Whats your thoughts..

[UPSdriver]

Ok guys and girls. I need your input. I have two choices staring me in the face. Choice 1, convert my Gretsch Catalina maple kit to electronic, or choice 2, make my own shells and buy a used roland rack to mount it on? Whats everyones choice? Thanks for the HELP!

[SuperPuss]

Hmmm.... I'd be tempted to keep your Gretsch kit as an A kit if you plan to play A's and go with the second option of DIY shells and Roland rack.

On the other hand, if you don't need to play A's any more, you could do a non destructive DIY on your Gretsch. That would make one very cool looking E kit

[Michael Render]

Jman did a Catalina conversion that was way cool. That would be my vote.

[zdavesf]

I think you are going to get a 50/50 split amoungst the user here. I guess the best thing for you to do is consider the following:
1) Do you like plaiyng your A's?
2) Are you trying to save money by doing a A2E conversion or do you just want your E-kit to look acoustic?

i would suggest price it out and see what the shell's/lugs/mounting will cost you and then go from there. You can always buy a second cheap acoustic kit to do the mods to and then you still get to keep your maple kit up and running (if you have room)

as for DIY shells there are several approaches , if you can find pvc pipe with the outside diameter of 10" 12" etc... then you can always cheak out www.drummaker.com or www.musiciansfried.com for parts and hardware. making your own shells usually costs more but then you can totaly customize it to your liking.

hope that helps.

BTW i would/and strip down a older crappy acoustic kit (actually i bought 3 10" toms from musicians friend for $50 a piece, cut them in half, buy a gibraltor/roland rack, build or buy mesh heads, make your own cones/cross bar. buy piezos from digikey.com. put it all together and then combine your acoustic kit with your new electronic kit then you have a hybred drum set that rocks and you can be just like Neil Peart, well almost


Dave

[Boingo]

Jman did a Catalina conversion that was way cool. That would be my vote.

I did not know that.

I might be inclined to vote that way also. Although for the life of me I don't know why.

[pasta]

I'd keep the nice A and get something cheap for a conversion.

[mike529]

I vote for the Catalina conversion. They are a great value - I got my 5 piece set for $400 (used). At that price, I didn't mind drilling the 12" tom for floor tom legs or cutting 6" from the depth of the bass:




And if you ever want to go back to using them as A's, you can easily remove the crossbars and put the plastic heads back on.

Mike

[bogiesbad]

Cut them in half for twice the drums...that's what I say

[vdrummer20]

mike529, nice kit. What did you use for the bass drum pad?

[Boingo]

[iron blast]

My thought would be why not use bouingo's aproach because you can also can put the mylar heads back on and mix triggered and miced sounds at will. IMHO it seems more logical all around you would save money and be able to get a better module and maybe a sample library and get studio quality sound all the time.

[The Source]

Cut them in half for twice the drums...that's what I say

Can we somehow Photoshop that phrase under the V-Drums.com logo and make it our slogan? I myself am thinking of coming across to "the other side" very soon.. After all I now have an awful lot of unused acoustic drums in storage

[mike529]

mike529, nice kit. What did you use for the bass drum pad?

Thanks. I used a 4" electrical box and a 4" rubber pipe cap. The piezo is glued to a thin steel plate inside the pipe cap and the hose clamp holds it tight to the electrical box. It feels a lot like a KD-8. Here are some photos:

[vdrummer20]

Nice design.

[Sabre]

Thanks. I used a 4" electrical box and a 4" rubber pipe cap. The piezo is glued to a thin steel plate inside the pipe cap and the hose clamp holds it tight to the electrical box. It feels a lot like a KD-8. Here are some photos:

LoL Mike, you didn't even shuck the piezo... it triggers ok that way?

While I'm a fan of Bogie's approach to 'double the pleasure double the fun', I personally don't think I'd cut the toms on a complete matched set. But I sure wouldn't hesitate to trigger that puppy...