Alright, so it's been a week since I originally posted it and unfortunately the original thread is gone due to image size issues so I'm reposting it this time using the VDF file uploader. I don't remember all the captions I made but I'll try to remember how I did this!
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So I've been playing drums since 2000 and have been in a band as primary songwriter/drummer/pianist/bassist since 2011, my piano rock group Nino Blankenship (http://www.ninoblankenship.com & http://youtube.com/ninoblankenship are the primary links - we've done a few house gigs and have started a few recording projects at Hyde Street Studio though they still need to be completed). Though I've been aware of see-through acrylic drumsets for years, a combination of things got me into going that route:
- When I first started the group, I immediately set about upgrading my snare drum as to that point, all I had was a Percussion Plus budget drumset with a hard-to-tune steel snare and luan shells for all else. The one high-quality snare drum that spoke to me at a local Music-Go-Round in Citrus Heights was a Spaun acrylic, and I thought that was pretty "professional" compared to what I already had!
- I went to an indie rock/hipster show in a very small apartment space in San Francisco ca. 2012 and recall this power trio bringing a 4-piece blue Vistalite kit. Blown away by that kit.
- A Drummer's Tradition in San Rafael had for a while a Bonham amber Vistalite kit complete with two floor toms. Attractive!
- Guitar Center in Sacramento ca. 2004-2005 had a green Pork Pie acrylic kit that I've never forgotten about. That might have been my first exposure to it, outside of the photos here and there of classic rock artists using acrylic kits in the 70s.
FIRST SET OF PHOTOS:
- the mix of my budget drumkit (taped-on band logo created by group cofounder Joanne) and the Vistalite concert toms and Spaun snare. This is around 2012 or so. Concert tom pair of 12x10 and 13x11 clear Vistalites were altogether $120 from Craigslist in Sacramento.
- A year or so later, my "frankencrylic" kit consisting of the Spaun snare, the Vistalite concert toms, two double-headed Vistalite toms I had acquired from Guitar Center in San Francisco for about $90-100 each (14x10 and 12x10) - a purchase STRONGLY encouraged by one of the staffers at Skip's Music in Sacramento! - and a Fibes bass drum I got from a Craigslist listing in Petaluma. Decently vintage, though I ran rather dark-sounding heads on the Fibes bass, a Remo Starfire as the reso head with the batter being the Fiberskyn that used to be my reso head on the budget bass drum.
When I did home recordings ca. November 2013, I had the concert toms set up as the "floor tom" with the two double-headed toms on the rack spots. Back then, I ran Fiberskyns on everything (and Skyntone on the snare rather often) since I was really into the idea of trying calfskin-like heads on acrylic - very papery and sometimes thuddy in warmth, though something that I didn't stay in love with forever!
By 2015 I had switched the concert toms positionally with the 14x10 now serving as a floor tom (a setup I had tried earlier in 2013)
