DRUMMER CAFE

Of all the drummers ive met either in person or forum life ive rarely had anyone tell me that their choice of gear came from recorded influence. I remember distinctly being influenced by Ian's cymbal sound on Deep Purples Machine Head recording as well as John Bonhams cymbal sound from Led Zeppelin 3. I kept buying Zildjian cymbals and being frustratd with the sound. I had no idea Paiste even exsisted.

I was very influenced by the drum sound from Queens early recordings and tried naievely to reproduce that in my basement. I was young and dumb thinking that I needed the right drums! to get THAT sound yet I tried desperately to produce it with very loose tunings and Evans clear double ply rock heads. I hear guitar players constantly talking of their gear influence from strats, Les-Pauls, Orange amps, Hi-Watt, Marshall, etc etc.

Drummers just seem to be like, um, I just got a set and started playing. Am I such an odd man out that ive got actual recordings that have influenced my choice of gear?. Does anyone? here play gear today because of a recorded influence?. 

As an ignorant wanna be early on, like many others, I thought all drums sounded pretty much the same (which was somewhat true for a while) and the quantity of pieces was what mattered.  So I got a double bass like Ginger and Keith and added all kinds of stuff, an old 22" bass mounted sideways so I could play it like a timpani, something that looked gongish (but sounded horrible), a cheap old vibraphone, etc....  Now that was 40+ years ago and all the stuff is long gone.  I use a double bass pedal now and it might be traced back to those early influences.  More recent influence after getting back to drumming (but still 20th century) is the Weckl sound and layout.  The different sounds for different styles has been a big factor.  I've also studied several players setups but found that his ergonomic layout help me find a good fit (for me).  Having the fusion configuration - 10, 12, 14, 16 tom gives me the options for lighter/heavier, latin, groove, rock sounds.  I got the Taye Studio Maple kit not only because it sounds great but also be I like the way the hardware accommodates my preferred layout with upper toms left of center instead of directly over the kick.