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?

This is a guest post from John A. Ledingham, PhD. He and his new custom drum set reside in Columbus, Ohio.

I started out not as a drummer, but as a bass player in my hometown of Springfield, Ohio.

One Thursday afternoon, the leader of a group I was playing bass with called to tell me the band had been hired for a six-night-a-week gig, scheduled to begin the following Monday night. However, “Eddie” wanted me to play drums, not bass.  In fact, I had an older set someone had given me to settle a debt and I had been practicing playing on them for fun.  I tried to explain to Eddie that I was nowhere close to being ready to play a drum gig. “If you want the gig, you play drums,” Eddie insisted. When Monday came I was able to get by on the drums, but only barely. That was almost 50 years ago and I’ve been playing ever since.

My earliest influences were guys who were masters at playing brushes; Shelly Mann, Shadow Wilson.  Later on, players like Art Blakey set a pattern for me. I also played tenor in a Drum & Bugle Corps, which helped develop strength in my hands and wrists.

This past Spring, I retired from my position as a university professor, which gave me time to pursue something I had long wanted to try — to build a custom set of drums.  I had been impressed with kicks I had seen jazz drummers use in the late 1950s, ones with a smaller diameter, and deeper than normal.  Once I learned that drum shells could be ordered, I had been anticipating building my own custom set.

In addition to the visual appeal of a smaller, deeper kick – and the necessity of an acceptable “bass sound”  – I also wanted the kick to be light in weight.   Most of my playing is in smaller groups, and I wanted a “mellow” sound in the kick, rack tom and floor tom, while maintaining the crisp sound of my DW snare.  Finally, I wanted a set that would not look like a standard kit.

With this in mind, I ordered a 14 ” (diameter) by 24″ deep shell through one of Keller’s distributors to determine if a small, deep shell that holds approximately the same amount of air as a larger shallow shell will produce a similar sound.   Moreover, I wanted to hear what a 14″ X 24 ” drum would sound like before committing to building a full set. With the help of Matt at drumfactorydirect, I was able to decide on particular lugs and tension rods, rims and heads.

The shell arrived as specified; no support rings. Bearing edges cut for warmth rather than explosiveness.  Ready for finishing, whether stain, paint or covering.  My first task was to drill the holes needed for attaching the lugs.  As I read more and more about building a “jungle set,” as these smaller kits are sometimes called, I found that most experts recommend finishing the drum (stain, paint or covering) and then drilling the needed holes.  Instead, I had visions of a drill slipping and ruining a completed shell, so I decided to do the necessary drilling before finishing the shell.

Good thing.

In my haste, I did a terrible job of drilling, including scratching the shell.  Nonetheless, I finally was able to drill two holes for each lug.  While not perfect, they were somewhere in the range of functional.  One interesting note on the lugs:  they do not come ready for attaching; instead, they have a spring and a small triangular piece of hard material that holds the spring in place and both must be inserted into the lug for it to act as an anchor for a tension rod.  It is a time-consuming and tedious process, but it has to be done.

With lugs, tension rods, heads, and rims in place, the kick proved capable of producing a lower register, full sound.  It was, admittedly, not the sound of an 18” diameter kick, or even a 16”, but it was plenty acceptable.  Encouraged, I ordered additional shells.  For a rack tom, I decided to go with a 10 ” diameter shell for lightness, but with a depth of 13″ to produce a range of tuning preferences, and to pursue that different look.

Instead of using the shell I had just completed as the kick.  I ordered another “bass drum” shell, the same size as the prototype. This time I asked the vendor to drill the holes for attaching the lugs.  Here, we ran into some problems; the vendor’s drilling machine broke down and split the shell.   Finally, however, new shells arrived at the vendor’s and were drilled.  I mention this because it is not atypical.  Things happen, and then more things will happen to frustrate your efforts to build a set, despite the best efforts of everyone involved. I’ve ordered tension rods too short, rims with fewer holes than needed and had to return a tom holder that was not the one I should have ordered in the first place.  All of these errors slowed the process of completing the set, so patience is an important element of enjoying the custom building process.

Lesson # 1:  Let the pro’s do it.  Unless you are set up to cut bearing edges, and to drill the holes needed for various hardware, don’t do it – let the pro’s do it.  The cost is minimal and the time saved is tremendous.  And, the pro’s will do it correctly the first time.

With the holes drilled the next step was to stain the drums.  I decided to use the prototype shell (14 ” diameter X 24 ” deep) as the basis for a floor tom, and ordered a new shell for the kick, pre-drilled, with edges cut and with a reinforcing ring at each end, along with the shell for the rack tom.

Next, I sought a source for the “burnt orange” stain of my Gretsch drums.  I contacted Gretsch, but they declined to sell me any stain or to tell me what ingredients to mix to produce “burnt orange”.  Other experts in the craft were unable or not inclined to get involved.

However, a mutual friend introduced me to Jeff Assman, head of The Painting Company, of Columbus, Ohio, an organization that specializes in large-scale painting jobs, including The Ohio State University football stadium, and other major facilities across the U.S.  Within 10 minutes of meeting, Jeff was able to match the color of the Gretsch tom I had brought along.  And, within a few weeks the shells were stained and finished.  I then attached lugs, mounts, rims and heads.

Originally, I fitted the batter end of the kick with an Evan‘s head, but the sound seemed muffled and the head was slow to respond.  Replacing the Evans head with an Aquarian helped reduce response lag, and produced an acceptable “bass drum” sound.

The rack tom needed minimal attention.  I mounted it on a cymbal stand with a RIMs system and tuned it as usual.

Now came the 14” X 24” shell that was the prototype for the kick, but which now was to become a floor tom. Cutting above and below my drilling errors produced a shell for the floor tom 14” in diameter by 10” deep.    New holes were drilled and lugs attached along with a new Evans head on top and an Aquarian head on the bottom.  It already has become one of my favorite drums.

So, what have I learned from this experience?  Let’s try the following:

#1.  You can design a unique set of drums, work with vendors and produce a set that reflects your likes and dislikes, and you can complete the process, even if you are carpenter challenged

#2.  Although we didn’t break down the costs here, you can produce a set of drums for a few hundred dollars, comparable to drums costing thousands of dollars.

#3. You can choose at any juncture in the process to take on tasks such as drilling, sanding or whatever, or to hand that task over to a professional – usually at a very low cost.

#4. Make friends.  There are many people around who have already gone through this process and all of them are eager to help.  In my case, these included Jeff at The Painting Company; Chris White, of Columbus Pro Percussion; and fellow drummer James “Smooth” Eliot, whose support and enthusiasm for the project never waned.

#5.  Building a custom set is fun.  Always remember to have fun with the process, and the fun you have will be reflected in the drum set. Forever.

John A. Ledingham, PhD.

Columbus, Ohio

Thanks John for your incredible insight into building your first custom drum set!

If you enjoyed what John shared, or if you have any questions for him, please leave a comment below! If your ready to start building your very own custom drum set consider checking out the eBook to set you on the fast track to building drums!

I recently had time to interview Jeremy Wolfe about his recent experience with building drums. This is the 2nd custom drum set he has built with the help of this site. Check out our conversation and pictures below!

Makedrums: Can you tell us about the drums you’ve built?
Jeremy: This is the second kit I have built. It’s the first using the E-Book. It was actually a rebuild from an older kit. The drums were originally wrapped in a dark red wrap. After using some wood filler and the “wet sanding” tip from the book the shells were then consistently smooth. I also plugged the original lugholes with filler because I was going for an alternate lug layout. Also the toms were cut to custom size. The 9×12 rack tom was cut to 7×12″ and the 16×16″ floor was cut to 12×16″. There was also a 10×13″ rack tom that was cut to 5×13″ which is now the snare drum. Finish is a simple white gloss spray with off centered double pinstripes that gradually get bigger according to shell size. Using the finishing steps in the book the build coat and pinstripe came easily. Top coat is the lacquer suggested in the book also and finally black hoops and hardware were put on to finish.

Makedrums: How long have you been a drummer and how long have you been interested in drum building?
Jeremy: I’ve been playing since middle school band so around the age of 12. That would make it 17 years now.

Makedrums: Where did you first learn that you could build your own custom drum set?
Jeremy: Much like others I was pricing custom drums and found the prices to be too much out of my price range. After ordering new parts to put on older kits I discovered how inexpensive it would be to just build one of my own.

Makedrums: Did you cut your edges? Drill your holes?
Jeremy: I did use the router table build layout in the book to build a table and used it to recut the edges to a 45 to slight round over. I also drilled the lug layout as well as the butt plate and throw for the snare.

Makedrums: Whenever you were getting started with drum building, what were some of the obstacles that you had to overcome and what were some of the initial drawbacks to actually getting started to building your own drums?
Jeremy: This has truly been a “trial by fire” process. From sanding too hard, applying a professional finish, topcoats, cutting a good edge, etc… It’s kind of overwhelming and still is. This is only my second kit so there is a lot to learn, but I can say I am more comfortable and confident with taking on a build.

Makedrums: What are some other drum companies that you have learned from, that you have looked at for inspiration?
Jeremy: I’ve spent some time on your website as well as C&C and SJC Custom Drum companies. It’s funny because I find myself looking at everything to get inspiration for designs and color schemes. Cars, wallpaper, etc.

Makedrums: Where did most of the actual building take place?
Jeremy: I did all of this build in my garage.

Makedrums: Is there any tool that you would recommend to any custom drum builders that are thinking about getting started?
Jeremy: The first thing that comes to mind is simple but I totally overlooked it at first… having adequate space to work. You don’t need a warehouse or airplane hanger or anything like that. Just planning on using a little space would be key. Sounds silly right… not when you have wet shells and nowhere to sit them…. I’m also learning that you want to go ahead and treat yourself to high quality sand paper and lots of it.

Makedrums: Is there anything else that you want to share, maybe a little piece of wisdom or a quick tip for other drum builders?
Jeremy: If you’ve been thinking of building just go ahead and take the leap. I would encourage you working on something that is your own before committing to working on something for someone else. I don’t mean to speak like I’ve been doing this for years but after only building two kits I feel I have learned so much more than I knew about building drums that I can take to my next project. Thanks, Phil, for taking the time to document detailed steps that I can use to peruse a hobby I have always wanted to.

I’m really excited to see what Jeremy comes up with in the future. We’ve been emailing back and forth and I can tell that he has the drum building “bug”.

As always feel free to leave a comment for Jeremy or myself if you have any questions about drum building. We would love to share what we know about the drum making process with you!

Over the years I have gone through hundreds (if not thousands) of drum heads between replacing them on my personal kits, and installing them on the custom drum sets that I build. Some drum heads have impressed me over and over and stayed on my kit for weeks, but other drum heads have come off my drum set after a few hours of playing them. This post will show you what drum heads I’ve generally trusted over the years to provide me with a sound that makes the engineers go wild. I’ll also tell you the pros and cons of each drum head, and my preference in how to tune each drum.

My current preference in drum heads for my kit:

Keep in mind I play mostly rock/pop/funk.

Snare Drum: Remo Ambassador Coated Drum Head + Remo Ambassador Snare Head, Hazy

•  Pros : Fairly cheap, almost always in stock at any music store, sounds great tuned low and tuned high, very articulate even for ghost notes.
•  Cons : 1 ply drum head can dent easily for heavy hitters and may need to be replaced more often.
•  My Tunin g: I tune  both batter and resonant heads to the same pitch, I try to tune them high enough to give me a mid-range “crack”, as well as giving me a good stick response. On the resonant head I tune the lugs closest to the snare wires about 2 turns tighter than the rest of the head. This allows the snare wires to have a more crisp and clean snap as well as picking up more snare snap when playing ghost notes.

Toms: Remo Emperor Tom Drumheads (batter side) + Remo Ambassador Tom Drumheads (resonant side)

• Pros: Fairly cheap, almost always available at any more store, the simplicity in the construction of the clear drum heads allow characteristics of the bearing edge and wood type to come through unobstructed by sound rings or power dots on other drum heads, sound great tuned high and low, the clear heads adds a brightness to make your toms cut through the mix.
• Cons: I don’t use brushes very often, but obviously you would want to have coated heads for any brush work.
• My Tuning: Each tom has it’s own sweet spot that the drum will resonate at best. I try to find this sweet spot and tune both drum heads to this pitch. What I mean by “sweet spot” is, the tuning that produces the most full sound without any buzzing/flabbiness (caused from being too loose) or choked off tintiness (caused from being too tight). For my toms, they generally find that sweet spot at a “just above finger tight” tuning.

Bass / Kick Drum: Evans EMAD2 Clear Bass Drum Head with the larger external muffling ring (batter side) + Remo Fiberskyn with 6″ sound hole (resonant side) Evans Pillow inside the drum only touching the front bass head.

• Pros: Tons of attack as well as low end, extremely easy to EQ when mic’ed up.
• Cons: The Emad’s plastic ring that holds the external dampening ALWAYS cracks and ends up rattling, and eventually you’ll either need to tape the dampening ring on, or replace the drum head completely. You’ll have to cut your own sound hole in the Remo Fiberskyn (if you choose to cut a hole), which can be a little difficult if your not used to doing this. The Fiberskyn is a little more difficult to find in stock at music stores.
• My Tuning: I tune the front head to where there are no wrinkles, with a moderately tight tuning across the head. I tune the Emad finger tight and try to keep the wrinkles out (but sometimes it’s ok to still have a slight wrinkle, you be the judge depending on how it sounds) I place the Emad Pillow (or a towel or small blanket) on the inside of the drum where it is only touching the front resonate head. Without the pillow touching the front head you’ll have a ringy sound, the pillow dampens it just enough to let the kick punch you in the chest the way it should.

I know someone of you reading this will disagree with me when it comes to drum head selection, and I welcome your comments and rebukes. I would love to know what your favorite drum heads are and why. Feel free to discuss by leaving a comment below!

Here is the 2nd part to the “Drum Building Tools” series. In this post I briefly discuss some of the drum building tools and supplies that you might want to get your hands on if you plan on building drums more often than just once. Again if you only want to build a snare, or even a full kit, but you don’t want to invest in buying tools, refer to this blog post to learn about building drums with only a screwdriver.

Advanced Drum Building Supplies and Tools

Tools I own and use for cutting bearing edges:

• A Router
• Router Bits
• A Router Table
  -You can buy router tables from most hardware stores, but I recommend building your own table so you can easily route drums that are larger in diameter than standard router tables allow. (I have router table building plans in the eBook)

• A “Truing” Sanding Table
  -There are many ways of going about making a truing table, which I explain in the eBook. The basic idea of using a truing table is to allow you to start, and make sure that your edge remains perfectly tru all the way around the bearing edge, in other words start with a flat and level edge, and make sure the bearing edge doesn’t have dips or curves.

Tools I own and use for marking the hardware layout on a drum shell:

• Layout mat or cake dividing layout mat
• Blue Painters Tape
• Pencil
• Combo Square

Tools I own and use for drilling holes for hardware:

• A Drill (A right angle drill is preferred for when you need to drill from the inside of the shell on smaller size shells)
• A Drill Bit Set (You’ll need different sizes bits to drill different size holes for the different sizes of hardware)

Tools I own or use for cutting wrap:

• Long table or workbench
• Swanson 100-Inch Cutting Guide
• Utility Knife
• Adjustable C-Clamp

Questions or comments? Please leave it below and I’ll get back to  you!

Twitter users, "tis better to give than receive", so I’m running a Twitter-only contest where you (and 4 other lucky twitter users) can win a copy of "How to Make Custom Drums". All you have to do is click the link and retweet this message! The 10th, 21st, 23rd, 38th and 40th retweet get a free copy of the book! The contest will run until someone is the 40th "tweeter". Good luck!

How to enter:

1. Click to tweet this message:Learn how to make your own custom drum set by following @makedrums – RT to Win the Makedrums.com Guide to Building Drums! http://ow.ly/3sfT6
2. You must retweet this message exactly as it appears.

Contest Guidelines:

1. The 10th, 21st, 23rd, 38th, and 40th retweet get a free copy of my Ebook!
2. Make sure your tweets are public. If your tweets are private, I can’t see them, which means you can’t win.
3. The contest will run until someone is the 40th "tweeter".
4. Winners will be announced via Twitter and this blog post only, so be sure to follow @makedrums.

Good luck and happy tweeting!