My feedback on these Roc N Soc thrones

MrWriter

Active Member
Ok, so I have owned the crappiest drum stool since January 2022. It’s like a cheap one that comes with budget kits. Crap hardware, single braced, and the seat top is only 12-inches across and not that well padded and it wobbles and swivels etc.

So I decided that the stool was affecting my double-kick technique as the stool is so small it feels like I’m going to fall off the right hand edge of it as my heel up technique for double-kicks kicks in. As my balance was off so was my kick technique.

So I decided to research thrones and after quite a lot of hunting around it turns out that Roc N Soc are one of (not ‘the’ but one of) the industry standards and loved by many drummers. Only question for me was which one, motorcycle saddle, round or rectangle and with what stand?

Ok, after asking on DrummerWord forums many agreed that the Gibraltar B9608 double-braced one is about as solid and heavy as you can get so I decided to go with that, the standard height one, not the shorter low-slung one. For the seat, I could not quite decide so I bought both the motorcycle and round Roc N Soc saddles in Red (being an Arsenal fan, had to be red ;)).

The Gibraltar and Motorcycle saddle arrived a few days before the round seat top did so I got to put it to use for a few days before trying the round one.

Feedback on the Gibraltar stand, yes, rock solid and pretty heavy and sturdy. Lovely large industrial rubber feet, double-braced feels solid as a rock and the way the spindle up the centre adjusts for height and locks off is super solid, not going anywhere. Now, it is quite a weighty stand so gigging drummers might not like this fact, but for home or studio or if it is not going to be transported to gigs very often I can’t recommend it enough - rock solid!±

The Roc N Soc motorcycle seat, well, I’m not quite sure about this. It’s very well made, feels like it would last many years of gigging and being throne about (pun intended) and it is really comfy. Although it is really wide (17.5-inches) it felt like I could fall forward off it, which was different to feeling like I could fall sideways to the right off my old crap 12-inch wide thing. With the Roc N Soc I felt supported to the sides and back, but felt I could slip forward off it. Now part of this might have just been in my mind, a mental thing, so I cracked on and just used it for three days straight, but this slightly uncomfortable feeling that I could slip forward off it just set off an itch on my brain that I could not scratch.

So, the round Roc N Soc arrived and it was identical to the motorcycle one, same red velvety finish, same logo stitching, same high quality build and very comfy. I quickly removed the motorcycle seat and put the round one on and ‘INSTANTLY’ felt totally supported from all sides and no longer had the feeling that I would slip off the front of it. The Roc N Soc round seat top is exactly 15.5-inches across, more than the 12-inches of my old crappy one and 15.5 inches is the exact length of the Roc N Soc motorcycle saddle from the front (the most forward pointy part) to the back. For the record, the Roc N Soc motorcycle seat is only 13.5-inches from the back to the front cutaway parts so the round one is actually deeper from front to back and, thus, feels like it supports you from the front more.

I know it is horses for courses and many drummers love the motorcycle type and many the round but for me personally, the round Roc N Soc just makes me feel more planted, firmer and more supportive than the motorcycle one, by quite a long way.

Just through I would give my feedback on this as I’m a bit OCD (really, a condition that is a pain in the but) with these things.

Finally, I like the fact that the Roc N Soc seat tops have a fixing underneath that has two bolts on the edge. One is just a thumb not to get into the ball park and to make sure the two gaps either side are level for a better fit, the other a large wing not that is thick and rounded off so easy to tighten up. But, no matter how tight, you can get the thrown to swivel on the stand. This is not a fault of seat top maker (Roc N Soc) or stand (Gibraltar) maker, but more a flawed design of all thrones and stands of the past 65 years.

But, I’m going to create a fix to this, thanks to the Roc N Soc female part under the seat, that has two gaps at the edges so what I am going to do is get a half inch strip of tubular steel rod (3mm diameter) and have a local blacksmith weld it up the side of the spindle on the Gibraltar stand so when I push the spindle into the Roc N Soc there will be a strip of metal going into one of the gaps in the Roc N Soc and thus it will no longer swivel around and will be totally solid

Hope you guys and girls found my feedback on this of use.
 
The Roc N Soc motorcycle seat, .............. felt like I could fall forward off it,

the round Roc N Soc just makes me feel more planted, firmer and more supportive than the motorcycle one, by quite a long way.


A lot of people have this same experience. It's because they tend to sit on the front edge of the saddle seat like they have done on their round thrones. But that defeats the purpose of the saddle. You need to position the throne a tiny bit closer to your snare, then slide your butt back into the saddle; then you will feel more balanced.

It's because you need a small portion of the lower leg on your throne in order to keep your forward/aft balance. If you only have your butt on it, you'll fall forward because your legs out front make you front heavy (unless you have your feet planted, which you don't want to do as a drummer). So if your sitting at the front edge of a saddle seat, your thighs won't aid in support because of the cutouts therefore making you fall forward.
The concept of sitting and balancing are the same from round to saddle, it's just that the advantage of a saddle throne is the angle at which the throne contacts the back of your thigh. It's more ergonomically correct in that the contact area is spread across at the proper angle, rather than being rounded right into the meat of your thigh.
Those that are falling forward, or have numbness in their junk, are trying to sit on the front edge (ride the horn) and need to sit more toward the back edge where it's contoured for that very purpose.
 
WuHan Solo, yeah, I'm up to speed on all you say. I was sitting well back to try and compensate for this, but even when practically falling off the back of the throne I still had this uneasy feeling. I'm know that 'ergonomically' speaking the motorcycle saddle probably, scientifically, 'should' be better and physio people would probably look at photos and assume that, but ironically enough, actually sitting on one shoes how this philosophy with human anatomy just does not really bear out in the real world. Sometimes you just have to do the old side-by-side and switch between them and for me I'm round all day long long now. I did buy both and I bought the motorcycle one first as that was my first choice, based on science, ergonomics etc, but after getting the same make Roc n Soc in round, different story entirely and I feel like a better drummer already because of it. But this is just my 'personal' findings. Brand new Roc n Soc motorcycle seat top up for sale the next time I get an '80 percent off final value fees' from eBay ;)
 
MrWriter..could it be..is it possible..that I'm not alone in scrutinizing everything from wingnuts to shell makeup on a drumset. What a wonderful review of your journey. Please be seated now 😃.
 
Roc n Soc makes a skinnier version of the saddle seat called the Hugger. I have 3 of them (red, green, gray) and like them a lot. I don't feel like I'm going to fall off. Cool that you were able to A/B the round and saddle.
 
Yeah, I looked at the Hugger, something about it - can't remember what - that I didn't like when looking at photos of it and reading about it online.
 
I still have both saddle and round. Doesn’t matter how I sit on the saddle one, I still feel more in control on the round.

Not sure I’d want my seat fixed and unable to spin. That tiny bit of movement on the kit makes it easier to reach for the 2nd FT. To each his own as they say.
 
Slight spin/swivvel does my head in and it interferes with my kick technique. I personally like to be firmly planted with zero swivel at all. If I need to turn to my second floor tom I just swivel my body from the waist.
 
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