After lugging gear around, UK-based drummer Al Provan decided less is more!
I retired a short while ago from a career in the UK tech sector. I still love to play with technology, and when I’m not drumming, I do a bit of sound engineering and video production. I also co-host regular singer-songwriter evenings and an open mic night.
I started to learn drums about 12 years ago at the age of 50. I wasn’t sure I could do it, so I bought a cajon and found a teacher. After a few weeks, we agreed I should learn drums and he’s been teaching me ever since.
I started off with an acoustic kit but I felt guilty about practising at home because of the noise. I bought my first e-kit – a Roland TD9, and played that for a few years, but I still hankered for the feel of an acoustic kit.
After a few e-kits (a TD-17 and a Jobeky 2box) I eventually bought a second-hand acoustic kit and some nice Zildjian K cymbals and played in a band for a while. But the band was playing energetic songs and the noise on stage was just overpowering.
So, I decided on an A2E conversion, taking my lovely DW CX series Pacific kit and installing Jobeky triggers. I bought a Roland TD-27KVX2 with the digital snare, ride and hats. That gave me options. For smallish gigs, I could play the TD-27KVX2 with its rack set-up, and for bigger gigs, I could use my A2E 22” kick and three toms with the rest of the TD-27 bits.
Recently, I’ve found the need for an even more compact set-up. I’m in a few bands and it’s a lot of work lugging that kit around to various practice spaces and regular gigs. The final straw was being asked to do a live radio session and being told there was only room for a cajon.
I decided to create an ultra-compact kit that would be easy to transport without losing too much playability and versatility. I decided that the absolute irreducible minimum configuration is the module, a kick and a snare. Next priority would be the hats, a crash and then at least one tom. After that, a ride.
The CY18DR ride is big and I decided I could live without it for these small gigs. So, I drew the line there and came up with my current ultra-compact set-up. There’s no rack, no cable harness, and a bare minimum of stuff to carry.
The kit consists of:
- TD-27 module on a stand
- PD-140-DS digital snare on a traditional snare stand connected by USB
- BT-1 trigger attached to the snare, connected to Aux 1
- VH-14D digital hi-hat on a traditional hat stand connected by USB
- BT-1 trigger mounted on the pull rod, connected to Aux 2
- KT-10 kick pedal connected to Aux 3
I took a copy of one of my favourite kits and reassigned sounds to the different pads (only took a couple of minutes), and saved all the pad settings as a new bank of triggers.
People I play with can’t believe it sounds just like my normal kit – and that’s the beauty of it. Whatever configuration I use, it sounds the same.
I can’t pretend that the ultra-compact kit is as nice to play as the full-sized kit. It isn’t. But it is very satisfying to have something that small that sounds awesome and only takes a few minutes to set up and take down. And you can load in and out in a single trip.