Hi everyone, I am new to the forum (yes I am a bit slow, but I am on Facebook)
I have had the Tama Superstar Customer Fade for about 1.5 years and love it. The kit keeps frowing. Haven't done the rack thing yet on my acoustic Tama kit but my Yamaha DTXTREME IIS is on a rack. Three drums kits in the House...my wife is an angel.
Tuning and heads make a big difference. For the snare I use Evans EC Reverse Dot Coated Batter heads, Evans Hazy 300 Share heads, and Puresound Custom Series 20 snares. For the Toms I use the Coated EC2 batter heads. For the bass...Evans EMAD 2 batter head. Also for a little extra dampening I use a double size bed sheet rolled up and have it just ever so slightly touching both the batter and resonant heads. Great power and attack. Also, I took and old Pearl Forum kit and put new heads on and tunined it and now my son uses that one for playing gigs. I play a Yamaha Oak Custom at a church and that sounds great also with new heads of course
Here is my Acustic kit configuration
22" x 18" Bass Drum
5-1/2" x 14" Superstar Custom Amber Fade Snare
6-1/2" x 14" Metal Works Steel Snare
10" x 8" Superstar Custom Amber Fade Tom
12" x 9" Superstar Custom Amber Fade Tom
13" x 10" Superstar Custom Amber Fade Tom
14" x 11" Superstar Custom Amber Fade Tom
16"x 16" Superstar Custom Amber Fade Floor Tom
18"x 16" Superstar Custom Amber Fade Floor Tom
20" Zildjian A Series Ping Ride (I also play a 22" ping on another kit which I like more)
18" Zildjian A Series Medium Thin Crash
16" Zildjian A Series Thin Crash
18" Zildjian A Custom China High
12" Zildjian A Series Splash
14" Zildjian A Series New Beat Hi Hats (I really love the 15" better, very good clean sound)
6" Zildjian Zil-Bel
8" Sabian AAX Splash (Perfect splash sound I like)
10" Wuhan China Splash (not bad for $30)
12" Wuhan China (very fast high china)
16" Wuhan China
18" Wuhan China w/rivets (great china effects cymbal)
Wuhan are good cheap effects chinas)
LP Jam Block High (Blue)
LP Jam Block Low (Red)
LP Piccolo Jam Block (Orange)
LP Guiro Jam Block (Purple)
LP LP009 Rock Classic Ridge Ride Cow Bell
LP LP205 Timbale Cowbell
LP LP204A Black Beauty Cow Bell
6 Tama Roadpro Boom Stands
1 Tama Roadpro Boom Stands w/detatchable Weight
2 Tama Roadpro Snare Stands
2 Tama Roadpro Stilt double Tom Stands
Tama Iron Cobra Lever Glide Hi Hat Stand
Tama Iron Cobra Rolling Glide Double Bass Drum Pedal
Tama Cobra Clutch (Hi Hat foot clutch)
Black Roc-n-Soc Nitro Throne w/backrest
Various Tama clamps and boom arms
TAMA Roadpro memory locks for cymbal and tom stands - ML222N for upper tube and ML191N for lower tube
It get parts from various places but found success at ruppsdrums.com. Recently I needed a chain for my son's roadpro Hi Hat that finally gave way and Tama had it in stock so Rupps sent it to me. If you nkw any other good Tama parts dealers, please let me know.
I even have a Verve kit at work for practice with friends. Too lazy to bring my good kit so I bought a cheap kit (it works). Tuning and heads make the difference.