Brightclub.com.ph

I have no formal training in drumming but that didn't stop me from admiring it from afar. Maybe it's the high barrier of entry or the impracticability of owning just the set, but that never stopped me from "trying" to understand it atleast in concept. Way back in college I was known to spend an hour or 2 playing Drummania or Drum Freaks in the arcade. And quite recently, playing drums probably is my favorite part in the whole Guitar Hero or Rockband experience.

Regardless of cost, we needed drums here at the studio. So this was the perfect excuse for me to finally pony up the cash and get myself a set. Granted, this didn't happen overnight. I did alot of reading on what kit was right for the studio. The Pearl Session kit was definitely my first choice because it was moderately priced and let's face it, Pearl is kind of an institution when it comes to this field; so that was my fallback in case I didn't find anything better. Other than that, I did the usual rounds scouting potential purchases ranging from the Premier branded entry level kits to upper level stuff like the Tama Superstar.

But searching for the perfect kit would have been a never ending task. With so many factors to consider, I needed to narrow down the field by looking for something that would be comparable in terms of recording and not just live situations. Few threads in Philmusic would often lead to 2 specific models when looking for a mid-range kit like that; the Pearl Series and the Gretsch Catalina line. With Pearl being the safe choice and Gretsch providing the most options in terms of variety.

Believe it or not, Pearl was the cheapest among the choices I have considered. The Pearl Forum 5 piece kit was reasonably priced at around 40k when I checked it out a few months ago, while Gretsch offered a bevy of choices ranging from the reasonably priced Blackhawk ranging from 35-40k or so, the middle of the road Catalina Ash which costs around 45+ and the coveted Catalina Maple which at the time costs 60k pesos. Not gonna lie, I've heard alot of things about the Catalina Maple from forums and friends (and it didn't help that it look badass as well.)

Anyway, a friend of mine suggested that I wait for the JB Music's Himig Lakas sale. JB carried Pearl and Gretsch at their stores and the chance of a big discount was very likely. At this point, I've decided that I was willing to spend around 50k for a kit and was actually hoping the Catalina Maple would be in my budget by the time the sale kicked in. Luckily, it was.

I bought the 5 piece set with all of the hardware, some ZBT cymbals from Zildjian and a carpet for 45k. Quite a steal in my opinion! They were also offering a "newer model?" 6 piece set at one branch with the same trimmings for 65k but I decided to get the cheaper once since I didn't have enough room for the extra tom. Also, not enough money period. They delivered the kit a couple of days later together with the 4 Laney CX-115 speakers I bought the same day. What I received was around 5 boxes that DID NOT RESEMBLE DRUMS AT ALL.

What? I have to assemble this myself? Fuck me.

And guess what? No instructions too! So I did my best trying to piece the parts that kinda looked like they should be together and watched some videos on youtube for assembling this in the first place. The process took about 4 hours and most of those times were spent asking dumb questions like "what is this part for?" or "how do you do that?" And considering I have ZERO drum know-how, I think I did a pretty good job. I had to wait for my bandmate to actually tune the thing but it does look like an actual drum set now.

Following the drum purchase, I bought a bunch of other stuff that was needed to actually play it. A pair of Zildjian sticks which costs around 1200 pesos and a couple of Gibraltar drum thrones (one I now use as my computer chair) for 2500 pesos at JB music the following day. Luckily they were still doing the sale so I probably saved a couple hundred pesos in the process.

I also bought a 4 piece Audio Technica drum mic set from the Music Source for around 10k a few days later. I'm not sure if we are gonna use live drums for our actual tracks but I still need some sort of recording for the drums so I could plot out the midi notes just in case we go the VST route. The kit didn't include the XLR cables so off to Audiophile again for some custom cable needs. Drums works well with out multi-track setup but I have yet to test out the fidelity of the drum recordings versus that of the VST so I might make a man vs. machine feature in the future to test that out.

My experience with buying a kit was as expected, very complicated and very VERY expensive. But all in all I am very happy with the Gretsch Catalina Maple. It is exactly the kit that I wanted to buy. I think the kit will also inspired me enough to try to learn how to play drums for realzies. We'll see how it goes in 2011.