My Dominion Drum Set

Starting out as a 6 piece, my ddrum dominion monster was added to, and customized until it turned into a 14 piece killer set! Starting with the base set, the original 5 piece ddrum dominion was purchased with:

Dominion Ddrum Lime Sparkle

Taken in May, 2010, pre-monster!

  • 20×20 kick
  • 12″ rack tom
  • 14″ floor tom
  • 16″ floor tom
  • 13×7 snare drum

When the set was originally purchased, a custom ordered 10″ rack tom was ordered, and has a badge reading “ddrum Custom maple shell” and had a matching “lime green sparkle” wrap.  I don’t use the snare that came with the set, but instead, I use a Brilliant Silver Sparkle, Old school Rogers snare.  It’s a 14×5.5, and has an amazing CRACK to it!

Add Ons and Custom Drums

I’m just your average local drummer, maybe with a few more years of experience (even though when I wrote this i was 25, I was going on 23 years of experience), but nonetheless, I play out on average twice a month as a hobby at this point (Boy wouldn’t we all like to do it every day?), and was just getting bored playing on a standard 6 piece, “2 up, 2 down” set.  I added a little percussive area to my left, including a piccolo snare and the standard tambourine that mounts to your hats, along with a cowbell.  A big influence of mine is Mike Portnoy, among many, and Avenged Sevenfold is my favorite style of drumming.   That being said, I wanted more toms!  So a group I was jamming with as a side project had a drum set furnished where they practice, along with a few odds and ends, so I ended up being given some of these odds and ends, which happened to include a set of single headed toms (not sure if they were an older version of the concert tom, or if they are supposed to be tiny timbales, but the sizes were perfect, 6″ and 8″.  This was by far one of the best finds for my drums, because when mic’d, they tune perfectly with the rest of the toms in my kit!  So I went out and had the paint on my drums matched and stripped all of the hardware off of these toms, then painted them to a near perfect match of the original set! (the main issue is that there was too much sparkle applied over the lime green color, which actually made the green appear a bit darker.. but I don’t care!)

That wasn’t the last of the DDrum Custom Domionion addition!

Nope, After the 6 and 8 inch toms, I needed something on the lower end.  I never got into having 3 floor toms or having a floor tom over by my hats, so the only viable option was a “gong drum”.  Wow, have you heard these in action yet?  They’re incredible!  Have you ever came across one for sale?  HAH!  Ebay is usually dry, Craigslist, well, PSH that’s a joke if you think you’ll find one on there!  So the only option I had was to make one myself!  A friend of mine who had recently given me a few odds and end drums was an instructor in a marching style band, and ended up with an old double batter bass drum that used to sit on a stand (or be mounted to the chest for an off stage event), and the size was actually small for a gong drum, 16″.  I figured I’ll see what I can get out of it, anyway.  So I took the hoops off, got rid of the “whole drum length” tension rods that actually tuned both heads from one side, I painted the drum with the same matching lime green sparkle paint, I used some lugs off an old kick drum, slapped a head on, and used the old hoop claws to latch on to the edge of the drum head.  I currently only have a 16″ head on it, but I checked, and it looks like a 17 will work as well, so I’m waiting for that to arrive.

We’re Up To 9 Drums, But Where Are The Rest?

Well, I had fun on the 9 piece for a few months, then started looking at add on percussive drums, and falling in love with Mike Portnoy’s Octoban set.  So I had my sights on them for a while, then when I found a set of 4 at the right place, I purchased them and then decided I needed a rack.  Go figure!  So I pieced together a 3 sided Gibraltar rack, set everything up, and had an empty space to the side of my main hats (I stopped using the Piccolo snare a while back).  So I was at my local Guitar Center and picked up a PDP 10″ piccolo tom, with no snare, and put that there.. The space still looks empty, but it’ll get filled up sooner or later.  And that is how I got up to 14!

UPDATE:

Ddrum dominion lime beast

July of 2011, This is the kit that has formed out of passion, dedication, and a few thousand dollars!

The kit talked about has grown into a beast now!  As you can see by the

pictures, I recently acquired the 2nd – 20×20 kick drum, added an offical 8×7 ddrum dominion lime tom, tweaked the rack a bit- turned it into a low rise on the sides, with the same curved bar attaching to a foot piece in the back and connecting to a vertical leg in the front beside my kick drum.  I tweaked the look to become inanely professional, incredibly solid, and it’s quickly spreading in the area as one of the most beautiful masterpieces ever beaten with sticks on a regular basis!  In all honesty, the set is gorgeous to look at in these pictures, but until you see it set up in it’s entirety in person, being played on, you haven’t witnessed the best sight yet!  For updates on where this kit will be, join our facebook page and check out future dates and places!

What About Cymbals?

My cymbal collection that I’ve acquired over the years has gotten extremely expensive.  Especially for a non touring drummer like myself, that isn’t endorsed or anything:

  • 20″ Z Custom Mega Bell Ride
  • 17″ Z Custom Crash
  • 16″ Z Custom Crash
  • 16″ Z3 Crash
  • 15″ K Custom Hybrid
  • 15″ K Custom
  • 14″ A Custom Rock Hats (MAIN)
  • 14″ Z Custom Dyno-Beat Hats (ALT)

Those are the main Cymbals, then I also Have a few effects cymbals consisting of China’s and Splash’s:

  • 20″ Wuhan China
  • 16″ Wuhan China
  • 13″ Wuhan Splash
    • 12″ Wuhan China (The 2 are combined to make a Portnoy Stax sound)
  • 12″ Wuhan Splash
    • 11″ Wuhan China (The 2 are combined to make a Portnoy Stax sound)
  • 12″ Wuhan Splash
  • 10″ A Custom Splash
  • 10″ Wuhan Splash

How About Hardware?

A majority of the hardware I own is DW, although I’m still working on a few parts..  Realistically, I’m not picky about my hardware, as long as it’s got a good design and has a good reputation.  Recently within the past year I’ve been upgrading to DW because some of the older stands were starting to break at stupid spots, and I wanted good replacements.  I have a combination of 6 stands (all are either 8000 or 9000 series) made by DW, with everything from DogBone attachments to tom holders. (one of the stands I got was the 8799, 2 toms/3 cymbals).  Though I still use all of the DW cymbal arms with my rack, I have quite a few base stands sitting around waiting to be used.

I use a Gibraltar Rack with 13 clamps, most with memory locks, that actually has 5 sides, but It’s more of a convenience thing.  I could do it with 3, but I have a wing in the back that holds my vocal mic stand, plus I have a small 2 foot extension part in the front that helps me with positioning around my hats, so It appears to be 3 sided when on stage.

I use a DW 5000 AD3 double bass pedal, 2 legged DW 3000 Hi-Hat Stand, and all of my drum mics are Samson and Nady.