Building the Phil Collins Gretsch Kit - Part One

Back in 2017, I managed to acquire a dozen of the revolutionary new wireless Versatriggers from Poland; Battery powered drum triggers you can mount inside a drum shell. Replace the acoustic drum head with a mesh head and you have yourself a v-drum. I first tried out the Versatrigger on an old Viking snare I'd converted previously with an internal Pintech trigger, and a Remo Silent Stroke mesh head. After connecting the Versatrigger wireless USB hub to my MacBook Air, I was able to tweak the sensitivity and trigger the drum surprisingly well. I also learned I needed to be able to access the trigger for adjustments and battery replacement, so double headed toms weren't practical. The kick and snare are easy enough to cut out a round hole in the bottom head, but the toms would have to be easy to access as well. A modest kit with concert toms would work perfectly.

I didn't want to build just another small v-drum kit of virtually identical trigger pads either, so when I came across a photo of Phil Collins and his black Gretsch concert tom kit, my path was clear! Now, how hard would it be to replicate that kit and make it a V-Drum Kit?

Collins' kit consisted of a 20 x 14" kick, an 8", 10", 12", 15", 16", 18" concert toms, and his snare was a Nobel & Cooley 14" x 3.75" piccolo. Well, as fate would have it; I had a bunch of orphaned drums lying around in boxes; Many of them were the exact sizes as Collins' Gretsch kit!

I had an assortment of shells to choose from; Ddrum, Mapex, Ludwig, Gretsch, and Yamaha shells. Some were maple, and some were poplar: A 20" Keller VSS Maple gong drum I'd made a while ago, but rarely used, would make a perfect a kick, as well as an 18"x16" Keller tom from an aborted project; 16 "x 14", 12" x 9" Ddrum d2 toms; a 13" x 11" Mapex tom; a 10" x 6" Pulse tom and an 8" x 5" Ludwig Accent tom would all suffice! I also have an old  Ludwig 15" x 12" tom, and although it's a thicker ply than the other toms, I opted to restore them both.



After gathering a bunch of beat up Gretsch USA badges on ebay, I stripped and repainted them, then set about the toms with wood filler, sanding, spraying the shell interiors with galvanized fence paint, and adding all new wraps from Jammin' Sam in Arizona. Rather than use the Gretsch lugs I had, I opted for Goedrum's "Gretsch style lugs". With the toms and kick drum sorted, I turned my attention to the snare. I was prepared to cannibalize my Mapex 14" x 3.75" piccolo snare, and as fate would have it, it was the same size as the Nobel & Cooley and had just enough depth to comfortably mount the Versatrigger.

While researching the world of 14" x 4" piccolo snare drums, I also learned these snares were based on Gretsch's "Max Roach Model". Extremely rare and expensive to obtain, I also decided to make one with authentic parts to use at a later date! Pretty easy to add a Noble & Cooley badge and new heads. In researching the world of Gretsch piccolo snares, I also discovered that many of the surviving snares had been refurbished with single-point lugs, like Dunnett, and Noble & Cooley. Since Mapex had been a leader in that technology, it made for a good choice to remake Phil Collin's famed piccolo snare drum after I added another Versatrigger.

I already had a 20" black bass drum hoop, so it was simple enough to get another one and more Goedrum Gretsch style bass drum lugs to recreate the 20" x 14" kick. After 6 Gretsch tom brackets were installed on all the toms, they were ready for mesh heads and double tom stand mounting.

Before installing the triggers and the Remo mesh heads, I wanted to try them out as real concert toms. Each drum had previously been fitted with Evans Hydraulic Blue batter heads, and after a bit of tuning they sang like the drums they were meant to be; big, full of attack and quick decay. After assembling the snare, I finished first with the two bigger concert toms, the 18" and the 16", and then moved onto the concert rack toms: 13", 12", 10" and 8". . They had all passed both the visual and aural tests admirably! Using the Remo mesh heads again, I spent a day or two tweaking the settings of the Versatriggers, and got them to work fairly well, but the real test will come of course, when the entire kit is assembled, and playing it live.

After the remaining parts parts for the 20" kick arrived, I got to work putting it together. Originally a 20" x 14" Maple gong drum I rarely used, I bought another Gibraltar black lacquer maple hoop, Goedrum "Gretsch-style" bass drum lugs, a 20" Remo Silent Stroke mesh head and an Evans hydraulic blue head . I also had a bunch of leftover bass drum spurs, tension rods and hooks, and put them to use. After adding the bass drum Versatrigger, I put on the the front bass drum head, and last but not least, attached a Gretsch bass drum logo sticker.

It was time to bust out the cymbal and tom stands, add 3 Gibraltar double tom L-Rod holders and mount the concert toms. Acoustically, the entire kit sounded great in my studio, and after a little bit of tweaking the sensitivity of the Versatriggers, I was able to get a pretty decent amount of sound and responsiveness with minimal cross triggering even using the Evans heads.

Truth be told, the Versatriggers weren't designed for acoustic heads, however they do work on them. Ultimately, I'll continue this experiment with the Remo mesh heads, and perhaps a few other popular brands like "Billy Blast"; a company that appears to be held in very hight regard by e-drummers the world over. In Part Two, I'll have a much better idea of just how well the Versatriggers, acoustic and mesh heads work. To be continued!