Actually his current kit is Birch. It’s what he uses live and on Porcupine Tree’s latest album.
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Beech
- Thread starter nk126
- Start date
I'm thinking full kit. I'd like to experience the "beech" thing. A Sonor heavy beech seems like what everyone raves about, so I've been leaning that way. But if the Barton beech does the "beech" thing, then I'm game.
I've purchased three or four sets of Barton bags. I'm totally impressed with their product and service. If someone said "Barton beech does the Sonor beech thing at 1/3 the price" then that would be all I need to adjust my Reverb search settings.
jpalom01
Well-Known Member
Back in the Fear of a Blank Planet days he was beech right? My fave sound of his...
dingaling
Very well Known Member
I’m sure Barton drums are great but that argument wouldn’t make sense. You could take 5 identical 6 ply maple shells, send them to 5 different drum makers, and you’d have 5 different sounds.
Edges, hardware, and anything else they do makes a pretty big difference. Then add in how shells are made and sized.
A maple Sonor snare sounds light years different than a Canopus maple snare.
Also Sonor has an undersized shell so it’s going to sound different.
If you want the “Sonor” sound, you need to spend that “Sonor” price tag.
TheDrummerFromAmsterdam
DFO Master
Love the sound.
This was mine.
This was mine.
groovemastergreg
Well-Known Member
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I love Phonics myself. I had a set of Maple Hi Lite Exclusives and Sonorlite birch back in the day. Should never have sold them.
I was fortunate enough to play in a band from 1990 to 1997 where one of the guitarists, whose home we rehearsed at, was a fabulous drummer as well and had a nice Phonic Kit that I often played at rehearsals. Can't get that sound out of my head.
He also had a cool Rogers double bass 20 kit that was pretty awesome, but those black Phonics were hard to beat.
I was fortunate enough to play in a band from 1990 to 1997 where one of the guitarists, whose home we rehearsed at, was a fabulous drummer as well and had a nice Phonic Kit that I often played at rehearsals. Can't get that sound out of my head.
He also had a cool Rogers double bass 20 kit that was pretty awesome, but those black Phonics were hard to beat.
jlzisk
Well-Known Member
N&C Solid Beech 14x6, 16 strand Puresound and Ambassador coated... Tunes to any note. Superb attack and articulation. Ring is a little excessively sustained at the high tuning, but beautiful, not ear-piercing. Fat and vintage sounding in the mid- and low-tuning. I haven't played with other heads yet. Lovely beech drum.
AaronLatos
spang spang a lang
For the better part of a year in college I was playing on three kits every week: an Oak Custom, Birch Custom Absolute, and Beech Custom, all in 12/14/18 or 12/14/20 with single ply coated heads. And a friend had a MCA that I heard around all the time.
The beech drums were my favorite of all. The maple drums sounded great but didn't have a lot of character comparatively. Birch had a great crisp attack, Oak punched lows regardless of tuning, and beech had kind of my favorite elements of all of these. A nice crisp attack, a lot of sweetness and woodiness, and a lovely roundness to the note. I feel like beech has some of the "snap" of birch but a low mid poplar sort of thing going on, too. Good stuff.
Since then I've played a lot of different beech kits and own a 12/14/16/18 Sonor Super Champion and a 5x14 rosewood/beech Champion snare, which is one of my favorite wood snares I've played. Love them.
Wood is but one ingredient in a drum, and a drum only sounds like the person playing it, but I really enjoy what beech offers.
The beech drums were my favorite of all. The maple drums sounded great but didn't have a lot of character comparatively. Birch had a great crisp attack, Oak punched lows regardless of tuning, and beech had kind of my favorite elements of all of these. A nice crisp attack, a lot of sweetness and woodiness, and a lovely roundness to the note. I feel like beech has some of the "snap" of birch but a low mid poplar sort of thing going on, too. Good stuff.
Since then I've played a lot of different beech kits and own a 12/14/16/18 Sonor Super Champion and a 5x14 rosewood/beech Champion snare, which is one of my favorite wood snares I've played. Love them.
Wood is but one ingredient in a drum, and a drum only sounds like the person playing it, but I really enjoy what beech offers.
It was maple. He never played beech.
This was the kit on Fear of a blank planet (Sonor Designer Maple Light):
Gavin Harrison auctions Sonor Designer kit in aid of MS Society UK
There’s still time to bid on Gavin’s touring and recording kit
www.musicradar.com
jpalom01
Well-Known Member
Really! Fascinating. Thank you -It was maple. He never played beech.
This was the kit on Fear of a blank planet (Sonor Designer Maple Light):
Gavin Harrison auctions Sonor Designer kit in aid of MS Society UK
There’s still time to bid on Gavin’s touring and recording kit
those are actually 8mm.. same as current SQ2 Heavy shells.
Targalx
DFO Veteran
No need to edit or cross that one out! I love the original Yamaha Beech Custom kits so much, I have two of the same kit in the same color of Blueberry (one is 12/14/20 and the other is 13/16/22). They are tremendous "sleeper" kits that people either forget or don't know about at all. I also have a Beech Custom Absolute snare (14x7") in White Marine Pearl and a regular Beech Custom snare (14x5") that I play on occasion.
As others have said, beech totally splits the difference between maple and birch. If birch is too mellow and maple's too harsh, beech is the sweet spot in the middle.
dingaling
Very well Known Member
Good call.
Modern Sonor
Light-5mm
Med-6mm
Heavy-8mm
Vintage Sonor
Phonic wrap-9mm
Phonic wood veneer-11mm
Just thinking 3ply and Phonics might be the same material, but they are polar opposites in terms of shell construction. I still have a 13-20 mini set, no floor tom, of 3ply Sonors somewhere. I think the lightweight shell design came from marching bass drums?
dingaling
Very well Known Member
I have a 6-ply Sonor tear drop kit and it has that “vintage” sound drummers long for, dry yet ringy with lots of tone. Yea, something to do with those old thin beech shells. They aren’t that light because the lugs and hoops are on the heavy side. Just to experiment one day I’m gonna try some s-hoops on them.
dingaling
Very well Known Member
I think 6-ply teardrops were 6 ply with no rings. @Frank Godiva can you confirm that?
6plies, 6mm. St Drums (a drumbuilder supply from Germany) offers raw shells like this.
AaronLatos
spang spang a lang
That's correct. Three ply drops had rings, later went to six ply with no rings.
Then came Champions.
Most Champions are the same shell as the six ply drops, but with lugs that were ALMOST the same as what would later come on Phonics. Rumor mill is that some rosewood champions have a slightly thinner shell. I have a rosewood champion snare that is super thin, but I've never measured it more side by side of it with a regular production champion.
At the very end of champion production, stuff got a little bit weird and tricky to pin down. They thickened up the shell significantly: six ply, not quite as thick as a phonic but in that direction. A small handful of those kits left the factory with rounded bearing edges, then they switched to a 45 with fairly sharp outer apex, the same edge that would continue on in phonics. People tend to refer to these last kits as "super champions": there was a catalog in that era where they referred to them as such but it's not clear to me personally whether they were referring to the line or just one particularly massive multi-tom setup.
A phonic and a six-ply teardrop have significantly different construction, but there's definitely some commonality in the sound. I have that thin shelled champion six ply snare drum with a super round bearing edge that I play with a 16 phonic floor tom sometimes, and they're definitely from the same family.
In general, I think that the statement that beech is between birch and maple is generally correct. But there is something unique to beech that I hear, as well, that the teardrop, phonic, champion, Yamaha Beech custom, and smaller manufacturer beech drums I've played have all had in common, and it's this rough around the edges "woodiness" that I don't necessarily hear in maple or birch. I'd call it contained, but not restrained. I know we're getting deep into cork sniffing here, but it's the thing that makes me really love beech.
jlzisk
Well-Known Member
35 years ago in grad school at Cornell playing in a just-for-fun band of Chemistry Ph.D. candidates, who just needed a musical break from the research (one of the band was a brilliant bassist), I had a Sonor teardrop kit with some kind of purple swirled wrap and a Slingerland COB snare that was already "vintage" back then... And I remembered, as I bought it in 1988, that as a kid in 1971 I had discovered Sonor and covetted that beautiful drumset even then. Completed the doctorate, moved to more sensible activities, and stopped playing drums for 10 years or so-- but I rediscovered playing music with colleagues and friends, with various levels of seriousness, and gigs at local clubs and bars. I now play some nice drums, and have found the time and wherewithal to experiment with different makes and materials, but wish I'd never sold that Sonor kit.
