My personal review of the New Tour Customs by Yamaha.
A little about me............
I only play at home with friends little jam sessions with some very skilled and some Am. Musicians. I have been playing about 41/2 years with only a few
formal lesson from a Pro friend doing rudiments and examples of different beats etc....... Anywho I'm a better drummer than I thought I would ever be at this point and I love to play. I'm 40 years old now and have very diverse musical taste from Jazz, Rock and funk to country.....
First Kit Yamaha Rydeen, Second Kit Stage Custom advantage and now the Tour Customs. I have stuck with yamaha and have no complaints, my review isn't biased I have played other kits in the same price range and chose yamaha.
Ok so I went out and got the Tour Customs in Black Onyx Lacquer Finish as all the tour customs are no wraps in this series which is fine with me. All drums came out of the boxes in perfect condition bass 22x17, 10, 12, 16x16 floor. All the edges were perfect no pits or irregularities to note, but these 60 degree edges are beefy so it would take lots to mess them up. I had an 8inch Stage custom nouveau that I kept in place I just tin canned it black to match LOL!
Heads I had some G2 coated in the closet so I just got a 16 coated for the floor tom and thats the way I'm reviewing the kit, G2 on top stock reso's on bottom, Pinstripe on the Kick with a Port in the reso and a down pillow inside for dampening. I've spent the last few days tuning this kit to find the sound I like and the biggest difference with this Maple Kit and the Stage custom Birch-Mahog-falkata kit is the punch and over all loudness of the drums. The Kick drum is worlds apart although the same size as the STA kit the materials used and the bearing edges have given my sound new life. I stuffed this bass drum exactly as I had the STA kick(higher tension on the reso) and there isn't even an iota of similarity. Needless to say the kick drum is absolutely awesome to my ears and can be tuned to a super wide variety of tones. The 10and 12 tom toms and 16inch floor have taken me quite some time in the last 48 hours to get right considering I prefer pinstripes, but I'm tuning the G2's to a sweet sound thats really warm and cozy. I also tension my reso's on all tom toms higher than the batter as I do with the bass drum. I have tried several stick sets on this kit so far I can play any genre by changing sticks, I use VF erskins for jazz and several other Vic sticks for rock and reggae. These drums don't fart out like my stage customs did when hit hard, these drums like the be hit which is great for those of you that like to go off and dint the heads during head banging metal sessions these drums can do it all well and sound great doing it. Let me reiterate "fart out" in my opinion no matter how perfect I had my STA kit tuned it when hit hard the 12inch tom especially would either just loose all sustain and fart out or go to the ringy side of life(no matter how much I messed with tension), this kit doesn't do that to me no matter how off I am on reso tension. Maybe the 60 edges are more complaint to uneven tension or just plain sound better to my ears I don't know?
I use DW9000 Double pedals with those small round plastic or hard rubber beaters and this bass drum is a fricken cannon even when stuffed with a pillow. Toms are easy to tune IMO and love to be hit, plus it's nice to have a 16 floor back instead of the 14 suspended that I had with the STA kit. I cannot review the snare I haven't used it yet, but I have tuned real fast and it had a decent tone, but I need to change heads on that to give it a fair chance.
I have my maple shells now and for a price that was haggled down to under 900 for the shells only. Can't beat that so if your in the market I recommend this kit to those looking to upgrade a little bit. Any questions please ask, I know my review isn't all that great I would rather answer questions than describe something LOL.
