’d play on it. But, as someone who doesn’t really play percussion beyond a tambourine, it seems huge compared to the X-Click that I recently looked at
I’ve reviewed a fair amount of drum dampening products over the years. But, now I come to think of it, I don’t think I ever had much call for this sort of thing until more recently and I’m wondering whether that’s because I was better at tuning before - unlikely - or that I just
There’s an obvious reason for the name of this little practice pad. The base of the Pucpad is made of hard rubber and is 76mm (wide) x 25mm (deep) in size. On top of that is a 65mm x 15mm playing surface made of soft foam. As you can see, there’s a piece of string
Meinl Accessories So in this final instalment of gear from Meinl, we’ll be looking at some accessories. Bass Drum Microphone Clamp I’ve never tried a kick drum mic attachment like this. I’ve created something myself that was similar in principle - i.e. drum mounted instead of using a separate stand - but it didn’t last
