Hi guys,
some absolutely stunning kits here, I never get enough of looking at them, I've been following this post for a long time before I decided to post.
As for the roto as opposed to a tom it's about the sound, I tune my bass drum up really high (A la Tony Williams "Nefertitti" time) When I tuned the tom to pitch it just didn't have the open sound I was looking for and was kind of interfering with the bass drum sound, Secondly for positioning (but this is much less important than the sound) is that I can put closer to the bass drum without my leg hitting the edge of the tom. All drums are easy to reach with no extended movement from my arms (very important for endurance and prevents muscle strain).
Cymbals and cymbal stacks:
HiHat side:
14" Bosphorus Master series HiHats
8" stagg DH China on top of a 12" dream Bliss Splash.
Right Side:
20" Bosphorus Master Series ride/Crash with rivets 1576 grams
Stacks;
These change dependent on the gig/recording
8" stagg splash on top of a 10" stagg splash (always use this)
14" Stagg/wuhan/dream china "Lion" by itself or stacked on to a Bosphorus 20" Trash Crash.
If not stacked
3rd cymbal will either be a Masterworks 18" thin crash/Ride (very damaged but sounds great), a "Dream Bliss 20" crash ride, or the Bosphorus Trash crash (depends entirely on the mood).
Hope that helps
You can hear/see them here...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kFYtfkdL0AY
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CpIiuzSvfsI
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fW-3b70uphg
Cheers
Ric