SOLUTIONS FOR MOUNTING PROBLEMS

By the above headline I am not referring to perplexing issues that are building up and growing worse, I am talking about ways to situate drums so they can be played.  For instance, a while back I discovered this 16" tom drum that I restored and used as part of my blue-sparkle "MIJ-it Kit" (see previous post if you are all that interested which I suspect you are indeed not in the least actually).

This drum had no mounting hardware on it, which led me to believe it was a marching tom that was carried with some sort of harness.  In order to use it with my MIJ-it Kit, I simply employed the use of a snare stand.  However, even at the lowest setting this snare stand mounted the drum at a level that was not completely comfortable as a floor tom, and the tripod nature of a snare stand did not offer a whole lot of stability for this large drum.  In other words, it was a bit "wobbly."

Just recently I happened to stumble across an excellent solution for this problem and thought I would share it here, though sharing things on this blog is not unlike talking to myself.  No one really gives a flying crap but it makes me feel better.  Anyway, while searching for replacement floor tom legs for another project I found this new product offering from Pearl.  These are attachable "Surdo Legs," obviously intended to mount the large Brazilian instruments that greatly resemble oversized floor toms.  I figured that if they work for Surdos, they would work for other large drums.

And by golly I was right.  Here we can see I have successfully installed the legs on my short but stocky parade drum and can now use it as a floor tom.  The clamps attach to the tension rods and enable adjustable legs to be added.  This product could, in fact, work on most any drum you wanted standing on legs.  I wonder how a snare drum would look mounted this way?

There is only one small problem.  The metal clamps that I received are bright green, whereas in the photo used by Amazon they are clearly black.  The green ones are fine and work perfectly, but the color clashes with my blue sparkle drum.

This was easily remedied with a little black spray paint.  I disassembled the assemblies, covered the green paint with black, and reassembled the assemblies.  Now I am happier with my solution, and happy to share it here on this highly-informative but widely unread and unappreciated website.

Whatever.  I feel good about it.