MY kit that some friends have decided to call the red monster

I started searching for a kit about a year ago and found this set of DDrum AMX shells:

14x6.5 snare
12x8 tom
16x16 floor
24x22 kick

and just started adding to it.

The placement was influenced by three things: Mike Mangini, Gary Chester, and Derek Roddy.

Gary Chester advocated a set-up in his legendary book "New Breed" called territorial rights. As a natural lefty being taught on a right handed kit, it was kind of an obvious step to give this type of set-up a try and it definitely worked pretty well for me.

What are the two drums on either side of the rack tom? I'm digging the symmetrical setup!

So, being a lefty, are you playing open-handed? Would that even be considered open-handed?

How do you like those AMX shells? I owned a ddrum dios maple for a season. I thought they were absolutely great. Yet I see threads and reviews that say otherwise. Perhaps I didn't own them long enough (about 5 months) to discern the good from the bad. But, in the moment, I really liked them. I sometimes regret letting them go. But I love to trade and try new things. Catch22...

Kelly! said:

So, being a lefty, are you playing open-handed? Would that even be considered open-handed?

How do you like those AMX shells? I owned a ddrum dios maple for a season. I thought they were absolutely great. Yet I see threads and reviews that say otherwise. Perhaps I didn't own them long enough (about 5 months) to discern the good from the bad. But, in the moment, I really liked them. I sometimes regret letting them go. But I love to trade and try new things. Catch22...

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I am playing open-handed, but I was initially taught righty because my drum teacher had his kit set up for a right handed drummer. It's one of the reasons why I find Mike Mangini so inspirational, his method for ambidexterity directly applied to my situation.

The AMX shells are fine, but the quality control is pretty awful. The snare's bearing edge has a lot of nicks and scratches in it and the bass drum is out of round, because the drumheads need to be pried off in order to replace them. I also don't like how the bass drum dwarfs every single drum in the set; If I had a smaller bass drum, I'd have less issues involving set-up and It would probably stay in round easier.

akshuncambo said:

What are the two drums on either side of the rack tom? I'm digging the symmetrical setup!

Click to expand...

on the left is a DW 8" piccolo tom and on the right is a PDP 10" mini-timbale. I got these as good cheap additions for a more melodic approach (or it could just be me trying to emulate people like Marco Minnemann or Derek Roddy.

As far as how they're set up, I'm semi-ambidextrous to begin with, and I got this idea from Derek Roddy, putting a smaller tom on either side means that there is a left handed kit inside the right handed one because of the tom placement.

the drums look more orange than red to me.
ya 22 x 24 is huge. you can get a smaller ddrum kickto match - see them for cheap on ebay etc. all the time.
glad you're enjoying them.