My Humble Stagestar

audioragegarden

Senior Member
My set of 6+ years

Drums: Tama Stagestar with Remo Clear Ambassadors on all of the toms and bass, and a Coated Ambassador on the snare

Cymbals:
14” Paiste PST5 Rock Hats
16” Paiste PST5 Rock Crash
20” Paiste PST5 Rock Ride
18” Paiste 502 China
16” vintage Sabian B8 Crash
10” Sabian B8 Splash

Sticks: Ahead Lars Ulrich

My setup from April 2007 to August 2013 was just the Paiste PST5 Rock pack, since I was busy with film projects and college in that timespan.
 

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Nice pics. I've always liked Tama drums.
 
Oh man, that 502 Paiste china brings back memories! I remember the little dots around the edge and everything. I had one 10+ years ago with my old Pearl Export kit. Wish I wouldn't have sold everything and stuck with it and drumming! Though better to have a chance to get back into it than not at all.

Nice set, looks like you enjoy it.
 
You are a Metallica fan aren't ya?

Nice cozy set you got there, looks pretty easy to move around. Btw nice T-Shirt too! Ride the Lightning is one of my favorite Metallica Album second to Master of Puppets.
 
Wow, that is definitely an old school B8. Loving the 16" with the rivit holes. Gotta be a pretty interesting sound there.
 
Oh man, that 502 Paiste china brings back memories! I remember the little dots around the edge and everything. I had one 10+ years ago with my old Pearl Export kit. Wish I wouldn't have sold everything and stuck with it and drumming! Though better to have a chance to get back into it than not at all.

Nice set, looks like you enjoy it.

I found that cymbal completely by accident at a Sam Ash store near my college for 50 bucks. It took me less than a minute to decide that I wanted it.


You are a Metallica fan aren't ya?

Nice cozy set you got there, looks pretty easy to move around. Btw nice T-Shirt too! Ride the Lightning is one of my favorite Metallica Album second to Master of Puppets.

I had just gotten back from seeing Through the Never.


Wow, that is definitely an old school B8. Loving the 16" with the rivit holes. Gotta be a pretty interesting sound there.

Yeah I got it like that from a guy off craigslist for 20 bucks and he even put in a couple rivets for me even though ended up taking them out.
 
For the past month or so I've been planning the biggest upgrade to my set so far, and the last one for the forseeable future. This comes in the wake of the addition of the vintage B8 crash and B8 splash back in August, and started to really form in my mind during my search for a china cymbal. The planning process began mainly as a way for me to kill time while I was in dull college lectures. Meanwhile I had also gotten in touch with a couple of old friends from back home who had been trying to get a band together for the past year or so. Eventually the idea of me joining them to jam sometime was being passed around, with the vague possibility of recording an EP next summer. By this point I was determined to make my plan a reality.

I set October 12th as the commencement date for the project since that was my fall break from school that lasted from the 12th to the 16th. October 9th came… and I found myself bedridden with a case of strep throat. On the 11th it temporarily lightened long enough for me to drive home and make it there alive. The entire weekend was spent in bed working on the last two seasons of Breaking Bad instead of working on my project (wasn't as terrible as I make it sound). I only made it back to school today, but last night I managed to at least complete the first step of the project, which I intend to complete or at least make serious progress on this upcoming weekend.

Stay tuned...
 

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I have a Red Tama Stagestar and I play it weekly. I leave it at a practice studio at a friends house where we rehearse. It has been a real workhorse for me.
I really like it. It has real heart.
I own some vintage kits from Ludwig and Slingerland, and here I am talking about how I enjoy playing my Stagestar.
I think that that says it all.
Nice kit you have there. Enjoy it to the max.
 
It is done. The final stage of my 2013 drum set upgrade is complete.

Additions:
10" Sabian B8 splash with clamp-on stand
16" vintage Sabian B8 crash with stand
18" Paiste 502 china with boom stand
8" vintage Tama rack tom with clamp-on mount
Final pricetag (including spraypaint): $251

I received my vintage Tama 8" rack tom on Saturday and immediately got to work repainting my set. Every drum got copper rims, including the snare which got the full copper treatment. For the rest of the drums I painted dark blue over the existing black, and tried to go for a fade effect. Even though it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, I'm still satisfied with the end result.
 

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Decent job for a DYI project like that and the rims and hoops came out well. Though just not digging the color combo. IMO I would have just taken it apart like you did and cleaned those bad boys up to make the finish and especially those now previous chrome lugs shine. As well as clean the tension rods and do an over all check up on the kit. As a final thought I think I would have left the snare chrome so it stood out from the kit to be a nice focal point. Another thought would of been to paint them flat red and then spray it with a few layers of clear coat. I think that little gig kit would of looked killer in red and with chrome lugs.

Anyway lol, not trying to get you down or make you think twice about your project as it's cool and does remind me of custom schemes you would get from SJC or the likes but I was just giving thoughts as to what I would have done is all. :)
 
Decent job for a DYI project like that and the rims and hoops came out well. Though just not digging the color combo. IMO I would have just taken it apart like you did and cleaned those bad boys up to make the finish and especially those now previous chrome lugs shine. As well as clean the tension rods and do an over all check up on the kit. As a final thought I think I would have left the snare chrome so it stood out from the kit to be a nice focal point. Another thought would of been to paint them flat red and then spray it with a few layers of clear coat. I think that little gig kit would of looked killer in red and with chrome lugs.

Anyway lol, not trying to get you down or make you think twice about your project as it's cool and does remind me of custom schemes you would get from SJC or the likes but I was just giving thoughts as to what I would have done is all. :)

My whole motivation was that I wanted a darker color scheme, so I thought I'd throw on some dark blue and make the chrome parts copper. That's about as complicated as my thought process got. And the snare I was conflicted about painting, but eventually it just seemed like the right thing to do, and overall I'm pleased with how it compliments the set.
 
I was dissatisfied with my Sabian B8 splash and crash, mainly because I quickly realized I don't play anything that really requires a splash and the crash simply wasn't loud enough. So about a month ago I started trying out crashes at local stores to compile a list of replacement candidates. After combing eBay and Guitar Center's used section for only a couple days I snagged a first generation Paiste 16" RUDE crash/ride, and an 18" Alpha thin crash for 70 bucks each. Since I was working on the crews of student films here at school every weekend between Halloween and Thanksgiving I had to wait an excruciating month to try them out on my set, but the wait was definitely worth it. I love those babies.

I had also been meaning to replace my dinky 18" Stagestar bass with something a bit beefier. By a stroke of luck, my first day home I stumbled upon an old Imperialstar 24" bass on eBay only fifteen minutes away from me with local pickup only. Two tense bidding days and 53 bucks later, it was mine. It packs way more of a punch than the 18" bass, and provides me with a bit of amusement as my smallest drum and largest drum ended up costing me roughly the same.

Now my only concern is narrowing down my wishlist of ride cymbals in time for Christmas...
 

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I liked the blue fade and copper color scheme....I thought it looked cool. I also like the Rush t shirt.

Finally, I love the stone/rock basement wall.....I'm a native of Ohio and I miss the basement in a big way! Its easy to get a project cooking in the basement and be down there for many hours....especially in the winter
 
I liked the blue fade and copper color scheme....I thought it looked cool. I also like the Rush t shirt.

Finally, I love the stone/rock basement wall.....I'm a native of Ohio and I miss the basement in a big way! Its easy to get a project cooking in the basement and be down there for many hours....especially in the winter

Thanks. The blue fade color scheme is still there, the pictures are just darker than last time because I think the camera was on a different setting. And those walls are actually just my house's foundations, I have a really old house. That door in the third picture is actually the old coal cellar.
 
Well the first half of 2014 was pretty uneventful drumwise. Over Christmas break I acquired a 24" Paiste Alpha Rock Ride and retired my old 20" PST5 Rock Ride. I also did some touchups on my 16" RUDE crash/ride's logos with a Sharpie paint marker. There were a couple of days in January where it was just warm enough to paint the 24" Imperialstar bass to match the rest of my set, but I only managed to get the lugs and rims done before the spring semester of college started. The weekends when I was home over the semester were mostly spent in the company of friends and family, so it wasn't until yesterday that I got around to painting the shell. Other than switching my tom heads to clear Emperors when the current Ambassadors wear down, and getting a new single bass pedal, these are probably my last notable changes to my set for quite a while.
 

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