Dustin Ragland

Dustin plays for Charlie Hall, Student Film, and Dr. Pants. He has been a full time drummer for 9 years, and has played for 16. He produces and mixes records in OKC; teaches recording/songwriting at ACM@UCO in OKC; and reads maps for fun. He also makes his own music as Eutopian Accident, at www.eutopianaccident.com.

Dustin’s Pro Drummer Tip:

“My bit of tip for drummers out there is perhaps to encourage you to search for the many different kinds of tones each drum is able to give you. What I mean by that is, we have at our hands and feet quite a few tonal options, just within the way and where we bang on the drums. A snare drum has hits in the center of the head, the rim, the rim shot, the cross stick across the snare, or just a simple click on the rim, to slapping the sides of it with a bare hand, to muting it with the off-hand…to turning the snares off and doing all of the above all over again!

I would encourage you to seek out ways to make your kit offer you the tones you want, without having to go to programming first, especially when it comes to muting your drums. One of my favorite mutes is to keep an old head from each size and flip it over (it fits exactly, of course!) and use it as a mute. It keeps quite a bit of attack, but much more muted, with a perfectly shrunken decay.

That’s only one simple example, but try to experiment with different muting and altering techniques that can be easily and quickly changed during a set, and build a small army of helps to carry along with you to gigs where those kinds of subtleties shine through. A few dish towels, rubber coasters, old heads, sheets of paper, cracked cymbals, jingle bells, flyswatters, old necklaces with jangly pieces-all of these things can easily take your kit into loop-ville, while keeping your feel and timing, and live performance! Of course not all of these are useful for something like an arena gig’s broad strokes, but for studio and smaller venues they can really open up a song or two!

We get to play remarkable instruments, we don’t have to rely on amplification, and we have a lot of notes available to us. Choosing them well, and making them our own is a joy we get to participate in!”

Did this tip help you? Leave a comment and join the conversation!

Where do you live? Lakeland, Fl

What are the sizes of the drums you built? 7×10 7×12 12×14 14×16 18×20 (depth x diameter)

What type of shells did you use? Keller maple shells, 10, 12, 14 are 6 ply and 16, 20 are 8 ply

What type of drum hardware did you use? Hoops are maple, lugs are a basic Yamaha style teardrop, but I powder coated them with an “antique silver vein” finish.

What type of finish/wrap did you put on your drums? “Sapphire Blue” water based dye, several coats of poly using steel wool between coats to get the satin finish.

What was your favorite part of building your drums? Watching the “finish” evolve between coats, sanding, poly applications.

What was the hardest part of building your drums? For me it was the “sanding.” I have trouble with my wrists (tendinitis). Second, would be applying the polyurethane. It was my first time and I had a few runs I had to repair on the first couple of coats.

How long did it take you to build your drums? Well… About 9 months. However, I had to put the project on hold several times. Probably about 80 hours total. The powder coating added a good amount of time.

How much money did it cost you to build your drums? For actual drum parts, I suspect around $1400. I had additional costs with tools, router table, powder coating equipment, etc.

How did you learn about building custom drums? I bought the “How to Make Custom Drum” book.

What is 1 tip you could share with someone who wants to build their own custom drums? Don’t rush process and don’t settle for “good enough.” If something doesn’t turn out the way you like it. Fix it or redo it. I made that mistake and had to refinish two drums after I had already applied the polyurethane. I thought it was “good enough” then once the drum finish was complete… “good enough” didn’t cut it. I should have made that call after applying the dye.

Name: Justin

Where do you live? Philadelphia, Pa

What are the sizes of the drums you built? Snare Drum – 14×8, Bass Drum – 26×16, Floor Tom – 16×16, Rack Tom – 13×8

What type of shells did you use? All shells are 8 ply Keller VSS Maple with reinforcement rings on the snare drum.

What type of drum hardware did you use? All of my hardware is from drummaker.com. I used classic pearl style drum lugs along with the classic style bass drum claws to get a 70s style looking kit.

What type of finish/wrap did you put on your drums? The Wrap is a silver glass glitter.

What was your favorite part of building your drums? My favorite part in building process was putting on the wrap and beginning to see what the drums were actually going to look like.

What was the hardest part of building your drums? The hardest part for me was making sure all my measurements were exact and all the holes were drilled right. I was always nervous before drilling any holes into the drums.

How long did it take you to build your drums? It took me about 6 months to finish my set.

How much money did it cost you to build your drums? I want to say around $1500-1600. I didn’t buy everything at once so I forget exactly how much the total cost was.

How did you learn about building custom drums? I did research online, watching YouTube videos and read your eBook.

What is one tip you could share with someone who wants to build their own custom drums? Do your research and read the eBook before you begin to build your custom drums. It’s an exciting process to be building your own custom drums, just be patient with it.

Don’t forget to watch Brian Frasier-Moore at the Super Bowl performing with Madonna! I was able to check out Brian’s kit at NAMM this year, and it is a beast of a drum set. It features a custom rack design by Chris Achzet. Chris has been Brian’s primary drum tech for the past 9 years. Brian was endorsed by TAMA drums for over 10 years but was recently recruited by DrumCraft – A German based drum company. Check out the press release from DrumCraft’s website:

We’re very proud to announce that Brian Frasier Moore has joined the DrumCraft family! Brian resides in Los Angeles and has recorded and/or toured with such artists as Janet Jackson, Christina Aguilera, Usher, Aaliyah, Madonna and many more…

Brian will perform with Madonna at the half time show of the Superbowl on Sunday, Feb. 5th in Indianapolis.

We are honored to have Brian on board as a new DrumCraft artist and look forward to a long-term relationship and are excited to watch his career further develop using DrumCraft products.

I’m excited to see him play today. Make sure to friend him on facebook and/or follow him on Twitter @BrianFrasierM. I’m sure he’ll be posting some behind the scenes updates!

Truth had some great drums at their booth. They just released a Matt Greiner signature production model kit that sounds phenomenal! If your interested in hearing what Truth Drums sound like you can check out their new site  that provides high quality audio samples of truth drums.

You can also keep up with Truth by following them on Twitter: @truthcstmdrums

1. Check out the putting green on the side of that snare drum!

2. Adding a 15″ maple ring in between the tube lugs adds a very interesting look.

3. Beautiful Lime Green sparkle with a very inventive X design!

4. This snare looks somewhat like a normal metal snare wrapped in the middle, but if I remember correctly, Geoff told me they were 2 snare shells cut and put together with a middle shell of maple.

5. Coach hand bag snare drum? I wonder if this is a real Coach print!?

6. This is a hybrid kit. Maple with acrylic pinstripes! Genius. Nice detail on wrapping the suspension mount!

7. Here is the complete drum set.

I hope you are inspired by these incredible drums!

What drum stands out to you the most?

Let everyone know by leaving a comment!

I had the honor to meet Mike Ciprari from SJC Custom drums at Winter NAMM this year.

SJC Custom Drums have always been a drum company that I look to for inspiration. They design some of the most innovative custom drums on the market these days. I’ve been following them ever since I started building drums in 2006. Each year they seem to up the ante. This year was no different. They are great about posting interesting pictures on Twitter. You might want to follow them.

Here is a quick video from the SJC Booth at NAMM.

I don’t know much about the exact specs of these drums, so if anyone does, feel free to leave a comment. My commentary on the drums may not correct or give much more input than the picture itself.

SJC Custom Drum Pictures from NAMM 2012

1. This snare drum really stood out to me. I have never seen a stitched wrap design on a snare. It looks like it was actually hand stitched by someone!

2. Another really interesting and unique inlay/wrap design.

3. This snare requires 2 pictures. Someone on the Makedrums Facebook page called this snare “The Mother Of all Snares”. It kinda does look like a pregnant snare.

4. This is a really interesting drum. I’m not sure what to say about it! I don’t know if there is a special reason for the internal air venting. I sure would love to know!

5.  This drum set was the focal point of the SJC booth. You see can all the incredible details in the pictures, and the drum heads light up!

6. Barber Shop Pole Stripe Sailor Theme Snare Drum – I’ve never seen anything like this. Great Idea to put rope in the hoop!

7. Hybrid Snare with frosted acrylic. This is so detailed and intricate, I wouldn’t know where to begin building something like this.

As you can see, SJC Drums make some amazing stuff. Let their work inspire you to create better drums!

What is your favorite design out of all the drums on this page? Leave a comment and let us know!

It’s been amazing year for Makedrums.com and I wanted to recap some of the most visited blog posts and pages of the site for the year 2011. If you are brand new to the site, this is a great place to start! Enjoy, and please join in the conversations and leave some feedback in the comments area! HERE’S to an even better 2012!

Makedrums.com Top Posts of 2011 (according to Google Analytics)

I have been a customer of Drum Foundry for about 7 years, and every interaction I have ever had with the people at Drum Foundry has been extremely pleasant. As far as I know, they are the only company that actually creates and innovates drum building tools  specifically for the at home/garage custom drum builder. These products are used by beginning drum builders and professional drum builders all over the world. They also make some really great lugs, hoops, and Snare Throw Strainers among other things. These are a few items that I already own, or that I would love to have in my drum shop.

1. Drum Foundry Layout Mat ($44.99) -

This tool make it extremely easy to mark your shells for drilling holes for hardware. The DF layout mat can help you calculate a number of things; including lug spacing, air vent placement, strainer / butt layout and bass drum spur placement.  6, 8,10, and 12 lug configurations are available on the mat, with shell diameters ranging from 6″ to 26″. Do yourself a favor and buy one today!

2. Snare Bed Cutting Jig ($379.00) -

This handy little tool allows you cut your snare beds with extreme precision and accuracy.

3. Extra/Different Snare Bed Templates ($34.99) -

Drum Foundry offers 3 templates for cutting snare beds. Each template gives your snare drum a new sound.

4. Drum Foundry Wrap Trimmer ($119) -

I have been eyeballing this handy little tool for a few weeks. I might have to finally give in and buy it! If you have ever built a drum that you end up wrapping, you may notice that wrapping your drum all the way to the edge can cause your drum to sometimes* have issues with the drum head fit, and resonance. This tool cuts away a small portion of your wrap so that the drum head only makes contact with the shell and not the wrap.

5. T-Jig For Toms and Bass Drums ($59.99) -

This is a great tool specifically made for drum builders that allows you to easily mark tom and bass drum layout. Use this in conjunction with the layout mat and be drilling your holes in no time!

Please respond by answering these questions:

What is the most helpful tool that you use when making drums? Do any of you own and use these tools? Do you own any other drum tools that I should include in this post?