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Setting Up Your Drum Kit - A Beginners Guide

There are pretty much infinite variations of drum kit layout, affected by the size and number of drums, the player's technique, number and sizes of cymbals, the physical dimensions and reach of the drummer, the scope for adjustment of hardware and not least the 'accepted' style and look for playing a given form of music. However, there are some basic rules of thumb which apply for any budding drummer to make maximum progress with the instrument whilst avoiding picking up any bad playing habits or inconvenient injuries. Everything I'll say is this article is based on personal experience from many years of drumming and engineering/recording drummers, but it's a given that there will be a degree of subjective opinion here – take what you find useful and leave the rest! Finally before we get stuck in, I'm right-handed so any references to left or right sides will be based on that perspective – if you play left-handed just reverse them. The most basic step towards the setup which works best for you is to optimally arrange your stool, bass drum pedal and bass drum. Set up your bass drum and attach the pedal; as an aside, do experiment with where the beater actually strikes the bass drum, as the most intuitive position for it (striking the head dead-centre) often doesn't produce the best available tone – try it an inch or two above this, particularly on bigger drums. If you're using a double pedal, take a moment to make sure that the position of your secondary pedal isn't putting your legs too far akimbo, but don't worry about it too much right now – it'll probably need adjusting once the snare and hi-hats come into play anyway. Now, stool height. Getting this right is one of the most important steps towards being comfortable with your kit, but it's also one of the variables with the most degree of personal preference. As a general rule, if you play with your bass drum heel down most of the time (a more controlled, traditional style of play which sacrifices outright power for finesse and subtlety) your stool should be set at a height which puts your legs pretty much horizontal once your foot is on the pedal (FIG 1). The more 'heel-up' your style is (with more of the energy in each stroke coming from the upper leg than the ankle, usually yielding a more powerful stroke) the higher your stool may need to be (FIG 2) – that said, if your thigh is still at a downward angle when your toe is on the pedal and heel as high as it gets, your stool is too high! Okay, now we've got your stool height set, we'll introduce the snare drum. First a word on angle – there seems to be something of a fashion over the last few years to sit quite high above one's kit with most of the drums set at a horizontal angle. There's nothing wrong with this at all, but be aware that setting your drum angles according to fashion rather than what actually suits your style best is inviting strains, mis-hits and poor playing habits, especially if you haven't fully developed your own style yet. Again, general playing technique has a big bearing on this – if you play with a matched grip (i.e. both hands holding the sticks in the same way), your snare is likely to be most comfortable horizontal or angled somewhat towards you. If you play with a traditional or 'jazz' grip (i.e. with your left hand holding the stick underhand, resting in the 'web' area of the thumb) anything angled towards the drummer is likely to be less comfortable – some trad grip players even angle their snares away from them to emulate the marching drum position from which this grip developed. Whichever grip you use, another rule of thumb (there's a few of these; as I say, there's no right or wrong way to set a kit up, just the best way for you!) for gauging a good snare position is to hold a stick straight out from your belly button and be sure that its tip is somewhere in the region of the centre of the snare's batter head (FIG 3). Having taken our stool height from the optimum position for using our feet to drum, there may now need to be a slight compromise made in snare height, but this is a good way to get in the right general area – if your snare's too low you're likely to find yourself beating the hell out of your upper legs, too high and it's likely that EVERY snare note will be a rim-shot, whether you want it to be or not! Like it or not, for any flash playing you incorporate on the toms or cymbals, the kick and snare are what give a song its groove so get yourself totally happy with the position of these two drums first. Before we move on you should be able to play rolls on the snare without unintentionally hitting the hoop, whilst being able to incorporate head-splitting rim shots (where the stick hits the rim and the batter head simultaneously) without changing your grip and with minimal change in your stance. Oh, and SIT UP STRAIGHT! Next let's have a look at hi-hat positioning. Your left foot should now fall comfortably into a particular position now that we've got our bass drum and snare right, so put your hi-hat pedal somewhere here. Hi-hat stands with rotating legs or two-legged stands will help with positioning other stands and pedals around it later, but don't compromise with where the upright of your hi-hat stand falls – taking your drumming position as a clock with the snare drum as the centre and directly in front of your body as twelve o'clock, don't be surprised if the most comfortable layout puts the bass drum at one o'clock and the hi-hat upright at eleven. What we're looking for is the point where the right hand can move easily from snare drum to hi-hat without the hats being in the way of snare drum playing – the size of your snare drum and hi-hats will have a bearing on this (see FIG 4, where I've set up a 13" snare and 12" hi-hats; the relatively small dimensions of the instruments allow everything to be fairly close together, which won't always be the case), experiment and see what works best for you. As far as hi-hat height goes, the ideal is where either hand can go slickly from hats to snare without them being SO low that they impede your snare playing – usually around 15-20cm above the snare batter will suffice, but many players (notably Dave Grohl in the Nirvana days, and a number of punk drummers who don't incorporate much left-hand hi-hat work) set their hi-hats much higher than this. The next drum to position which almost every drummer will have in their kit is the first floor tom. Usually this will fit nicely opposite the snare drum on your right hand side, and most drummers playing on stages or in rooms where space is at a premium will want it as close to the bass drum as it will go. How far over to your right and how high you want this drum is again down to personal preference, although a good place to start is making it as symmetrical as possible with the snare – set it at the same height initially with the angle opposite to how the snare is set (sort of using your bass drum thigh as a mirror), then tweak it as you see fit (FIG 5). You should be looking for the spot where you can easily continue a snare roll onto the floor tom with minimal rotation of your body. The final part of the kit which I believe will form 99% of drummers' setups is the ride cymbal. This should fall easily somewhere under the right hand, but exactly where will depend on what other drums and cymbals form your drum kit. Personally I like it to hang slightly over the first floor tom (FIG 6) but exactly where you place yours will depend on how many mounted toms you use, whether you have a second floor tom, whether you need to be able to 'crash' the ride cymbal and how physically big the cymbal is. However, for a beginner I think that if you follow these setup pointers and play your kit for a while in a 'bare-bones' fashion like this, you will more quickly be able to work out your own individual playing style, where to place other drums and cymbals in your own kit whilst avoiding over-stretching yourself. And three final things - 1/ Even an hour's lesson with a professional tutor will be more than worth it when starting out, especially to ensure that your stick grip is okay, 2/ Once you've worked out how your kit sits best for you, if you gig a lot invest in a cheap rug and a permanent marker and mark on the rug where your stands go (FIG 7). Gigging even only a couple of times a month, this will save you hours in setup time over a career, and 3/ Even if your kit came with four toms and six cymbals, YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE ALL OF THEM. Set up your kit as I've outlined, learn to play it well and then work out whether and where to bring in additional elements. Remember some great music has been made on minimalist kits, and some great music has been made on huge kits - the only link is that they were being played by great players. (Words: Ian Savage)
About the Author

Drummer, Teacher, Author and Columnist with over 15 years experience.
Founder of online drum tuition website http://www.dansdrumlessons.com offering online drum tuition, drum lessons on DVDs and drum lesson in book format.

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