I have been mulling around with the idea of going to an acoustic kit simply for the authenticity of it all. But I knew I just didn’t want to deal with all of the noise. It wouldn’t be an issue for neighbors, as they are far enough away but I really love being able to put my 1 year old to bed at 8 and then be able to drum and not disturb him. I don't have space for two kits so, I decided to go ahead with a full conversion. I have been playing a converted Taye snare for about 6 months with a Jobeky 4-arm trigger. It’s an excellent trigger, really nothing more to say. No wiring involved; everything has connectors on it.
About 2 months ago I went into a local music store. He had a used CB700 drum set. At the time I wasn’t sure what route I was going to take so I didn’t grab it. After keeping an eye out on Craigslist for those 2 months, one Saturday I just went back to the store and picked up the 4-piece CB set for $100. Sizes are 12x8, 13x9, 16x15, 22x14, and the snare I already had is a 14x5.5 ... actually it's like 14x5 3/8 lol. Cheap.
At first I was going to fix the imperfections in the shells, sand, and stain. But after getting the black vinyl wrap off, I didn’t really even like the look of the wood grain in the shells so I pivoted to a wrap. My favorite looking drums right now are the Mapex Saturn V in the natural maple burl. They are beautiful. I found some maple burl wrap from Bum Wrap Drum Co. that wasn’t quite the same but very close so I got some pre-cut pieces for each drum.
For the rest of the drums I decided to go with UFO triggers this time. I liked the look of the bass trigger with the 5” foam pad for the beater. A little more work is needed to get these put together and installed compared to Jobeky but they were still very easy. They triggered very well right after install, just a couple module adjustments were needed. I’ll keep playing with it a bit I’m sure, I think I was getting extra bass triggering here and there. But I was too excited to be playing the kit to notice. Mitch provides a good set of instructions and tips to get them installed. It's nice that you can customize your triggers a bit. I went for 1/4" long stem TRS jacks to mount in the shells.
The heads are Drum-tec real feel heads. I splurged a little on these as they seem to be considered one of the best if not the best mesh head out there. They definitely feel better than the Alesis Crimson heads but at double the cost I’m not sure if they can be THAT much better than, say, Jobeky’s 3-ply heads. But I decided on these after the reviews on V-Drum Tips and 65drums. I also bought Remo Silent Strokes as a fake resonant head so that I could utilize the bottom hardware. There was no way I was going to leave that off. It completes the look and I already happened to have a 14”.
Lastly, for a little flair I bought a vintage bass shield logo from Vintage Logos. This didn’t really want to adhere to the brand-new Remo coated Ambassador but I got it on. It shouldn’t really come off if it’s not disturbed but while I was peeling off the backing paper it was pulling off the drum head as well.
I wanted to buy individual cymbal stands but that would also make me have to figure out what to do with the module. I don’t know if the Crimson can mount to some of these module mounts with the cable snake connecting from the bottom. I decided to set it up with the chrome Crimson rack and liked the look. This way I can also keep using the cable sleeve to help hide them a bit.
In a few months I’d like to upgrade the cymbals and maybe the module. I have my eye on the Jobeky L/V cymbals pack. But I’m not really sure if I’ll gain much by upgrading the module. I’d probably go for a used Strike off of Reverb if anything. Any thoughts on if it’s a worthwhile upgrade? I use EZDrummer 90% of the time so I do not care about the internal sounds. Do I gain much in the way of more advanced settings and adjustments?
I’ll try to post a video of some playing … but my talent level is not up to par with this kit lol.