Sunday, June 29, 2008

Stretching the skins

One of the selling points for me coming out to Hannover for the summer was that our former Corpse Full of Bees/Look Up for Danger guitarist was here and we planned to start up a band again. However this did mean that I needed some drums. So this week I bought myself an actual real-life drumkit on ebay, unlike the electronic kit that I already own. After a bit of searching on ebay I found a German seller (o-trading-company) who offered various instruments, generally pictured being held by naked women, at very reasonable prices. The kit I bought was dirt cheap at a whole £115(!), so as you can imagine it's not the highest quality (the single snare I bought last year cost around the same amount) and could well have been put together by small children in a Chinese sweat-shop. That said after putting the drums together yesterday and having a bit of a play I've been pleasantly surprised with their sound quality. The different drums seem to make the sounds that they're supposed to - you know, a kind of "boom boom" sound of various pitch depending on the drum size. The main problem, and an unsurprising one given the price I paid, is that the cymbals (a high-hat and small crash) aren't all that great - they're fairly thin and after just the one practice I've put some major dents in them. Now that I have the kit, and we have a room to practice in (next to the Atlas computer cluster that the AEI have just put together), I'll just have to get good at playing.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:38 am

    Well, if you're going to buy an instrument, you may as well buy one that's been pictured with a naked woman; that's what I always say.

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  2. Very true, although unfortunately the drumkits weren't depicted in that way.

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  3. If I come to Germany to visit you guys can we please have a practice in the Atlas room? it sounds like the coolest practice place ever, even though the air conditioning might be a bit loud!

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  4. Well it's in the room next door to atlas at the moment, but we might go in there for the sheer coolness - the air con's not too load as it's done by piping water around the racks. And if you're over here then you should definitely practice with us.

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