I wanted to write a little bit about the gear I am using on the road with live ’90s dance music show Ultra ’90s this summer, and share some of the reasoning behind why I’m playing this setup and why it suits this show so well. Here we are in setup at Golden Coast in Woolacombe, Devon, from behind the kit:
The kit I’m using is my Carrera custom ‘Sound’ kit with an 18×14″ bass drum and 10×6″ and 14×10″ toms; it’s perfect for touring, as it’s small and lightweight (which helps in reducing the strain on the stalwart Ultra ’90s van which has to carry to the entire rig from place to place!) thanks to the thin birch shells, but the toms still have good projection despite their shallow depth. The toms are also close mic’ed with Sennheiser E604 drum mics. The bass drum is fitted with a mesh head, and all the bass drum sounds are triggered with a Roland RT-10K, going into an Alesis DM5 module.
I’m using two snare drums here – my 14×5.5″ steambent maple Carrera Tunkan Ingan prototype is my main snare, but I also have a 12×5″ Mapex hammered steel snare as an auxiliary snare.
