Finally, High quality Guru prototype kit pictures.

Andy

Honorary Member
& here it is, phew! As the rack is a distraction for some, I pulled out a few stands & set the kit up as a classic 4 piece instead of my usual 6 piece format. Cymbals are some of my new Amedia Dervish set.

Spec's:

All from 200 year old + mahogany, no stain. Stave construction free floating ultra thin shells with segmented construction hoops & bearing edge assembly components. 316L stainless steel chassis, black powder coated.

Toms: (all diameter x depth x shell thickness):

8" x 10" X 3mm (not shown)
10" x 10" x 3mm (not shown)
12" x 10" x 3mm
14" x 16" x 3mm

Bass drum:

20" x 20" x 5mm

Snare drum:

14" x 7" x 30mm

The depths were chosen to offer a very specific sound, not a fashion choice. The special construction allows the creating of deeper drums, without the usual overtone drawbacks sometimes associated with such dimensions.

A very carefully recorded video will be posted in the next 2 - 3 weeks.

I hope you enjoy looking at the results of some very long hours of work & design. A huge thanks to Dean of Guru Drumworks for working with me on this, & I thank a higher authority for the gift of Dean's craftsmanship.
 

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Love it! Such a nice finish, although the hoops are a bit much for me. I'm very curious to hear how they sound! You've obviously put a lot of work into this kit, and it definitely shows my friend!

Those are interesting depths you choose for the toms, any particular reason you went with 10" deep?

And the is a bizarre looking strainer you've got there. What's the purpose of the "string" wires??

More pics! except this time the full kit!

-Jonthan
 
Beautiful! How much does the kick weigh?
 
:O

W O W

WOW !!
WOW !!!



And a little more WOW!

In other words: Classy, classy, classy is my first adjective. Beautiful, amazing.. would be the next two.

Congratulations, man. Must be a very special feeling to look and play those beauties and know that you built them yourself.

I look forward to see how they sound!! Enjoy them. All that hard work really turned out into something really amazing.

Cheers.
 
Did that guy say 'wow'?
I couldn't agree more, but it isn't because of the look, but the construction - although I don't understand a word of ply/wood/thickness/blah-blah-talk... but this is sooooo cool! I'm looing forward to that video. Please hurry, KIS! Hurry!
 
Love the triple strainer in particular. I love the idea of multiple-snared drums, reminds me of orchestral drums.
 
Looking good there Andy! I'll bet that cage would have looked just killer in Nickle plating.

I'm curious about the snare. Why does it not go with the same cage as the bass and toms? Also please elaborate as to what's going on with the triple strainer there, is that a Guru original part? I'm quite intrigued and maybe a little puzzled.

Also, how would you describe the sound of that Dervish ride? What size is it?

Looking forward to sound samples.
 
Maybe I missed it but did someone say WOW. Absolutely gorgeous Andy. And that snare is remarkable. You will probably have a very classy clientel but they will undoubtedly have a beautiful set for life. Best of luck to you Sir.
 
Looks absolutely amazing mate.....it really does look like hollowed out logs with heads on them....very tribal. Hanging for those sound files.

It was designed to record on, I'm guessing you've done a test run or two along the way. Happy with what you're hearing so far?
 
As everyone else has said, that really does look amazing. Wish I had them skills.
 
OMG Andy - those look incredible! Can't wait to hear the SOUND! I suppose you're going to visually obliterate them and hang all your cymbals around it?

;)

Maybe it is time to go Jerry Marotta and eliminate all your cymbals too. They just get in the way ;)
 
Hmmm. That might be one of the most beautiful kits on the forum. It's definitely up there. Someone should start an "exotic 4 piece" thread with DMC's kit, your kit, and that one that someone posted that was made of old wine barrels.

Ah, the jealousy runs rampant...

That was probably Todd Plummer (http://www.toddcreatedwood.com/html/instruments.html)

Amazing looking kit, Keep It Simple. The snare especially made me jump. With the three wires, and strainers....
 
Love it! Such a nice finish, although the hoops are a bit much for me. I'm very curious to hear how they sound! You've obviously put a lot of work into this kit, and it definitely shows my friend!

Those are interesting depths you choose for the toms, any particular reason you went with 10" deep?

And the is a bizarre looking strainer you've got there. What's the purpose of the "string" wires??

More pics! except this time the full kit!

-Jonthan
1st off, a big thank you to everyone for your interest & support. I'll try to repay that with some honest & carefully made recordings over the next couple of weeks. The first picture shows the kit smothered in the usual range of close micing crap as the kit is made ready for band tracking. The second picture shows a very simple 3 mic (2 x overhead, 1 x out front ambient) recording setup that will be put out with zero processing of any kind.

There's a few points I want to get straight. I didn't build this kit. I came up with the design, did the drawings, put down the bespoke tooling, assisted in final assembly, & spent some weeks in testing & significantly changing the construction. All the woodwork & those cages were built by Dean Price of Guru Drumworks.

The next point I want to clarify is, this started as a personal kit project, & still is. The kit you see will almost certainly never be built again, but the design ideas will be used in the development of future kits to be released by Guru Drumworks, & I'll play a part in that. A good portion of the original design concept was proven to not work, so I changed the construction during trials. Even though some of the novel concept didn't prove out, we still have a world first here, 3mm thick stave shells without rerings! Again, this is not a commercial venture, but the lessons learnt will hopefully have value in the future.

I'll try to answer some points raised;

The drum depths were chosen to produce a single voice across the three mounted toms, & distinct complimentary voices for the floor tom, bass drum, & snare. The construction allows me to play with depths without entering into overtone hell.

Those deep hoops are necessary because of the two part tensioning & bearing edge construction. They are a touch on the bulky side, but we've kept that to a minimum. As lugs are used, the snare hoops are more representitive of standard full wooden hoop dimensions.

The snare strainer is by Pearl, & is part of their symphonic range. As the kit's focus is recording & near field sound, having a choice of snare flavours to hand is very useful.

Thanks again for your support guys, & I'll get those clips up as soon as I can. Yes PFG, I was super happy with the studio sounds. It's only a local demo studio, but the engineer was blown away with the kit's flat tracking ability. Anyhow, you'll get to judge for yourselves soon.

Cheers, Andy.
 

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Any pics of the hoops off and the FF mechanism et al......or are they still closely guarded trade secrets?

And get rid of the sub-kick ya big girl!! :)
 
Any pics of the hoops off and the FF mechanism et al......or are they still closely guarded trade secrets?

And get rid of the sub-kick ya big girl!! :)
I'll get to those pictures soon. There's more work to do on the kit yet. Once that's done, I'll be happy to show the mechanism, as the novel design aspect has been scrapped.

Hahaha, yes, the subkick. It's a great tool PFG! Nothing like that used in the natural recording I've made, but when it's full blown "capture everything you can" song tracking time, or bigger gig time, that subkick is fantastic. I run it, & the D112 on the batter, completely flat, then mix the inputs to give me the sound I want. As it's simply a low frequency capture microphone, I'd say that's more wholesome & honest than going mad with the EQ! Even our band demo will feature a bass drum with no EQ. How often does that happen?

Thanks for your support PFG, just getting my favourite summer frock out now, lol!
 
How much does the kick weigh?
 
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