I hear ya my brother. I'm glad to report that my kit is expanding! I plan on procuring two double bass kits this spring. My current set up looks a little like Todd Sucherman, and Vinnie Colaiuta's. I hate conformity, and my old set up became a hinderance in both sound options and appearance. Every kid under 25 sets up flat four or five piece kits....

They told me they'd build me an Artstar or Granstar kit! I used to dream of getting a Rockstar Pro back in 1991....

Hey Novo, are we getting old?

They're probably feeling the crunch like a lot of companies are. With the Bubinga, Bubinga/Birch, they've got kinda confusing with their product line up. I see that they are trying to evolve with the times without cloning everyone else, but I don't think their finishes hit the mark. Pearl and Tama make some of the highest quality insturments I've ever come across, and it's a shame to see what's happening to them for the sake of image. They seem to be treated like stepping stone companies till the up and coming guys get their deal with "Generic Custom Drum Company" by some dudes in mommy's basement U.S.A.

^ I'm sure they are feeling the downturn. I was surprised (but then it wasn't surprising) when I got e-mail offers for those rebates on the top-end kits - almost unheard of for any company's higher-end stuff. I figured wow, it must be a real shitty economy for Tama to do that. That was one tip off that things aren't going great for them. They started it months ago and it's still running. And now the China thing.



TBH, I think their finish options on most of the bingas, maples, and B/B's are sort of lame, mostly stripes and darkish bursts and they've been done ad nauseum. There's only a few finishes now on the binga Elites that I'd want.

Lombardo's switch kind of surprised me too, but then ddrums is trying to cultivate the image that they're THE "metal drum co". I'm sure ddrums is paying a big chunk of dough and kits for him. They got Carmine A. and Vinnie Paul, so like a lemming Lombardo jumps ship. I guess when I see guys like Frank Beard, Mr. Bruford, or Simon Phillips leaving Tama that's when I'll freak! At least when Cobham left, he went to something worthy of his name (Yamaha).

So Tama will do that?!?!?

What does that cost... notice the fear in my voice?

When I read that I couldn't help but think of how it was 25-30 years ago for the American drum makers. T & P today are cast aside just like back then, when the American ones were deemed "uncool" by the young crowd. I mean, Ludwig and Slingerland were for the "old" guys that my parents and grandparents thought were cool! LOL The Japanese had the slick ads, fashionable colors, heavy duty hardware, and a full roster of endorsers.

I hope Paiste gets some younger endorsers soon. Some of their biggest endorsers are in their 40s and 50s, not exactly the kind of people to get the young'uns to start playing!

Just like T & P were the metal drum co.'s 20 years ago.

Does this mean we're old?

That's what the rep told me! Same price as starclassic.

No, I think it means that people want a new icon every so many years, whether it's a good thing or not.

Here it also looks like he's behind a stripped down setup:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... D=69884058

There's some vids up on the ddrum website now. He's playing what looks like the same size drums in a similar red as he had with tama.

The only question is what pedals he's using now??

probably what he has used in the past, but I don't know that for sure. just a guess. once you get pedals "dialed in", it is hard to switch. But only DL knows (maybe ) what he really uses

Hey Potato....what's goin' on?

Watched him last weekend, he used Iron Cobras still.