Building the Mapex “Billy Cobham 20th Anniversary Custom Kit” Part One

Billy Cobham's 1992 Mapex Saturn Ad

In 1991, drummer Billy Cobham became one the newly formed, Mapex Drum Company's best known endorsements and consultants, between his previous deal with Tama Drums, and before he subsequently signed with Yamaha. Cobham was soon seen playing Mapex kits on tour with a variety of live acts: With Peter Gabriel, Terje Rypdal, Wayne Krantz and many others. A 1994 customized, Emerald Green Mapex kit that he once used with Gabriel was recently seen on eBay for a whopping $10,000, and listed a “Certificate of Authenticity” signed by Cobham himself. The CoA listed each drum, and even included a previously sold, nearly identical, Cherry Red Mapex kit that Cobham would also use whenever he needed to leap-frog from venue to venue to save time setting up his monster kit. That maple kit was a bit too pricey for me to say the least, and to be honest, I was never fond of how those vintage Mapex "low mass" drum lug and rod systems really looked. Nevertheless, Mapex had revolutionized the world of drums in the early '90s by coming up with a “low mass, single point” tom lug to minimize the vibrations that typical drum lugs and mounts employed. Mapex would ultimately eliminate the rods and change all of their drums with only the low mass lugs; a trend that even Yamaha, Ayotte and others use to this day.

Mapex "Low Mass" Lug

After years of setting up his rack toms traditionally from high to low with his Fibes and Tama kits of the 1970's, Cobham continued to experiment with yet another approach during his tenure with Mapex, a "tonal experiment" he continues to employ to this day. When Cobham joined Mapex, he began playing maple drums from their “celestial” series; Saturn, Orion, etc. Mapex would later add the Mars, Venus, and Voyager series. Cobham’s monster kit featured 5 power rack toms: 15”, 14”, 13”, 12” and 10”; 3 snare drums: 14” x 10”, 13” x 4”, 14” x 7”; 3 bass drums: 24", 22” and 20”; two floor toms: 16” and 18”, and the use of the now commonplace drum rack system, mounting his toms and cymbals virtually everywhere.

Cobham live with Peter Gabriel in 1994

With Tama, Cobham added multiple snare drums, triple bass drums, octobans, a gong drum and even a modular drum rack system. However it was while drumming with Mapex that Cobham began arranging his toms in what he called his “tonal array”. From his left to his right, Cobham ordered his rack toms in an alternating sizes; 15”, 13”, 14”, 12” and 10”, or 15”, 13”, 14” and 12”. Cobham’s open-handed patterns, and his desire to constantly evolve and grow, also challenged him to avoid the cliched high-to-low drum fills we’d all become accustomed to. Cobham has kept that unique approach to this day, using a 15”, 13”, 14”, 12” and 10” tom set up with a 16” and 18”, and occasionally adding a 12” snare, and 8” tom.

I’ve already been experimenting with a similar set-up with my own monster drum kits for some time; Re-wrapping them; adding new heads, and a modular Gibraltar rack system. As you might imagine, breaking that kit down and moving it back and forth could be a challenge, so like Cobham and others, I’d keep one drum set at home, and decided to make the Mapex kit a live and studio rig. So, with my replica Yamaha Billy Cobham Signature Snare drum project awaiting a few more parts, I turned my attention to my assorted collection of orphaned Mapex drums. Cobbled together from finds on eBay, Craig’s List, Guitar Center and Reverb, my Mapex kit really needed a makeover. Once again I looked to Cobham for inspiration and after discovering his history with Mapex, I thought about how to re-create his set-up, based on Cobham’s years with Mapex, Yamaha and Tama. Well, if Tama could make an anniversary kit for the great Simon Phillips, I could do the same for the Mapex/Cobham kit. I got my first Mapex drum back in 2011, which coincidently was about twenty years after Cobham and Mapex first got together; With that in mind, the idea of a commemorative, one-of-a-kind “Billy Cobham 20th Anniversary Custom Model” drum set really appealed to me...

The vintage Mapex and the "20th Anniversary" badges

My Mapex kit would take some customizing. For the badges, I looked at the original Orion and Saturn Mapex kits Cobham used; They had the classic Mapex 2” x 2”, black and gold, vented badges, seen on most of the surviving photos of those kits from that era, with the exception of his custom “U.S. Maple” kit he used with Peter Gabriel. That brass badge was 3” x 1.5”, however  I didn’t find that badge all that attractive. Based on the aforementioned black and gold badge, I decided to use that design, without the vent, featuring Cobham’s signature and the Mapex “Handcrafted in the U.S.A.” slogan. After a little bit of Photoshop, an order was placed to the folks at PlaqueMaker, and the new badge would be made. Next, it was time to assemble the rest of the drums I needed for the project. 

Cobham live in Cannes, France 1989 

Since I decided that I would configure the Mapex kit just like some of Cobham’s earlier drum set-ups, I needed to do a little more research. To do that, I found his Mapex old ads as well as his Tama set-ups from some of their old drum catalogues. I also found Cobham’s equipment riders for his 2008 Spectrum 40 band, his European live bands, and his solo performances. While building my replica Yamaha Cobham snare, I also seemed to recall that Cobham didn’t always use it live; (And he hasn’t used it since reuniting with Tama either). As I researched his riders, I also noticed that he always requested the now vintage, Yamaha 14” x 6.5”, SD-4106 brass snare. Well, those snares are are discontinued and hard to find, plus, this needed to be a Mapex. Now, which brass Mapex snare did Cobham use back in the day? Turns out he used an assortment of them, and in a wide variety of sizes. Mapex made a monstrous, 14” x 8” “Brass Master” snare that Cobham used quite a bit, before moving to smaller sizes. An 8” snare is too much for me, so I needed to find a brass snare comparable to the Yamaha. 

Turns out there was; The Mapex BR4665. After a bit of a search, I finally found a brass 14” x 6.5” snare with matching low mass lugs. The only other drum I needed was the ever challenging 15” x 12” tom. Most drum companies offer your basic kit sizes; 22, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16 inch, shells. You’ll get the little 8”, and the big 18”, but the 15” is the exception. No worries; tons of folks make these out of the Keller maple, so I had one made. I managed to buy a bunch of low mass lugs on eBay, and got more wraps from Jammin’ Sam in Arizona. I also added the same heads Cobham uses today; Evans G2 coated, Hazy Snare Side 200, etc. With the drums now wrapped and assembled, I started thinking about the mounts and a variety of configurations. Going over Cobham's earlier drum set-ups, he configured his kits more traditionally. His Tama Superstar, "Billy Cobham Model" maple kit had tom sizes of 12", 13", 14", 15"; floor tom sizes of 16" and 18"; a 14" x 6.5"snare, (just like the Mapex); a full set of Tama Octobans and a 20" gong drum. My approach would be to duplicate his current set-ups with Tama and Yamaha, by adding an 8" and 10" rack toms.

When the time came to determine which way was best to mount the toms, I had several choices. I already had several Mapex TH657 and TH656 L-Rod mounts I could use. Although the Mapex L-Mounts weren’t suspension mounts, they were not unlike the mounts Cobham used with both Tama, and later with Mapex. I’d used both RIMS and Gibraltar suspension systems before, and oddly enough, I happened to have one of Gibraltar's new Universal Suspension mounts, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Unfortunately, the old Mapex tom mount brackets don't fit perfectly with either Gibraltar's system or any of the other suspension plates, including RIMS! only the top two screws of the plate holes lined up with Mapex's triangular bolt configuration, (although the bottom screw could be made to work with a wide rim washer. The Gibraltar system didn't come in a 15" tom size, however Drum Factory Direct did make them. So, it seems I had only a few choices: Either get an all-new suspension system and mounts, or return to the original Mapex mounts and give up the whole idea of a suspension system.

While sifting through my plastic bins and containers of drum parts, I came across a Yamaha tom bracket and on a whim, I matched it up to the holes on the Mapex shell. Surprisingly, they lined up perfectly! Now in recent years, Yamaha had incorporated their hexagonal toms brackets to their unique suspension system called  "YESS". These new Yamaha mounts attached to the shell in only two places, with a stand-off on each bolt; Less intrusion on the shell for much better resonance. These were also the same mounts used by Cobham on all of the Yamaha kits he played during his tenure with them. I'd already managed to track down a bunch of Yamaha's "RK-TT" retrofit kits for a Yamaha drum project, so I could theoretically convert all of my old Yamaha brackets to YESS mounts. Although they weren't Mapex, they nevertheless worked. In fact, Lenny White actually used both YESS and Pearl mounts on his customized kits by Innovation Drums, so I knew I'd be in good company.

The Yamaha YESS brackets and tom arms had short rods that were seemingly perfect for the Mapex toms, (no additional holes needed to be drilled to use them), however the Yamaha 7/8" tom arm holder post was too small for the 1" Mapex bass drum bracket.  I could actually use a 25mm to 22mm bike post adapter to make the Yamaha post fit the Mapex bass drum mount, or use Mapex's AC908; a tom arm- cymbal stand adapter with two 7/8" holes on either end, and a 1" hole in the middle. I actually had 3 of them, and plenty of 1" posts I could use, so that was another option. Ultimately I planned to order some Drum Factory Direct suspension mounts and use the Mapex mounts Gibraltar L-Rod tom arms. Unfortunately the Yamaha YESS mounts weren't a good fit with the suspension mounts, so I used some Gibraltar tom mounts on the suspension mounts instead for the Gibraltar drum rack. Next, I removed all of the various, older Mapex badges from the drums and cleaned away the residue to make way for the new wraps, and custom badges; A silver badge for a chrome wrapped 14" x 5.5" and 12" x 5.5" Mapex snares; gold for the brass snare and the rest of the drums. Next, I affixed the new badges and add the new Evans Blue Hydraulic drumheads. The new suspension mounts were added and the "Billy Cobham 20th Anniversary Custom Model" Mapex kit was now complete! In Part Two, I'll delve more into how this kit has morphed into the current Tama set up Cobham uses today.