A few months ago I purchased something I have wanted for 25 years or so. A cocktail kit.
Neat little thing. Sounded surprisingly good at first but the cheap heads started stretching immediately and it has lost its crispness.
I need head recommendations. The snare is an 8". I figured some Evans G2 for it and the 10" tom. Should I replace the snare side head? if so with what?
Now the bass and floor tom are the same shell, and with the same heads on both ends they sound too similar. I would like to be able to have a head on the bottom that sounds a bit different than the one on top. Any ideas?
No help on the heads but could you explain that kit to me? My daughter is half way through her first year of percussion in band and is loving it and excelling at it. My wife and I have been thinking of getting her a kit to expand her horizons during the summer and she wants one anyway. I've never seen something like that. It looks awesome.
Cocktail kits are a series of compromises in a drumset that ends up being totally unique and different. They are very compact and a bit quieter than a full size set and were popular with small jazz groups in the 40's and 50's. They have been making a comeback in recent years.
Since you play them standing up they can be a bit fatiguing but luckily the person playing mine learned her chops in a really aggressive drum corps that had cadences that incorporated a lot of stomping with drumming so she is used to it.
The GP set I bought was being closed out by a lot of retailers and was under $200 shipped. Despite the crappy heads it is a pretty nice piece.
We are playing very primitive rock and roll ala Supercharger and The Gories so this thing is perfect for us. Most modern rock drummers will hate playing a cocktail set. Roots rock weirdos and minimalist Jazz players love them.
I never had good luck with Evans heads. They used to fall apart around the collars on me, which has never happened with any other brand head before.
I'm an Aquarian guy, and especially love their Studio-X line. I have Studio-X coated batter heads on everything but my bass drum on my full size kit. They have a really focused tone, and they feel great. I think you would be able to get away with something like that for the batter heads on that cocktail kit, but for the "bass" side of that Tom/Bass, I'd probably use a clear medium weight head with a control dot in the center to differentiate tone. Also, tune it lower on that side, too.
When I was pretending to be a percussionist I loved the Evans Hydraulic heads, because they damped the sound and I hate ringy drums.
I used a really nice aquarian kevlar snare head, I like a tight snapped snare and I break a lot of other heads whenI tension a snare down the way I like. I've always been a fan of evans hydraulics for toms, I like an old school mellow tom. For the bass drum I'd definitely stuff foam or something down in there to give it a fuller sound. Also consider changing the beater. you'll want a relatively soft beater to give it a nice thump, compared to the sticks or mallets or whatever youre using up top. I'd also tension the top head a bit tighter and leave the bottom head relatively loose for some resonance.
In reply to ditchdigger:
Thanks. My daughter is also being taught standing with lots of foot tapping/stomping with the idea that she'll eventually move on to marching band. I'll look into these.
I've been a Remo lifer for about 30 years. I use the coated CS as a snare batter head w/ an Ambassador bottom snare head , clear Pinstripe batter head on toms, clear Diplomat bottom. Clear Pinstripe on the beater side of bass drum w/ a Falams beater pad and the DW two-way beater hard side, and an Ambassador from w/ a 6" hole on big bass drums, 4" on small.
Everything is wide open except a small bar towel rolled up and taped along the bottom edge of the beater side of the bass drum.
All that ring and skronk and resonance in the context of a band and PA is what makes the drums sound delicious out front.
