E. Doctor Smith's Blog

  In my earlier blogs, I talked about first building a replica of drummer Billy Cobham's Yamaha Signature Snare , and then a replica of his 1990's Mapex kit that ultimately became the “ Billy Cobham 20th Anniversary Custom Kit ”.  I then decided to make this version a more contemporary version, one that would replicate his current Tama Star drum set. His current Tama kit features a 15”, 13”, 14”, 12”, 10” and 8" toms with a 16” and 18” floor tom. Additionally he had a two 24" kick drums, 14" x 5.5" and a 12” x 5.5 snare. I was able to find used Mapex drums all of those sizes except for the 15" tom and 12" snare. Those I had to make from scratch with wraps from Jammin' Sam and 6 ply Maple shells from the folks at Drummaker and locating used Mapex Venus and Voyager, single point lugs from ebay and Reverb. I'm using Mapex Falcon kick pedals and hi-hat stand, and instead of Cobham's Tama racks, I used all Gibraltar arms and racks.  Doc with...

  In my earlier blogs, I began work on a replica of Phil Collins' black Gretsch USA concert tom kit . My original intention was to build a V-drum version, with Remo Mesh heads and a bevy of the revolutionary wireless "Versatriggers", made in Europe. Suffice it to safe, I enjoyed building the kit so much, that I ended up making it an all-acoustic version. The Versatriggers went back into the closet; Gone but not forgotten. As fate would have it, I had the last of my orphaned drum shells lying around; an 8", 10", 12" 13" and 18 leftovers from several aborted or cannibalized projects. As I considered what to do with them, I remembered the V-Drum project and thought perhaps I could reignite it. The shells were actually already black, in fact, they were going to be part of that original Gretsch kit, however they were either too small, or the wrong sizes. What if I made a another version of the Collins kit? I had an 18" x 16" shell, an old 20"...

In my previous blogs, I recounted how I successfully restored a Bill Bruford "Signature Palette Series" snare drum , built an all chrome version and followed it up with a complete Bill Bruford symmetrical kit . That was awesome, but I decided to expand the kit by adding a 14" x 12" floor tom. My usual set-up is an open handed one, modeled on the drummer Rayford Griffin of Jean Luc Ponty's group. I now had a 7 piece, all-yellow Tama kit with a choice of 2 snare drums. The kit is one of the best sounding ones I've eve made. I soon added a full compliment of Nady DM 70 and CM 70 drum microphones, routed them through a M-Audio FastTrack Ultra 8R interface and a MacBook Pro. One of the first things I noticed was the thinner sound of the original Bruford snare; It was much brighter than any of my other 14" x 6" snare drums. Perhaps it was the 2 ply Maple, 2 ply Birch and 2 ply Maple construction that gave it that quality. It was great for jazz, as I...