The pros and cons of building your own drumset...

Written by Zack Albetta


Zack Albetta with his self-built kit.

Introduction—When it comes to a new set of drums, whether you are a newbie looking for your first practice set, or a seasoned pro looking for your next workhorse, the number and variety of options can be daunting. Cost, size, material, intended use, and cosmetic aspects are just a few of the variables that influence this decision, and all must be considered carefully. All too often, a drumset does not fully satisfy all of its owner’s criteria. “The drums sound great, but the hardware is falling apart.” “I wish the floor tom was a 16-inch instead of a 14-inch.” “I want a second bass drum, but they don’t make this color anymore.” “It sounds great for rock, but it’s just too much for jazz.” These are a few of many complaints I have heard (and had) over the years. Fortunately, I and many other drummers around the world have discovered the solution to all of these problems: Build your own!

Countless drum shops and websites offer all the materials a drummer could ever need or want to build any type of drumset he/she can dream up. With these materials, a few basic tools, a little know-how and a few days’ work, you can transform a pile of raw shells and hardware into a roaring beast that you can truly call your own and be proud to play. I did just this in the fall of 2002. Using materials purchased from DrumMaker.com, I designed and built seven drums, which sound amazing and constantly catch the eyes of musicians and audiences alike. If you need to hear this from someone other than the person who built and owns it, you need only ask my best friend. He is the proud owner of an eight-piece DW Collector’s Series set (considered by many to be among the finest drums ever made), and he will be the first to tell you that my drums look and sound every bit as good as his.

Although I couldn’t be happier with how my set turned out, I do not consider myself an expert drum builder, so I will leave the “how to” aspects of this process to those who do. What I do feel I can speak on with some credibility are the inherent advantages and disadvantages I encountered in building my set, and those I continue to encounter after four years of playing it professionally.

PRO: Customization—Building your own set is the ultimate in customization. Every aspect of the set—the number of drums, their sizes and specs, shell thickness, bearing edge shape, materials, color (stain, finish, wrap), lug style, mounting systems—EVERYTHING is exactly to your specifications. Your set can have everything you want and nothing you don’t.

Con: Too Many Choices!—If you’re not that familiar with the anatomy of drums (how they’re constructed, what they’re made of, what makes drum A sound different from drum B), it can be difficult to know how you need to design your drums in order to get your desired result. This is easily remedied with a bit of hands-on studying. Go to music stores and drum shops, go to conventions, visit friends’ houses, sit down behind as many sets as you can, and make some judgments. Whether it’s a set you love or hate, find out about it. Who made it? When? What is it made of? If it’s wood, what type and how many plies? What are the specs? Does this set’s sound have more to do with the shells or the heads/tuning? Answers to these questions will help you discover what you like and don’t like about certain drums, and why. For beginners especially, I highly recommend finding a drumset that you really like, and modeling the one you build after it. The one I built was closely modeled after my friend’s DW. It’s not a clone, I made certain adjustments to fit my preferences, but I used what I liked about his set as a starting point.

PRO: Cost—The final price tag for my seven drums, with heads, was about $2,200. Substantial, to be sure, but a steal when you consider the list price for the six-piece DW set after which it was modeled is $6,000. There are economic as well as extravagant routes to follow when building a set. Options that will jack up the price include exotic woods, thicker shells, solid shells, reinforcement rings, unusual sizes, wood or die-cast counter-hoops, having bearing edges and snare beds cut for you, having holes drilled for you, having staining/lacquering/wrapping done for you, and obviously, a large number of drums. If you’re looking to get out of it as cheaply as possible (maybe for a beginner or practice set), build a smaller set with triple-flanged hoops, stock lugs, and thinner shells, and if you have the necessary equipment (lathe, router, and drill or drill press) and expertise, do the cutting, drilling and finishing yourself. Even if you go the tricked-out route, I have yet to see a personally built set that didn’t cost less than its name brand factory-built equivalent. As with any product, the name will cost you. When I wanted to retro-fit my snare drum with maple hoops, I could have bought a pair of Yamaha hoops (like the ones featured on the Anton Fig, Elvin Jones, Billy Cobham and Akira Jimbo signature snares) for $350. Instead, I visited PrecisionDrum.com and found a beautiful hand-made pair of maple hoops for $160. Spending an afternoon lacquering them myself was definitely worth saving almost $200.

PRO/CON: Hardware (pedals and stands)—In terms of customization, it can be considered a pro. As I alluded to before, one of the major problems I have with many factory sets is that while many of them sound and look great, the hardware leaves much to be desired. It can be too heavy, too light, prone to locking/breaking, or have limitations in its modular versatility. If you build your own kit, you can use the hardware you like and trust, whether you already have it or buy it new. Again, everything you want, nothing you don’t.

In terms of cost, it can be considered a con because if you don’t intend to use hardware you already have, it will raise the price tag a bit. Many factory sets come with pedals, a snare stand, maybe even some cymbal stands included in the price.

PRO: Versatility—This is extremely beneficial to drummers who play different types of music. Many factory sets are specifically designed for one type of music, be it death metal, jazz or classic rock. Even if you find a set of drums that you like, it may be bigger or smaller than what you want. With the choices you make regarding number, sizes and specs, you can design a set versatile enough to meet many if not all of your musical requirements and actually come out with multiple drumsets in one. In my case, I play mostly jazz as well as some rock. I also play musicals, which draw their influences from many styles including rock, jazz, country, funk, and classical. Another aspect of versatility is space—sometimes you have enough space to airlift Niel Peart’s kit in, but sometimes someone points to a spot on the floor the size of a door mat and says “This is where you’ll be.” So, using my friends DW set as a reference, I designed seven drums that could provide me with any combination of options I would need for any musical situation. Here are the specs of my set, width X depth.

Toms (2 rack, 2 floor): 6-ply, 10 X 8, 12 X 9, 13 X 11, 15 X 14
Snare: 10-ply 14 X 5.5 with maple hoops
Bass Drums: 8 ply, 22 X 18, 6-ply 18 X 16

It is worth noting that I built two different bass drums. The set I owned before this one had a 20 X 16 bass drum, and while it sounded good, I found it overpowering for small group jazz, but not powerful enough for rock or big band jazz. So rather than design one drum that might work sufficiently for either setting, I designed two separate drums that were each exactly what I wanted for their respective applications. I have yet to play a gig that my set could not accommodate.

CON: You're on your own—To their credit; many drum companies offer great warranties on their products. If something breaks or malfunctions, a new item free of charge is only a phone call away. However, if something YOU built takes a dive, or if you should have the misfortune of damaging or ruining a drum in the building process, the only phone call you’ll be making is to a parts provider and it’s coming out of your pocket. Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This means, in the building, measure twice and cut (or drill) once, and after it’s built, buy some good cases and perform routine maintenance on your kit. In the four years I have owned my kit I have had to replace four items (not including heads)—two tom-mount brackets that stripped out and two lugs that snapped off the shell—totaling about $50. (If you’re wondering about the wood hoops for the snare, the metal hoops that were originally on it were in perfect condition; the wood hoops that replaced them were just a little birthday present I gave myself).

PRO: Add-ons/Signature models—When you want to add a drum or two to your set, it can often be expensive and difficult (if not impossible). In some cases the company no longer makes your model and if they do, they may no longer offer your stain or wrap. If they do, there’s no guarantee that the new ones will exactly match the old ones, visually or acoustically. It can also be extremely expensive—with the exception of snare drums, drum companies don’t like selling single drums because they either have to break a set or build one especially for you, so they have to make it worth their while.

With Signature models, again, you pay as much for the name as you do for the product, sometimes more. If you build your own, you can have an exact replica of whatever model you fancy, for a fraction of the price. As unique and specialized as some signature models can be, there have been few drums made that can’t be reproduced. It may not look exactly the same, and of course it won’t have your idol’s name on it, but yours can have all of the anatomic and acoustic features that make the signature model sound the way it does, and the sound is what we really care about. (It is, isn’t it? I mean, we’re talking about instruments here, not basketball shoes). I am thinking about building a snare drum similar to the Yamaha Akira Jimbo signature snare—13 X 7 with maple hoops. Insert “cool” smiley here.

Conclusion—Building a drumset is not for everyone. It takes some homework, patience and craftsmanship. If you’re worried about your lack of expertise in woodworking, don’t be. Before I built my set, my experience in woodwork was limited to…well…ok…I had no experience in woodwork. But I did know how to use a ruler, a drill and a screwdriver, I had a good working knowledge of how drums are put together, and I knew exactly what I wanted and did not want out of a drumset. Armed with this knowledge, I set about it and got fantastic results, and you can too. You’ll come out of it not only with custom drums, but also with a sense of accomplishment and pride, especially when someone looks over your set for a minute or two, asks you what kind it is, and you get to say, “I built them!” Good luck, and if you should decide to take on a building project, we want to see pics!

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