Drummers who play with their toms flat?

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Twentyeightx14 said:
I guess it depends on the player. I know a guy who's played like that all his life and he gets around the kit as well as anyone else. He positions his cymbals insanely high - like a good 2 to 2.5 feet above his rack tom but it works for him. I prefer angled toms and cymbals but to each his own.
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I prefer my cymbals ip high too. I hate getting a stick flipped out underneath a cymbal. My toms i adjust to how my body feels at that moment and half way through a set.

Muscle memory can help or hinder.
 
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I spent about 15 minutes rearranging my rack toms to where they were flat. Tried it for five minutes, and then spent another half hour on putting them back where they were. I no longer need to have the rim of the main rack and the snare even, but if I go more than a couple inches higher than the snare, it’s all hoops and shells. So I’m keeping a little tilt.
 
Brian Nevin of Big Head Todd & the Monsters radically changed his rack tom position a few years ago. Looks unplayable to me, but I really like his sound/feel.

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Tornado said:
It's not a rule of course, but you see a kit set up like this on stage, and you can bet you're in for a real treat...

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was definitely guilty of that setup with my first kit of Pearl Exports but thought it looked cool for some reason... took me a year or more to realize you could raise them higher and flatten them out xD
 
Sambo84 said:
was definitely guilty of that setup with my first kit of Pearl Exports but thought it looked cool for some reason... took me a year or more to realize you could raise them higher and flatten them out xD
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Love the PINK and the ROTOTOMS. Who knew Danney Carey *sp. would make a touring/recording set out of them.
 
cplueard said:
Hitt does it too, sometimes with slight angle.

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I was talking with John Aldridge about it at an REO show and he talked about how it seems far but fits into the stroke of his swing really comfortably when it's played.

Ultimately it's also got a lot to do with how your body is put together and how you swing your sticks. If you've got a longer torso and/or arms and if you use a lot of wrist in your strokes it's a pretty comfy way to play.
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I love the custom cymbal stands. I tried to do the flat tom thing when I was a youngster because I thought it looked cool, but it just felt weird and without any ergonomic value.
 
Haven't read through all 8 pages of this, but ergonomics has been an issue of interest for me since i started playing 45 years ago. I'm not tall (around 5'6) and have always found lack of height a disadvantage and endeavoured to achieve a setup that limits any potential restrictions as much as possible. The flat tom thing when totally unnecessary just bamboozles me - form over function has never been my mantra in any walk of life.

After progressing from a little 60s Premier kit to a '78 Yamaha pre-RC with 13, 14, 18, 24 I found tom position a pain in the A. It was impossible to set up those toms on the 24 kick at a decent angle for stick contact that made the transition from snare or floor up to toms 'easy'. 35 years ago I bought a '68 Yamaha Red Thunder kit with 13, 16, 20 and that became my preferred kit - not only because it was easier to play but it also sounded fantastic for the style of music I was playing (and still play). As an aside, the 20 inch kick killed the 24 pre-RC live and in the studio, and it a was SO much easier getting a good transition from the snare to the rack with that 20 inch kick.

When i play gigs with backline kits provided it can take me far longer trying to get a comfortable setup, but as much smaller toms and kicks have become the norm it is a lot easier than 'back then'. The other gripe I find is getting my ride exactly where I want it. I set my stool height predominantly to enable good kick pedal ergo (I play with both heels off the deck), so everything emanates from there.

I look at tall drummers and see how easy it is for them to reach around the kit and I'm envious. At the end of the day we work with what we were born with. BTW, Ginger (my idol as a teen) wasn't one for lightning speed rolls around the toms ... his thing was more paradiddling around the kit and combining his double kick work with his toms - in Cream and least (haven't seen/heard him playing jazz). In comparison 'd be surprised if Aynsley Dunbar played flat toms!
 
bpaluzzi said:
There are definitely exceptions -- Nicko McBrain is another. But they're the exceptions that prove the rule.
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... exceptions that prove the rule.

You can mount your toms sideways for all I care. But you can't get away with nonsense like this. Blaine's set-up doesn't prove your arbitrary "rule" that highly angled toms are the mark of a "hack amateur." That's a logical fallacy called begging the question. Look it up.
 
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