Suspended Tom Mounts ?

It takes quite a bit more than that for me to truly be offended, DSOP! I would like to point out however, that none of those were actually facts, they were all opinions. Chris asked for his peers' opinions, so that's what we're stating. He's excited about his new kit and seems to want it to sound as good as it looks, hence the interest in suspension.

Any engineer will tell you that it makes their job MUCH easier if you start with great sounding drums. RIMS were designed for use in the studio, by a working recording drummer.

Any copies that have been made since might as well have been made by Wal Mart, for they were all designed by teams of marketers and engineers to, like I said before: "look sweet" and "sell well".

I doubt when any of us bought our drums, or spent any time tuning them, were thinking about appeasing the general listening public or the next gig's soundguy. Personally, I want my drums to sound good for the same reason a guitar player wants his/her guitar to be in tune with the right amount of warmth, tone, overdrive, reverb, etc. A well tuned drumset can fuel a performance, and poor sounding drums have been the catalyst behind many a drummer's firing.

Unless you only hear your drums when they are coming through the monitors onstage or in a studio, I don't see the problem trying to make them sound as great as possible, before bringing them to an engineer to mic up....

That's just my opinion......

Thanks for the input on Gauger... It really seems like they are the way to go, and I checked out their site.

I will order these with my EPEK kit in the works.

Which issue of MD were they featured in again?

Gauger RIMS are great, but they don't permit very close positioning between the toms. I used them 15 years ago on an old Yamaha Recording Custom kit. They sounded great acoustically and recorded well, but they sounded good with conventional mounts too. I recommend going with a mount that is durable, easy to set up, and lastly, looks good. Getting a great sound has more to do with your touch and your sound engineer (live OR studio). Don't get hung up (no pun intended) on the perfect mount. It's really not that crucial.

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Originally posted by Canarsie:
Unless you only hear your drums when they are coming through the monitors onstage or in a studio, I don't see the problem trying to make them sound as great as possible, before bringing them to an engineer to mic up....

That's just my opinion......

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I agree, but the point I was making is that it isn't crucial, that's all. At a certain price-point, I believe that that money is better spent elsewhere (like rent for instance).

You could make your own EPEK mounts, those are just a Yamaha type wood hoop with a plate drilled to the hoop for the tom mount.

I've used RIMs mounts for several years. But, you know those recordings of pre-YESS Yamahas and the non-suspension mounted Gretsch drums sound pretty good to me.

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Originally posted by Andy Vermiglio:
But, you know those recordings of pre-YESS Yamahas and the non-suspension mounted Gretsch drums sound pretty good to me.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Exactly. I think you can get a bigger bang from your buck from changing your heads and tuning properly. I think RIMS improve your tone by around 15%. New heads by around 50%.

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Originally posted by drumming sort of person:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Andy Vermiglio:
But, you know those recordings of pre-YESS Yamahas and the non-suspension mounted Gretsch drums sound pretty good to me.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Exactly. I think you can get a bigger bang from your buck from changing your heads and tuning properly. I think RIMS improve your tone by around 15%. New heads by around 50%.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I didn't start this topic based on sound.

I was simply wondering why someone would chose one over the other. Which hold the drums better? Which look better? Do they infact effect the sound? In some small way I'm sure they do... but like you said it's mostly tuning, new heads, touch and of course the drums themselves. I think that although these things promote resonance, all these tom mounts are mostly cosmetic.

Fair enough. This pic might interest you, though, Chris. It appears even Epek orders GPI RIMS! =)

http://www.epekpercussion.com/images/fullkitgallery.jpg

As I said before, RIMS were designed by a working Studio drummer, not a marketing genius. As Baarts was kind enough to point out earlier, Drum Manufacturers originally wanted nothing to do with suspension because they didn't think they could sell it. It wasn't until they realized that all of their endorsees were retrofitting their kits with RIMS that they all had to hop onto the suspension bandwagon. You guys are 100% correct that all of these are indeed, purely cosmetic!!

I will agree that the money could be spent elsewhere (like rent money, which I wouldn't spend on heads either!) but whereas you have to replace heads every few months, depending on frequency of use, you only have to purchase a suspension system once. To me, it's a worthy one-time investment in making your kit sound as good as it can....that's all I'm sayin'.......

I've been using the original Gauger RIMS on my Gretsch since I first saw them. I thought it just made a world of sense. I use an older style Pearl rack, Yamaha ball and socket clamps for the smaller toms and Pearl holders (for added stability)for the "floor" toms. Next to my Rock-n-Roller cart I feel they were the best investment I ever made to my kit. Maybe the folks in the last row can't tell the difference, but they shure make the kit sound so big and ballsy from my perspective and that inspires me. To me there's nothing worse than trying to beat tone out of a drum that's choked. That's why I hate floor toms. I found that when I do have to use the legs on my floors if I place a thick cymbal felt under the shortest leg it'll expand the tone immensely. it's not like having them mounted but there's an improvement I can at least live with.