What was your first drumset?

[vjboc]

What was your first drumset? Any DIY's if not, What was your first real kit?

Mine was mop pails for toms, a 5 gallon bucket for a bass drum and paint lids for cymbals.

It was easy to gig, just throw everything in the 5 gallon bucket. Just kidding.

Thank God it didn't take long to convince my Mom to get me a real kit.

First real kit: It cost $60.00. Was a no name , But was double bass 3 toms, 1floor, 3 snares, and 1 cymbal. I took 2 of the snares and duct taped them together to make a 4th tom.(I was 14)
It wasn't much but it was better than buckets, I think!

[SuperPuss]

Cool idea for a topic.
My first kit is my current V kit which I bought 12 months ago. See my signature for details.

[M_C_M]

I was telling this story the other day actually. My first kit was an old pearl 4 piece with the tiger eye wrap. It had a paiste 602 crash and ufip h/hats. It was a real classic and sounded great but being young and stupid and not really knowing what I had I sold it cheap. Looking back it was one of the dumbest things I've ever done...

[Mr Stixx]

An old ripped leather office seat from the 60's at the end of my bed, the smaller ripped area was my HH and the larger was my snare. Wedged in between than and a desk was a sports bag in which I managed to get two tones out of for toms. I sometimes tapped on the wooden desk for a ride but that really drove my mum and dad nuts. For sticks, I used two small snooker cues from one of the small toy tables you can by that my brother had. He wouldnt let me cut them down to size, not very understanding LOL.

First real kit was a 4 piece Grant kit without a HH which I later added. A few years later I bought a Tama Swingstar and started buying Zildjian cymbals. 3 or 4 years ago I bought my TD-20 and thats what I use now. That all streatches about 26-27 years playing if you include the leather seat.

[Michael Render]

I was never really a kit player till recently. I had a snare drum in elementary school and played on a crappy Torodor kit in my teens. My first proper kit was an Alesis DM5 with Pintech Concert Cast pads.

[forpetessake]

My first kit was a CB-700 5 piece. Jet Black in color. I painted the bottom tom heads and bass drum heads black and then took some red tape and cut out Japanese characters and applied them to those black heads.

[Grazza]

My dad bought my first kit for me when I was 15 in the mid-seventies: an already fairly old Olympic in slightly nicotine-stained champagne sparkle, with Premier Zyn cymbals...mmm! It had no floor tom, so I managed to acquire a 12" marching snare from school to which I added legs and then repainted. Hey, these were less sophisticated times, and it got me started so when I p/x'd it and upgraded to a Tama Imperialstar in 1978 I was beside myself with anticipation. I daresay the old Olympic might well be of interest these days to a specialist collector, but there you go...

[Fullback32]

Hart Prodigy was my first set. I just started drumming three years ago and began with E's.

[Colquhoun]

My folks bought me my first real kit at the age of 11. It was a OLD Gretsch 4 piece pearl wrap...with 2 Zildjians. My dad must have gotten it from a jazz drummer, and I never really liked the sound of the big Zildjian ride ( I wanted a rock and roll "ping" sound, and this thing just rang and rang). Fast forward 30 years to about 3 months ago, when I finally decided to sell off that big Zildjian. Turns out that specific cymbal is considered among jazz players to be the "holy grail" of cymbals. A type 1a early stamp K 22" made in Istanbul. It sold on eBay for almost $3,000. I bought my current Roland setup with the cash......thanks mom & dad!
My apologies to the Zildjian jazz purists that are wincing at the thought of getting rid of an old K and replacing it with electronic drums. But I figure if ANYONE will understand, it's you guys.

[grog]

TD-7 kit. Just started a little over 4 years ago.

www.myspace.com/rubberuniverse

[SuperPuss]

My folks bought me my first real kit at the age of 11. It was a OLD Gretsch 4 piece pearl wrap...with 2 Zildjians. My dad must have gotten it from a jazz drummer, and I never really liked the sound of the big Zildjian ride ( I wanted a rock and roll "ping" sound, and this thing just rang and rang). Fast forward 30 years to about 3 months ago, when I finally decided to sell off that big Zildjian. Turns out that specific cymbal is considered among jazz players to be the "holy grail" of cymbals. A type 1a early stamp K 22" made in Istanbul. It sold on eBay for almost $3,000. I bought my current Roland setup with the cash......thanks mom & dad!
My apologies to the Zildjian jazz purists that are wincing at the thought of getting rid of an old K and replacing it with electronic drums. But I figure if ANYONE will understand, it's you guys.

That's WAY cool Colquhoun. What a way to get a new E kit

If I may wander off topic for a sec, I have a similar tale about a microphone I have here.
A good friend of mine gave me an AKG C414 EB large diaphragm studio condenser mic recently which I have used on a number of recordings. I have used AKG C414 mics before and thought they sounded good but not really good. However, this mic sounds WAY better than any of the other C414's I've used so I did some research to find out why.
What I discovered is that a small number of this particular C414 (the EB model) were manufactured with the highly sought after CK12 brass capsule which is FAR better than the newer nylon version used in all other C414's.... anyway, sure enough, my C414 has the brass capsule and is worth around $2500 on the used market!!!
However, I am not selling it!! It sounds WAY too good to sell!

You can hear this mic in action on the acoustic guitar on the preview of my newest song, 'Remember' HERE (click the little play button next to the 'Classic and Progressive Rock' description.)

[Charly]

My first real kit was a 3-Piece Maxwin (by Pearl) in black. I then got a Diamond floor tom to go with it. A really small kit, just hi-hats and a ride on this.

I sold that and moved up to a white Pearl Export 5-Piece. This time I had a crash and added a 10" tom and a splash. I then popped this onto a Gibraltar Rack between my two cymbal stands. Thinking back, the kit looked great.

Eventually I sold that and bought the Pearl Masters as in my signature. If ever a '97 spec MMX 8" Tom in red turns up I'll snap it up in a second, but I'm not actively looking.

Now with the td20 expansion card a few months away from sale.... you can guess what my next purchase will be (actually thinking of picking up 2x CY12 in the mean time!). I don't think it's GAS... it's just having free AUX inputs available!

I wonder if the card will be available any earlier in Asia than the UK October date...?

[drumslinger50]

About the time I turned 10, I was jammin to Gene Grupa records on a select assortment of old hardbound books, carefully arranged on the floor for their tonal values. I added pan lids for cymbals and used my school band drumsticks. I mowed enough lawns the next year to purchase a kit consisting of an old 24" Ludwig bass and HiHat, with an ancient Radio King brass snare. The school music teacher gave me an old marching drum that I converted to a tom and my uncle gave me a Slingerland 16"X18" coctail drum with a reverse beater. I never thought of it until now, but my first set was a double bass. LOL.
In 1964 I hauled hay on a ranch for 3 months and purchased a 4 piece Olympic set that I used for the next 7 years.
If anyone is interested, some of my earlier kits are in the picture section on my page at www.myspace.com/drumslingerdave along with pictures of me back when I actually had hair. My first e-kit was a Pearl in 1988. I went through several of the brands around that time and didn't like any of them, so I had my friend Jeff Fauver build my first DIY set. We used that set all over Oregon, California and Nevada.

[V(ader)DRUMMER]

Rogers R-380 five-piece kit in royal blue with CB700 cymbals. My parents surprised me with it one day after school, having seen how I had really taken to the drums in the school band. Later, in my very first fits of GAS, I added a set of Rototoms and a Synsonic drum pad, marking my first experimentation with electronic percussion.

[chiphead]

Slingerland covered in black mother of pearl contact paper. Inherited from my older cousin who got it from his Dad who played in some sort of band. Huge base drum with no head on the front so I stuffed old blankets in it to keep the resonance down. One tom, chrome rusty snare and one cymbal that I hardly ever used because it sounded so bad. At the time I lusted after a floor tom but never got it. This was back in the early 60s.