The constantly changing drum room

Bo Eder

Platinum Member
So I received another Pearl kit the other day - and the ol' drum room got cleaned and re-set. I got the Pearl Vision VBL bop kit which consists of a 5.5x14 snare, 8x12 rack tom, 14x14 floor tom, and 14x18 bass drum - all finished in a beautiful champagne sparkle wrap. I realize the Pearl website says the VBL drums are a nice lacquer, but in the case of the champagne sparkle, it's a wrap. If it really was a lacquer finish, it'd be alot more expensive than what it is ;)

I have it just next to my black lacquer Reference Pures and now the room looks complete. I have the References all mic'ed up and ready to record whenever I feel the urge. The little bop kit I'll mic up with two mics if I want to record it.

Also - the little bop kit comes standard with coated white Remo UT heads - I didn't even try them and replaced them when assembling the drums. The two toms got a emperor batter on top and an ambassador clear on the bottom, the snare has a Evans G14 white coated head on top, with an Evans snare side on the bottom. The bass drum got an Evans EMAD with the Remo UT logo head on front. That was the biggest improvement to the bass drum - it originally came with a white coated UT head, like an Ambassador coated, but that was it. I'm not lifting the bass drum up - it sounds fine where the beater strikes it. I'm really diggin' this little kit - it feels by far the best quality of all the manufacturers little bop kits (and as you know, I've tried mostly all of them by now). Enjoy!
 

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I'm sure you've told us before, but I can't remember, so I'll ask: Did the Reference Pures come with the mirrored bass reso? I don't normally care for those but it looks fantastic on the black set like that.

A very nice drum room.
 
I'm sure you've told us before, but I can't remember, so I'll ask: Did the Reference Pures come with the mirrored bass reso? I don't normally care for those but it looks fantastic on the black set like that.

A very nice drum room.

No. The Reference Pures come with a nice white coated Pearl logo head which is actually a Remo Powerstroke 3. It's a nice head, so I didn't want to cut a hole in it. I had the Remo Starfire head for about a year and I just applied a Pearl logo decal to it. There's a Rem-O ring on the backside of the port which strengthens the hole so it won't tear.

My first mirror chrome head was from 1983 on a Tama Superstar kit and they were all the rage through the 80s, and I hadn't seen them since then. When I found this one, the Guitar Center couldn't sell it to me because it wasn't even in their computer system, but I managed to get it from them ;)

It looks good when you're dealing with blacks and chromes. Not so much on other colors.
 
Yeah, I actually like it on the piano black drums.

The VBL looks great!

Yes - the Breakbeats went to another DW member here who contacted me and said he'd like to buy them. So we managed a meet up and they went him. This Vision bop kit is actually really nice. It's much more robustly built than other bop kits I've had - so I'm sold. On the retail end, it cost a little more than other companies' offerings, but I think it's worth it. I'm not a big fan of the stock Remo UT heads in any form so I had real heads ready to go when the VBL's arrived. The snare drum sounds great with an Evans white coated G14 on top with a hazy snare side head - and the biggest improvement was loosing the plastic snare wire strips and replacing it with aircraft cable instead. The toms got Remo Emperors on top and ambassadors on the bottom, and I had to settle for a Evans EMAD on the bass drum - mostly because that was all my local music store had ;)
 
I seem to remember you were playing a SONOR safari bop kit at one time similar to that? Do you have a warehouse you store you old drums?
 
I seem to remember you were playing a SONOR safari bop kit at one time similar to that? Do you have a warehouse you store you old drums?

Alas, no. Drums just have a tendency to come and go around here. Although as I've said many times I'm really diggin' the Reference drums, and I still have my Ludwig Classic Maples, although they are cased up next to the VBL kit. I'm going to try to stick with these for a some time. The Ref Pures just give me those tones I've been looking for, and the VBL kit is just fun now that I have it sounding right. The Ludwigs will get pulled out whenever I need to "zeppifize" I suppose.
 
Sorry, Bo, I had to do it, it's the truth...

But they look nice. I noticed you've got the Optimount on the rack tom instead of the ISS mount... good move.
 

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Nice drums! I like the sound of those Ref Pures as well!
 
Sorry, Bo, I had to do it, it's the truth...

But they look nice. I noticed you've got the Optimount on the rack tom instead of the ISS mount... good move.

Ha! The door should be bigger ;)

Yes, the Optimount came off my Ref Pure tom since it lives in it's own snare stand. I so find those ISS mounts questionable when I saw them on a. export kit. Who's idea was that?

I may have to wear a Pearl t-shirt from time-to-time as well, as per our gentlemens agreement ;)
 
what's with the 3+ cymbals on the Pearl Ref kit? And the other kit has 2! Over your limit of 1 no? :)
 
what's with the 3+ cymbals on the Pearl Ref kit? And the other kit has 2! Over your limit of 1 no? :)

Yeah - way over limit. However, as I'm entertaining a new band in my house this coming week, I thought I'd make the effort and have them look semi-normal. You'll notice I've gone back to my regular hi-hat as well and have hidden the cable hat. Part of me likes the experimentation, another part of me just says "get on with it". I'm aware that people listen with their eyes, they just don't always notice what isn't being used ;)
 
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