It was the deal of the century. Late 1980s Yamaha Recording Custom shells (12/13/16/22) in piano black, 14"x6" Recording Custom steel snare, A. Zildjian 20" medium ride, 18" medium-thin crash, and 14" New Beats, in good condition, for just 30k pesos! I was so close to snagging the deal when the wife of the seller suddenly asked not to go through with it, claiming the kit was bought for their children and should not have been offered for sale in the first place. The seller got back to me, saying he needed the money badly for his business, and that it was his decision to make. But I didn't want to get between spouses, so I brokenheartedly called the whole thing off.
The consuelo de bobo of this failed transaction was that it got me thinking. Why should I get another kit with similar dimensions, since I have don't have the space for another one unless I dispose of my existing one, which I am reluctant to do for sentimental reasons. So after mourning the failed deal, I saw a 16" Pearl Midtown bass drum with case in the FB Marketplace. I thought, why not put together something completely different, like a bop frankenkit? What the hell is that you may ask. OK, there are 2 parts to that. A bop kit has everything an ordinary kit has, but features a small bass drum. This is because New York jazz musicians who played bop music in small clubs had to carry their entire kit on the subway by themselves, to gigs in small clubs with a very tight stage. Since the bass drum was the biggest component of the kit, they opted for smaller ones, from 16" to 18" in diameter. On the other hand, a frankenkit it made up of mismatched components, either with different colors, or finishes, or brands, hence the similarity to Frankenstein. If I got the Midtown bass, I already had a choice of snares from my collection, my recently acquired 14" snom, and could get the 12" rack tom from my old kit. But a few days after I got the Midtown, I saw a nice 12" tom on sale for next to nothing. So I got that too. Unintentionally, all the drums are once again made by, you guessed it, Pearl. Whatever.
So my bop frankenkit has the following, a 16" x 14" Midtown kick, a 14" x 10" CMS-1410 “Competition” mahogany marching snare as a snom, and a 12" x 9" Ranger II rack tom. I installed new-old-stock Remo Fiberskyn heads that I got years ago in the Salonga's Cubao closeout sale. It took a whole day to dial in the sound of kick drum. I tried all sorts of head and muffling combinations, and finally settled on Fiberskyns, with no muffling, and at medium tuning.
Now I have two kits occupying only the space of one and a half. A classic 12/16/22 that will stay at home, and the bop 12/14/16 that can go on gigs .... after the pandemic.
