Zildjian A New Beats.

I first heard a pair of New Beats when a local band played in an acoustic show in my college. The hats sound so clear and it mixed so well with the music. No mic whatsoever. At that time, I dont even know what the hell is New Beat hats! All I know is the hi-hat sound is so good and I really love the sound. As I go along and joined PDF, then I knew that the New Beats hats is by far the most versatile hi-hats available. It can be used in jazz, rock, and even metal! It is so versatile and this pair of hats have been used in so many good recording.

Buying a pair high end cymbal is very crucial to me. I cant afford to do some "try and error" session. So any high end cymbal that I want to buy will be the cymbal which I will be use forever. I mean, as long as I am alive, I will try not to sell any of my cymbals. I hope. :D Thus, making a decision on buying a new cymbal is very important. I will be screwed up if I bought a cymbal which I dont like after that. This is why I decided to buy the famous New Beats hats. Because I dont want to gamble my money on something that I never listen live or even played them.

Ishibashi is an obvious place to buy used stuffs. I checked the site almost everyday to see if there's any New Beat for sale and as soon as they put one for sale, I wait no more and asked them to hold it for me. Not more than a week, the cymbals arrived and after gone through some hassle with Customs, finally the hats are in my room :D

As expected, the sound of this hats is bright, clear stick definition, superb chick sound and nice bell. Ok, pictures.

Shopping Spree!

Not really actually. Its just that I able to buy quite alot of stuffs that i needed to complete the puzzle from this month's paycheck. :D

Well, here are the things that i bought:

1) 7 packs (6 per pack) of Gibraltar 52mm tension rods for my 12", 13" and 16" toms.
2) 4 packs (4 per pack) of Gibraltar bass drum tension rod.
3) 14" Evans Genera HD Dry for my Tama Bronze PowerMetal snare
4) 13" Evans EC2 Clear for batter
5) 13" Remo Abassador Clear for reso
6) Last but not least, the long awaited Optimounts OPT0910 and OPT1112 !!!!

Man, I'm broke.

Solving the broken inserts problem.

A little intro here. Insert is actually one of the parts that create a component of a drum called lug. Lug consist of the body (the whole lug), insert and insert stopper (i create this name because i dont know the exact name of this thing).

one of the broken inserts

I broke 5 inserts last 2 years because at that moment i dont really know that the long of tension rods made any impact on an insert. I use shorter tension rods than the supposed one and it somehow takes more tension to the insert and broke them when i want to tighten drumhead. At that time, i dont plan to use 13" tom so i practically have some spare lugs to play with. But since i decided to use 5 piece setup after this, the 13" tom will be use and must be in a good shape like 12" and 16". The problem is, where to replace the 5 inserts that is damaged?
In Malaysia, its almost impossible to find drums spare parts and i've already planned to change the whole lugs of my 13" tom to solve this problem.


I went to Woh Fatt last month to find cheap lugs to replace my unusable lugs and only to find that they actually do sell inserts!!! I then bought 6 of them and brought the inserts back home. When i tried the inserts to the lugs, they dont fit! The inserts that i bought is bigger than the insert-hole in the lug. So the next day, I went to Woh Fatt back and bring the lug and tension rod to find the correct insert. I am dissapointed because none of the lugs there fit the insert-hole of the lug. Some of the inserts do fit the tension rods but dont fit nicely to the lug. Suddenly i have this idea to use spring to hold the inserts in lugs and it does work!!!

original insert on left and new insert on right

the "custom" lug

notice that the original insert is longer than the new insert because the insert wont fit perfectly in the hole

The Surprise is Finally Revealed!

Finally the wait is over! Aizat is in his final semester and I thought I want to order something from the rising sun country.. I am actually thinking of ordering t-shirts or smthng but one day, I surfed to Ishibashi webshop and found this crash which I wanted for so long. Its Zildjian 18" A Medium Thin Crash which is the best candidate to replace my old Headliner brass cymbal. The price is also quite cheap considering its almost impossible to get the same exact crash here in Malaysia with that price used or of course new. So after thinking for like few minutes, I then tell Aizat I want this and he said ok. He can use his money first I'll pay later.

About a day later, there is a Pearl maple snare coming up on the site. I couldnt resist it because I always wanted to play and own a maple snare for a very long time. Trust me, this is the toughest decision I've ever made because the question is, can I save up to pay Aizat after the stuffs arrived here? The answer is yes and I have to sacrifice my Sabian Pro cymbals in order to get the money. Hheheheheheh....

Little review:

1) Zildjian 18" Avedis Medium Thin Crash -I only played it once and I would say its a great companion along my K Custom Dark Crash. It is more open and bright compared to K but I think I like my K crash more :P

2) Pearl Z-Type Maple Snare in Silver Sparkle #160
-6.5"x14" dimension
-8ply 100% maple, 10mm thick!!!!
-Pearl "Mastercast" hoops
-Remo Powerstroke 3 on batter and Ambassador on reso

First impression, its beautiful!!!!!!!!! I feel like want to cry when I first open the box because of this beauty.. Its also in very very mint condition.. Looks like new! The lugs, the diecast all are very shiny and is practically new. The head have some stick mark but its very minor.. I had a chance to play this snare in jam session with my band. It have alot of crack and unlike my Bronze snare, it doesnt have unwanted ringing thanks to PS3 head and thick shell. For my bronze snare, I must have this sweet spot to achieve the sweet rimshot sound but for this snare, I can play it normally without rimshot but I still get the volume that I want. Overall, the snare have acceptable sensitivity, deep and warm sound with alot of crack!
Enough of my talking, let the pictures take over..

No its not Canopus snare!!

Dont worry KCDC, you're still my favorite!

The snare pics:
I get free leather snare baghotness!!!

#160 Silver Sparkle close up

Japan Domestic Market only!!!peep hole.. pls count the ply Going to be my new workhorse!

Wrap cleaning

From previous post, you guys may realize the residue from the removed lugs and brackets. I've asked around how to remove the residue and the answer is of course, a plastic cleaner. I've been searching around Carrefour, Tesco and also Giant but failed to found a cleaner which is specific for plastic. Then, I have been told by my colleague that ACE Hardware has everything in their store.. including the one that you cant found in a normal hardware shop.
So, few weeks before I had a small shopping at ACE Hardware and bought myself

1) AUTOSOL Plastic Cleaner (same AUTOSOL but this one for plastic! cool!)

2) MAAS multi purpose metal cleaner (i've read good things about this product and i couldnt believe it can be found in Msia!)

3) Selleys Glue (sad to say, my Pearl Elliminator rubber floor cover flipped)

This morning I have some spare time and tried the AUTOSOL Plastic Cleaner to remove the residue at the toms. As usual, it works like wonders. It also made the wrap shinier.

Now here's the hard part. The eyelets if you can see is full of rust and the eyelets cant be removed with bare hands. This thing will damage if removed and searching for its replacement is almost impossible here. So what I do to clean the rust from the eyelets is to clean what is visible from outside. Dont care the inside of the eyelets.. after all, no one will ever care! (Including me!)

Yup, MAAS works fine just like AUTOSOL.

Everything is clean and shiny!

Plan for 2008

There are so many things that needed to be done in order for me to complete this project. From hardware cleaning to new set of cymbals. Of course it cost a lot of money too but for this year, I will restrict it to upgrading the drums or the shellpacks only. That'll include cleaning all the hardwares, buying new set of tension rods, put new nylon washers and upgrading to optimounts. As for tension rods, I've found the 52mm long in JS Music. Its from Gibraltar which a leading drum hardware makers. Bentley have only the 43mm which is too short for my lugs. The price for the Gibraltar's tension rods is quite reasonable which only about RM10 for one set which have 6 rods. I also need to replace the rusty and old metal washers with nylon washers. This will protect the hoops and will provide extra tuning range.

I also planned to replaced the rubber feet for my floor tom legs with Pearl Air Suspension rubber feets. This is just pure cosmetic as from my random reading from PDF, it really dont have significant difference in term of sounds compared to normal one. Optimount is going to be here in few days as soon as I get my salary but for new tom arms, I will buy it later because I already have the old one. Owh, another crucial thing is new head for 13" tom. I will go for Evans EC2 as the metal ring will hopefully eliminates the buzzing that will come from the uneven shell bearing edge.

So here is the summary of what need to be done and buy for this year.

Buy

i) Gibraltar 52mm tension rods for toms (40 pieces)
ii) Nylon washers (52 pieces including the bass drum)
iii) Tension rods for bass drum (16 pieces)
iv) Pearl Optimount (OPT-0910 and OPT-1112)
v) Pearl Air Suspension Rubber Feet (R40/3)
vi) Pearl TH1000S tom arms (2 pieces)
vii) EX Bass Drum Hoops EXRIM-22

I hope I'll able to save and buy all this within this year :)

Cleaning Spree!

It only takes less than two weeks for my drums to be finished by JS Music drumtech. I am very excited to see how's the outcome will be and when I got to see my drums, I am very satisfied with it. The bass drum spurs looks like it comes as an original parts together with the drums but for the tom masking plate, I need to clean the marks which have been left by original tom bracket. I've posted this issue to PDF and some of PDFers adviced me that Alcohol will do the trick. Owh, I also has removed all the lugs for my 13" tom for cleaning.

Lugs' and bracket's marks on 13" tom:

Outside:

Inside: Whole:

I have also cleaned all my hoops using toothbrush and Autosol. It was fun actually and toothbrush makes the job become easier. So far, I've completed cleaning all hoops for toms and lugs for 13" tom. I have a day work and I only do this when I'm off. So, I only have like 5 to 6 hours for a week. So far, I have utilize my evening on my off-day to do this. Next, it would be 12" tom, floor tom and last but not least-the kick.

Before,

After,

Before and after;

Autosol did a very good job in removing small rust but for a deeper rust, as adviced by PDFers, I need to use .0000 steel wool to remove it but I havent tried it yet though.