Let’s talk about your equipment, your tools of the trade your pride and joy drum set or snare or cymbals. All those things you drool about at the shop, pull out some of your hard earned and then try to buy the cheapest you can – only joking here you know.Your equipment speaks volumes about you as a player and professional musician if that’s what you are attempting to be, it’s the conduit between you and your ideas and the audience.

Its also one of the most visual things you will see on a stage and best of all is you get to sit behind it in all its glory or non glory.

You get to thrash around on it or delicately caress it, you get to sweat up wildly or coolly push out the grooves, what ever it will be you get to do it and people look on in awe, admiration and understanding - hopefully.

A little story here from me, a few years ago my band did a big New Years eve gig, it was one of those gigs you look forward to for months, in our scene it was a converted gig, it paid well, it was outdoors, it had big exposure and we were treated very well at the venue. As our act was quite busy at the time I only really ever saw my gig kit setup at the shows and at rehearsals, this was mistake #1.

In addition although the equipment I was using was top quality pro stuff I hadn’t looked at it closely maintenance wise for a while, this was mistake #2. I assumed the gears performance would be the same night after night, month after month, mistake #3.

Now prior to this we had done dozens of gigs and rehearsals at all types and sizes of venues without as so much of a whimper from my very hard working drum kit, all very good. Roll up to the big night in front of thousands of people and off we go just as we had done many times before and you guessed it the inevitable happens, I have gear failure.

All of a sudden I am looking at my bass drum pedal and thinking that is very strange why is the pedal not bouncing back or going down or doing any thing remotely resembling what a bass pedal should be doing.

I was using a double pedal at the time and starting using my other foot to get through the song but off course my name isn’t Thomas Lang and I cant play exactly the same way on my weaker foot as my good foot so I pushed to the end thinking that a quick and easy 2 second repair would need to be made as soon as we finished this song.

To cut a long story short it worked out that a tiny grub screw deep in the working of the pedal but easy to maintain had worked its way loose over the months/years and had allowed the shaft and the beater to slide apart and no 2 second repair with the wrong tools was going to fix it on a dark stage in front of a waiting crowd and a pissed off angry band.

The moral of the story is to inspect you equipment or at the very least the hardest working parts of your gear.

The bass pedal should be pulled apart and checked at least every 3 months and put back together nice and tight. The tom arms should be checked for tightness and wear at the same time. The cymbal arm holders should also be checked for wear and tear too. Look over your tuning lugs and the nylon washers to see if they are still intact and replace before they need them.

Check your snare head both top and the ever popular never looked at bottom head regularly, there’s nothing worse than a great gig and a blown bottom snare head giving you that crappy high pitched tom sound where a cracking snare should be.
And while you are doing all this give your gear a good clean, you will be amazed at how much better you play and sound and feel behind a clean good sounding kit that you are proud of.

Lastly and this is something I really mean, buy the best equipment you can afford, the difference between the stuff you can afford today and the stuff you can buy after saving a bit more is worth it. Good quality gear comes at a price but it will last you almost as long as you want it if you look after it and it suits the purpose for which you bought it.

If in doubt speak to an easy to deal with reputable retail store for honest advice. And we all should know who and where to go for that or you wouldn’t be on this website in the first place.

See ya

Dean