u/MarsDrums

I saw these things on eBay and they kinda looked pretty cool. So I decided to look for some information on their sound and from what I heard they sounded pretty good. Like REALLY good in a couple of the videos I saw. They're made from B20 Alloy which is great!

So I started watching these on eBay. They're up there all the time. They start at a penny but I've seen them got for anywhere from $90 to $120+. I didn't really want to spend that much. It's been a while since I bought anything on eBay and forgot, you have a better chance on getting things cheaper if you don't drive the price up so early. Well, before I knew it, there were 4 days left on the first pair I saw and I bid $60 on them. By that evening they were $85. Those are the ones I saw go to $120+... Whoops, My bad!

So, the 2nd pair I watched kinda went up quickly too. Those I saw go for around $80. I wasn't that interested in them. I have 2 sets of 13" New Beats so I really don't need to spend $80+ shipping and taxes on something I really don't need.

Come to these. I watched them. Expecting them to climb to $60-$80 before auction end. But they were at around $16 maybe 5 minutes before auction end time. So I sat and watched them. I figured I'd bid $45 on them maximum about 5 seconds before the end of the auction. Just before I placed my bid, they jumped to $26 but I pressed the Bid button and I saw $36 come up right after I placed the bid. Did I get them? My highest bid was $45 but was I too late? Nope! I won those for $36! It cost $11 to ship and another $8 in taxes. So I paid around $56 with shipping and taxes.

I was a bit nervous. What if these were just garbage? I supposed I could just sell them. Maybe get my money back.

Well, they arrived today. Packed in a box that was sort of piecemealed together. But I pulled them out and they were kinda light. So I was expecting a pretty crisp sounding set of hi-hats. Even the bottom cymbal is light. Lighter than my New Beat bottom anyway. So I put them on my hi-hat stand and started playing them and HOLY F'ING HELL!!!!! These sound TERRIFIC!!! MAN!!! I am really impressed with these Hi-Hats!!!

So, if you have an eBay account, look up Saluda Electrified Hi-Hats. The coloring is all different on them so what you see in the photo might be different from the way they look when you get them. Mine look better than they did in the pictures. So I'm happy about that indeed!

They actually have a YouTube channel. Check it out...

BTW, if you're wondering what all the pitting is in my cymbals, they hand hammer them.

I just got done watching this interview and I knew Neil did Instamatic with them. But I didn't know about the friendship that grew between Neil and Matt Scannell.

So, apparently they did a few songs together. If you haven't heard it yet, Instamatic is a great song. There are also 4 other songs that Neil played on with Vertical Horizon.

-Even Now ...WOW! What a great song!

-Save Me From Myself ...Another great tune!

-Welcome To The Bottom ...How did I not know about these songs!?!?!

-South for the Winter ...I love this one too.

-Instamatic ...Simply a great Neil on drums classic

I believe Neil wrote the lyrics for all 5 of these songs AND played drums on them.

Give them a listen if you've never heard them before. You won't be sorry!

This is just a tune I like to warm up with and mess around with from time to time. It's nowhere NEAR perfect. It's just something I like to mess around with while I'm warming up. It's a no holds barred sort of thing really.

I forget where I got it from but if anyone wants me to share just the drumless track so you can play around with it, I'd be happy to share it. It'll probably have to go to my Discord but I'll figure that out if need be.

It's a 5 minute track and it's just a repeating track of 16 bars. Kind of a fun track to warm up to. I love playing to it.

I've been wanting to explore this interesting grip more and more the better I get at it. I didn't actually learn it well enough until I was on my 15 year hiatus from drumming. I just kind of started messing around with it on the bed one night. I wasn't real good at it at first. But I found myself one night tired at around 1AM laying down on my left side still with drum sticks in my hand and just monkeying around with them. Until one night, doing the same thing, I noticed I was holding the left stick using traditional grip and I was actually in control of the stick.

Now, this is just me playing on a mattress and I thought nothing of it really. I actually thought I'd be terrible at it behind a kit IF I ever got one again. But the more and more I used this technique, sitting up playing with traditional grip on the mattress, I wondered if I could actually have control with actual rebound. Like on a practice pad. So I grabbed my ReelFeel pad and started playing on it using traditional grip. It wasn't bad. Wasn't great either but I had some control of that left stick. This was maybe 2-3 years before I got my current kit. So, I worked on polishing up that traditional grip and I got it pretty good. My double strokes were pretty good and even my alternating flams (Lr Rl Lr Rl...) were pretty good too.

Fast forward to this evening. I've had this kit now going on 6 years and I was just playing around on the pad watching TV and MAN! My traditional grip is just top freaking notch tonight!

So, I started looking at traditional grip drummers setups like Todd Sucherman and Vinnie Colaiuta. I noticed Todd's kit is pretty cymbal and drum heavy on the right side with the hi-hats and a China and I think 1 crash cymbal and a small tom on the left. Everything else is on the right. Vinnie's kit looks pretty standard. This video is actually inspiring me to want to switch to traditional. It's dirty and clean at the same time!

So, I'm wondering if I should keep my kit the way it is setup or should I set it up for easier traditional grip playing. I think I kinda want to start playing traditional grip more. But should I keep my kit the way it is or should I make it more "Traditional Grip Friendly" like Todd's, or should I just keep it the way it is and try to adjust to it like Vinnie has appeared to have done?

I think playing my kit the way I have it setup now, which is pretty much a standard setup, would make it easier for me to sit down at any kit and play traditional grip.

I still need to move some things around because I made some adjustments before thinking about making this traditional grip stuff permanent and i need to set the toms up in a more fluid type manner. So I can just run down the toms and not hit a rim or a cymbal on the way down. This is all basic drum setup stuff that I need to fix. Once I get it right, it should be fine for both matched and traditional I think.

Stupid question, but, are any of you traditional grip players using a standard setup where everything is spread out evenly around the kit or are you setup where almost everything is on the right?

Also, I'm 60 now and the fact that I still want to try new things I think is a good thing. Fun too! Being away from age 40-55 really made me miss out on a lot of challenges I think. So, I'm kinda glad I still like to challenge myself at this age really. Makes me feel like I'm still in my 20s really to be honest.

Anyway... I'm gonna go back to the practice pad for a bit and hope I didn't wear out traditional grips welcome. ;)

Night all!