Like many drummers, I’ve not given a lot of thought to drum sizes other than small drums have a higher pitch and large drums have a lower pitch. I bought my last kit because its made of Birch and did not pay much attention to the tom tom diameters. After all, It has a small tom, a medium tom and a large tom. What else do I need to know? I’ve looked at some of the big drum companies to see how they dimension their drums. I’d like to make my drums similar to the industry standards. It turns out there are a few different sizing schemes in use by the big manufacturers.

Being a woodworker of sorts, I have been itching lately to make my own drum kit. There are several options for making your own kit. You can buy shells already made and add the hardware and finish or you can attempt to make the shells yourself.
A few months ago, I decided to order the shells already made from a drum making supply company. Of course, they still have not arrived and I'm not sure if they actually will arrive. Custom drum stuff seems to take a ridiculously long time. I ordered a custom floor tom from Pearl years ago and it took about 7 months to get it.

On Saturday, my wife and I went up to The Forum in Los Angeles to see the final night of the Journey / Def Leppard tour. As a drummer, I was very interested in the difference between Rick Allen’s (Def Leppard) kit and Steve Smith’s (Journey). As most everyone knows, in 1985, Rick Allen lost his left arm in a very tragic car accident. As a result, he plays a highly modified kit that allows him to use both of his feet and his right arm to compensate. (he does this very well, in fact. His playing today is just as good as it ever was.).

Steve Albini was recorded giving his thoughts on what one has to do in order to record drums well. This video was taken around 2005 at a convention called "Tape Op Con".

There's quite a wealth of information here in the video considering it's only about 30 minutes. Steve talks about such things as dealing with phase cancellation, using compressors as noise limiters, using a de-esser instead of a noise gate...

(Phase Cancellation explained briefly inside!)