Drummer Cafe Community Forum

im a practical man (yeah right).  i dont have a lot of cash and im always looking for cheap ways to do things with the kit.  i needed new spurs for my kick.  i picked up a couple gibralter bass hoop mountable cowbell posts for $9 each.  they work great and thats two less peices of hardware on my bass drum shell.  i use bamboo plant stakes for bundle sticks.  it was about $3 for a big ol' bag of stakes about 3 ft long.   i wanted a bell sound.  but something deeper and earthier than the ice bell i already had.  for $1 at a flea market i got a copper flour canister that sounds great.  i plan on getting a junk turntable for the actual table that turns.  very ringy bell sound.

what im looking for here is your ideas for cheap fixes, cheap sounds, uses for things that arent what they were designed for.  nothing like emergency gig duct taping or anything.  but stuff youve done that worked and lasted and will continue to.  like barts 5 cent cymbal rivet, or the ever present auto brake drum bell.

whatcha got?

Handy Hint from Heloise #417:

You can remove pits and dents from most heads by running a hairdryer over the dented area, moving the dryer rapidly back and forth to prevent melting.

It's sort of like how heat-shrink tubing works - the heat pulls the dents out, and the head sounds a lot fresher. I used to do this every now and then to my heads, and extend their life for months.

like boiling bass strings to clean out the gunk.  nice tip.  great for that gig that happens to be two days before payday when you only have 2$ to your name :)

"...So then we take our 5A drumsticks ...and as you can see they are finely shellaced.....except for this little rim dent on one of my newly purchased 5A's....how'd that little devil get on there.....well we can't have that can we?
So we say goodbye to our sad, little damaged 5A ..and place it into a paper sack .....that is a sack just 1" longer than the stick....don't need to use any of those long and pesky grocery bags... you see I order all my paper bags online and they arrive hermetically sealed in germ free packing plastic ....So now taking care to not tear the bag we place our damaged 5A inside the length of the bag.... Then we carefully fold the top of the bag over 5/8 of an inch....and we staple the bag on the top end... equally on each side of the top of the bag...like so. And as fast as you can say 'Bob's your Uncle' there you have a perfectly disposed of damaged 5A stick. Now How About That, Huh?
...Maybe my cowbell cozy caught your eye...I fashioned this from lambs wool and painted dry macaroni shells..."

***[Sorry guys I just had to....hope you've caught the bit on SNL reruns!! LOL]    ;D

I had my bass pedal strap break on my old junk set when me and my friend were jamming so I took it over to the machine shed and with some washers and duct tape and two exhaust springs off of my cr250 dirtbike, I managed to make something work for about three minutes. It was a mess.

An empty Pringles can makes a nice stick holder.

If you are fond of zerorings over moon gels for muffling, and you are tired of manufacturers not packaging them for single-item sale or mass vendors refusing to break up sets for you . . . make your own. It's no more difficult than cutting a hole in your resonant kick head.

You can get sheets of mylar from art or drafting supply houses in whatever mil thickness you desire. Using old heads is usually not desirable because head mylar is too thick. The challenge is finding templates to cut the correct size circles. The good news is that circles abound in your environment. Be creative.

If you temporarily glue the template to the mylar stock while cutting it prevents slippage. Also, if you have access to some kind of turntable, it facilitates a smooth turn while you're cutting with your X-acto.

Is this Norm Abrahms or Martha Stewart?  ;D

both ;)  

great idea ... you could use your 14" hat cymbal to cut a ring for a 16" drum ... a 12" splash for a 14" drum etc

Hey, cool thread!

As long as nobody starts suggesting easter-egg pastel kits, that is...   :P

the double tom holder that goes into my Ludwig kick is held up by a radiator hose clamp; works perfectly. i once made a set of snare wires for my premier out of weedeater string, and it would rattle your eyeballs. made my own wooden kick beater, and paid five bucks for a trixon snare stand. i subscribe to the jim keltner school of whatever sounds good, use it. besides, coloring outside the box is FUN...

hose clamps make great cheap memory locks and can be foudn to fit any size arm.

as for the weedeater cord, thats essentially a synthetic version of gut snares.  i plan on turning my fram drum into a bendir that way :)

howd you make the beater? come on now, this isnt just listing ideas, its sharing them for us all to use :)

hey, mark, i found a homemade back massager with four wooden balls on it in a thrift store for .99 cents. i took the balls off and i epoxied a steel rod into a hole in the ball. i found my premier crome over brass snare with the slotted tension rods in a thrift store, too. fifteen bucks, case stand and all.

i forgot to mention my massager beaters :)  ive got two "thumpers" ... they have long thin bamboo handles with a big rubber ball  (like a hollow super pinky, about 2" dia.)  on flat wooden mounts at the top.  they have a sharper attack than mallets, and just enough control to the bounce to be able to use them.  if you get 'em timed right though, you can do doubles like nobodies bizniz.  thomas lang would hate 'em ;)

after you made the wood beater, did you use the 4 armed massager like a brush  ;D

The guy that started Woodstock Chimes built his first few thousand sets of windchimes out of the frames of discarded aluminum patio chairs.

forgot another one i use.  i use iron cobra beater which is designed for good focused attack.  sometimes i want a big fat open sound, like an old school sheepskin beater.  so i rolled up a sock and sewed up the edge so i could just pop it on top of my beater.  viola.  

When I need to muffle my snare for a gig, I tape a credit card to the head.

I sometimes lay a rubber doorstop on the batter head of my cocktail drum to muffle it. The guys in my band think it's some hi-tech device, not recognizing it for what it is.

youve got credit? you must not really be a musician ;)

I've been waiting for a reason to tell this story. Years ago I made a really interesting set if chimes. My father is an auto mechanic and use to have all kinds of spare parts lying around his shop. We found and old cam shaft and a full set of push rods from an old chevy 327 V8. We found that when struck, the push rods had a nice melodic tone, so we cut the rods in about half inch increments to get different notes and attatched them with some fishing line. We built a small rack out of wood and fit the cam shaft to the top of it and simply hung the push rods from the cam shaft with the fishing line. They were actually somewhat in tune with themselves too, pretty cool!!

I saw those new Pro-Mark Brooms the other day; the idea intrigued me, but I couldn't see spending $20 some-odd dollars for them.  So, I decided to make my own.  

After an evening of brainstorming, I came up with this solution.  I went to the dollar store up the street and bought a corn broom for 3 dollars.  I then dismantled it very carefully; those whisks can get everywhere, and I was sure to watch for the binding wire.  I then mixed up the outer whisks and the thicker inner whisks evenly in a pile, carefully selecting two even bundles.  

I took some of the red cord that holds the whisks together and tied it through and around the bundle, and then tightly taped it with electrical tape.  From here I taped from this newly created joint to the end of the butt (VERY tightly) about three times; this forms the handle.  On the exposed whisks, I tightly taped two rings to hold them evenly in a rod shape.  

On the actual Broom, there are adjustment rings to vary the spread of the whisks.  This recipe does not allow for any room for adjustment, but my personal taste is to have them bundled up like a Hot Rod.  The sound is considerably softer than a Hot Rod; in fact, it's rather like a stiff brush.  

If you do or don't desire this type of sound, this is a viable alternative for a few cheap pairs (one broom provides enough whisk for a FEW pairs) or at least finding out about this new sound option.

when i got my set it had three cymbals but only two stands so i (having been a trumpet player at one point) used my old music stand as a third stand and it's awesome. it kept slippiong down so i used an old pair of vice grips to hold the tube up.

My stick bag is rather full with various apparatuses.

I was able to recently save a little space by sliding the Brooms (http://www.promarksticks.com/news/pr/brooms1.jpg) inside the Tubz (http://www.promarksticks.com/products/sticks/sticks/Specialty/tubz.gif). They fit perfectly and help to protect the broomcorn.

How do those Brooms differ from say, HotRods?

Well, they sound absolutely nothing like HotRods. The are closer to a brush sound ... believe it or not ... but very, very, very delicate. These are not for everyone. If you don't play in venues that demand low volumes ... the nuances from the Brooms will never be heard.

The sound and feel as if you are playing brushes ... made of feathers. They do sound great though; drums, cymbals, congas, etc.  You can get some beafy rimshots out of them ... but they won't last long if you make a habit of it. They are very pricey in my opinion ... considering what they are. I picked mine up for $10 when I bought the FIBES kit.

Brooms retail for $24.95 ... so you'll want to be kind to them!

So the trick is: buy a new drum kit every time you need new Brooms - that way you'll get a good price!  ;)

LOL ........

Well ... they should have just given them to me ... I mean, come on ... I just dropped $2k at your store, and you're going to nickel and dime me to death.

I didn't mind paying for the Brooms and was thankful for the discount, but get this. I spent two hours with the kit before buying. During that time, I brought in my own drumheads so I could hear how Aquarians sounded on the kit. I put a Super Kick 1 on there, and told the salesman that I was just going to leave it on because I knew I wanted the kit. When we brought the drums to the front for checkout, the store owner told the salesman to just throw the SKI head in for free. I quickly reminded the salesman that the drumhead they were throwing in for free was mine to begin with. He says "sorry" ... then proceeds to charge me for the Brooms! LOL  I just think that's funny!  Seems like if they were willing to give me a $40+ drumhead, they would give me the Brooms instead. I know what dealer cost is on both items ... and they were getting a better deal with me taking the Brooms. Heck, they got a real good deal because I PAID for the Brooms! LOL

Anyway, I'm happy to support my local (mom & pop) music store. I got a great deal ... and they treated me right when I came back to have them change out one of the tom holders for a real Yamaha tom holder, and not a Canon copy, which was on the 10 inch tom.

I'm pleased (just incase anyone from the store is reading this) ... but wanted to share the funny story.

i made some mallets for suspended cymbal out of an old pair of broken sticks and an old sock.  i taped half a sock to the end of each stick, then wrapped the sock tight.  then i taped back over the end of the sock and wrapped to the bottom of the stick.

very cool thread... i'm beginning to make my own micro kit... some of these ideas will come in handy! keep 'em comin!

this is my favorite thread of all time

haha, how bold  :o

i made myself mallet sticks
i took a pair of sticks .. then took a tissue folded it longways 2x put a small piece of tape on it and wrapped it around tightly.. around the butt end, i repeated this with 3 tissues on each stick, then i taped off the end and then put a square piece of some form of clothlike substance over it and rubberbanded it in place

   amazingly it works great

another thing i did  was take 10 pairs of wood tip power pro sticks and dip the tips into polyurethane laquer to make them into plastic tips sounding sticks... these also work great,... i like them better than regular nylon tips because i end up breaking the nylon tips off making the otherwise still perfect stick useless

I made my own "hotrods" with dowels I got at home depot, glue and electrical tape. I glued the center dowels together and taped the rest into place. I did not tape up the ends and put the tape close to one end and further from the other. This allows two different sounds, one with more click sound than the other.
I used the rack that came with my roto tom set to hold accessory percussion, but it had to tear up the threads on the posts so I wouldn't recommend that!! ::)

-- If you play a song with a lot of cross-sticking and toms (as in, say, a jazz samba or "The Weekend"..ahem), it's a bit of a trick to come back with the cross-stick just right and avoid a "kerfizz-CLunK!" by hitting the drumhead a bit too hard with the end of the stick.  I made the inadvertent discovery last night that a piece of felt masking-taped where the end of the stick comes to rest erases any tell-tale drumhead/snare noise, allowing for a looser performance.  Snare resonance is sure to be comprimised by this method, and priorities should be established as far as backbeat/cross-stick ratio, etc.  It can be removed and replaced easily as well.

-- O-rings (donuts to you?) are a good method of achieving a full, dampened sound from your drums.  Making your own O-rings from spent drumheads is a good cheap method to achieve this.  However, O-rings from top heads can dampen a bit more than you may like.  I use an O-ring (for my snare) cut from a spent snare side head.  It's a much more fuller sound with all the right overtones cut out.

-- You can make your own dual purpose drumsticks in this fashion:  Simply tape a knob with 1/2" (or so)medical tape (I like a 1/2" thick knob) on the butt-end of the stick, cut a square of felt to size, rubber band it around the bottom and tape the bottom of the felt to the stick, leaving the felt striking surface  exposed.  Two layers of felt might be used for strength.

Memory locks
Engineer shaft collars with grub screw lock

Front bass head hole cutter
6" pot lid put onto oven ring to heat and then cut (with care)

Donuts and snare straps
Old heads and a pair of scissors

Crack in cymbal
drill hole ahead of crack to stop further splitting (temporary)

Instant sizzle
Drap a piece of light chain over cymbal

Lug rattle
Pack out lugs with pieces of engineers felt

Stand leg rubbers
glue on

Ease tuning
apply thin smear of petroleum jelly to rim edge prior to putting head on and also to tuning screws

Reduce hardware
Use add on clamps


Sympathetic snare buzz
Shoot the bass player

Make your own drumset "silencers" from mouse pad material.

The company at the link below sells sheets of the stuff.

Save mucho denaro.  ;D

http://www.ledgehilladv.com/MousePadMaterialSpecs.htm  (http://www.ledgehilladv.com/MousePadMaterialSpecs.htm)

when I was playing Marimba in college, I used to make my own mallets.

Ingredients included:

Ball of Yarn (color and softness to taste)
Hot Glue Gun
Rubber Tape
wood or plastic sphere with a whole to fit just over the dowel (usually get them precut).
sandpaper.

The wrapping process was the only real trick, but once you got it down right, you can make them for vibes, xylophone, marimba, etc...  just depends on how tight/thick you wrap them.

I used to make these a lot and got pretty good at it to the point where my fellow students would ask to use them for solos and concerts.  I even sold a few pair.

Cost for my mallets 4-pair =  $15 +/-
Cost for 4 pair of Leigh Howard Stevens = $60 (or more).

For the Bass Head port, I use the potlid thing too, It actually seals the edge, do it dosent rip as easy.

I have a pair of brooms, those things are awesome! But my home made escapade is still in the making. Right now I have a set a of dead chimes that I made from 6 peices of shaped sheet metal, a 4 in. bolt, and a nut. Sounds pretty good.

I made a riser for my 16x16 bass drum from a wooden miter box, a few drywall screws and a couple of bungee cords.  Check my photos at:
http://www.1800djdirect.com/drumphotos.html

It was cheap to make and non-destructive to my drum.

When I first started drumming and had only a snare drum,I managed to make toms out of Electrasol containers.They didn;t sound half bad either.And for a hat-type device that I could keep time on I used a Bazooke Joe gum Tin canister and just placed it atop a long shaft of wood with a bse.Sounded tnigy and rather ringy.But man I wish I still had that little sucker lying around.I also recently made a drum riser almost identical to the one Adam's dad made.He was kind enough to send me the plans.It works like a charm.Thanks again for the plans Adam's Dad.

You're welcome!  I'm glad it worked out for you.