I almost packed the Designers, but steeled my nerves and took the Teardrops. Wish I had taken a picture, but I have little time for photography at gigs.
Goki was right. This kit is perfect for light gigging - by which I mean no mics, medium small venue, and medium loud music with lots of dynamics.
The teardrops were quieter than the Designers, but quiet in a way that fills the room with great drum tone. And nothing detuned in any noticeable way in two hours of constant playing.
The 20" bass has more bottom and more available volume than the 18 Designer, but it loves to feather. It was easy to fill the room with boom, but also easy to go easy. Pronounced attack, big round sound, but with quicker decay that lets you know a lot of air just got moved. The return of the beater felt a little slower and that was disconcerting, but I guess that was a consequence of the bigger head. Maybe adjust the spring for more return? Dunno. It was working so well, I really didn't want to tighten the batter.
As the evening wore on, I discovered that I could hit the 13 rack harder than I would have dared hit the Designer, and that the consequence of hitting it harder was to dig out a deeper sound, so you can imagine I started having a lot of fun with that. It was very easy to achieve the character I needed.
The 16 was also sweet in that same way, very controllable, but giving out a lot of warm lows when really pushed, filling the room but not getting woofy.
I took the 14 Designer and it fit right in.
The calf on the snare was all the business; big fat center hit with crisp edges. The only drawback was not quite as much ring from rimshots, but I liked the way the snare was melding with the music so much - it was soft and never hurt the ears - that I decided not to crank it to chase more ring.
All in all, a most enjoyable inaugural run. In some ways the kit lived up to my hopes, and in others it exceeded them. Gratifying that the decision to buy the kit back from David paid off - it so easily might not have, and it sure made all the work that went into getting them ready worth the effort. Thanks, David!
_________________ Gregory
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