Yes, tone and response are major for a player, but so is price.

DW makes beautiful drums. Yamaha Phoenix drums look to be top notch.

They may be the best drums being made, but they are perhaps not the best value.

Translation, I can't afford them.

Boy that is true. I am also seeing with my rentals, for the most part I just need about a half dozen 6.5x14 Black Beauties.

How much variable do you find between so many BB's? I'm guessing they are mainly older ones.

Noble & Cooley and Craviotto would be at the top of my list of modern drums to own. I have a snare by each, and they easily sound as good as my Rogers and Camcos. I guess they would be considered boutique drums instead of production drums, but still, if I could have a new kit of my choice, it would be either one of those two. They are ultra expensive though.

Stephen

I have two drummer friends who own those brands and these lads are excellent musicians who rave about their drums.

I went looking again today. Drove some distance to a large store. Severely put off by Very Long Bass Drum syndrome from all the brands and the DW bass drum twin tom mount weighs like a COB Super. Funny I liked the Gretsch Catalina Tom mount! Why does a new drum kit need to look like a 4 wheel drive?

Hehe your right there. That is my put off with Tama's design. Too much and too chunky. As for the long BD thing, you can order 14" deep drums from most of the makers. And yeah the DW double Tom mount is heavy.

Good question. In my case I am renting drums and when it is a festival situation I send out quite a few snare drums to give drummers as many options as possible. Most of the artists I am working with are pop, rock, roots rock or perhaps in the hip-hop gospel range. No matter how many snares I bring out, the 6.5 BB gets used about 80% of the time. It doesn't matter if one of my other snares will do the job they want to do as well or better, they usually want a 6.5 BB. The hip-hop gospel guys will want a brighter snare so for them it is usually a Pearl Chad Smith model, one of my 13's or occasionally a 5" Supra. Those guys are the most fun to watch by the way. The linear approach in gospel music is pretty awesome. I'm not talking about southern gospel or gospel quartets, I am talking about really high energy black gospel that is one step away from playing fusion. Seriously cool.

If I had that many BBs in that size I would have one tuned ultra low, one tuned in the medium low range and one tuned medium. I would then duplicate that with die cast rims. I would also get to quit saying "or I have a 6.5" BB that is already on the kit."

Well you don't see any DW kits or Phoenix kits under my signature, but If I won the lottery or something the first call I'd make would be to Mr. Craviotto!! Then maybe a custom DW, and then a 1960's red sparkle Gretsch bop sizes!

Ah you mean you don't actually have 6 or so BB's, but could really do with that many. I have 1 and considering pulling the trigger on another soon.