Well, it has been quite a few months since my last blog posting. It seems like a common thread - where my blog posts begin with an apology for my lack of blogging! So, in keeping with tradition...I'm sorry for my lack of blogging recently! :)
Honestly, though - there's been a lot going on even if things seem a bit quiet on the Roberts Drums front. So let me bring you all up-to-date on where things are at in Roberts Drums land.
First off, in June of this year, I was able to take the prototype kit up to a recording studio in Redding, CA called The Soundhouse. My good friend Gabriel Wilson used the drums on two songs that he was working on at the time. We also tracked some stand-alone audio samples of the drums - which can be heard very soon...(more on this in a minute).
That same week, another good friend of mine, Jason Miller took some high-quality photos of the drums. I'm not posting them here yet...they will be used for our new website that is currenly under construction. That brings me to...
We have a new website that is under construction! Jason's wife, Amy has been working hard on the new site for the last few months and let me tell you, it is great! It will include the pics that Jay has taken as well as the audio sample from above. There will be more details about the specs of Roberts Drums as well as our vision and mission. I'll be sure to let you know as soon as the site is live - so you can all check it out.
Right after my trip to Redding, I got VERY sick and was in bed for almost a month...so nothing happened - except for in my head. While I was resting and nursing myself slowly back to health, I had an idea...I REALLY wanted to get my kit into the hands of the drummers at a large church in Tulsa, OK called Church On The Move. They seemed to have the same mindset when it came to drum tones and sounds and I felt that my kit would work out great in their auditorioum.
Long story short, due to the power of social networking (thanks Twitter!) I was able to get connected with the church and they asked if I would send the demo kit out to them so they could check it out. I did one better and actually flew out to Tulsa for five days, helped to get the kit set and tuned up. They fell in love with the kit - and at the end of my trip, they ordered a kit of their own! The only catch was thay they wanted to keep the demo kit until their drums were done. I had no problem with that! :) You can check out Church on the Move at http://www.churchonthemove.com/ and you can catch our demo kit in their services on their vimeo page at www.vimeo.com/cotm.
Right after my trip to Tulsa, my church in Folsom, CA (Lakeside Church) decided to purchase the silver sparkle demo kit. So lately, I've been working on building Church On The Move's kit which should be complete around Thanksgiving time. I've also been working on finding a way to build another demo kit to continue to send out to artists/drummers/churches to check out.
I think that's all...for now. Once the kit for COTM is complete, I'll have pics taken for the site so you all can check it out. I'll also try to post some of the pics that I've taken during the production process soon. Thanks for taking the time to visit...and I'll do my best to blog sometime in the next month.
- but don't hold your breath...cuz, really...what's my track record been like?! :)
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The Whole Kit
I just wanted to take a quick second and post a photo of all the drums together for your viewing pleasure. Also, on Monday, I'm having some professional product photos taken of the kit and then on Thursday / Friday I'll be up at The Soundhouse in Redding recording audio samples of the kit for use on our website. I'll be sure to keep you all updated next week as things progress.
And please feel free to follow us on Twitter - just search for @robertsdrums.
You can also check out our website at http://www.robertsdrums.com/ as well as our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roberts-Drum-Company/164912346894265
Enjoy the photo:
And please feel free to follow us on Twitter - just search for @robertsdrums.
You can also check out our website at http://www.robertsdrums.com/ as well as our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roberts-Drum-Company/164912346894265
Enjoy the photo:
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Roberts Drum Company Prototype Drumkit Completed!
Well, it's official. Our Phase 1 Prototype drumkit is finished! It's been an awesome journey building this first kit of ours - and it turned out great, if I do say so myself! I'm hoping to get some photos snapped of the kit as a whole very soon. I'm also taking the kit up to a recording studio in Redding next week to get some audio samples for our website - so you all can hear what these drums sound like! I am so excited that I can barely contain myself. And I'm hoping to have a good buddy of mine take some pro-level pics of the kit very soon for the website as well. Until then, here's a pic of the last piece of the puzzle to be completed - the 14"x24" kick drum:
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The "Hybrid Kit"
One last little noteworthy mention: last week (before I started working on the kick drum), I was able to bring the two toms into our church and use them with our worship leader's vintage 1969 Ludwig kick drum and modern day Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum. I am happy to say that the Roberts toms fit right in with these other vintage drums. They had the same tonality, warmth and darkness that I've been after. The only difference was that my toms had just a touch more punch and presence. Everyone (musicians and non-musicians alike) who heard them were very, very impressed. This, of course, makes me very, very happy!
The Hybrid Kit at Lakeside Church:
Production Update #3: The Kick Drum
The last drum that I began working on was the 14"x24" kick drum. I saved this one for last because it was the largest of the drums and I needed to be able to really focus hard during production due to several extra little production processes (like staining the kick drum hoops).
The process was the same as the other two drums: wrap, layout, check measurements several times, drill, finish the interior and assembly. Wrapping this large of a drum has to be done with two pieces of the wrap material (the wrap manufacturer cannot produce one sheet of the wrap to cover this large of a drum). Overall it turned out well. There are two overlapping seams on this drum instead of one - and one of the two seams is not aligned perfectly - similar to the rack tom. Again this problem was solved with the careful use of my utility knife.
The interior finishing, assembly (including the vintage-style Ludwig gullwing bass drum spurs) and badge installation went off without a hitch.
I am currently not quite finished with the kick drum, however, I'm on the downward side of the hill. I have ordered a custom Roberts Drum Company bass drum logo head - which arrived a few weeks ago. However, the printing quality left a lot to be desired. So I am working on getting the head reprinted.
The very last process that is still in production are the bass drum hoops. These are wooden rims that hold the heads in place. These hoops have a small groove cut out of the middle of them in order to allow an inlay strip of the silver sparkle wrap to be installed. The hoops are standed and ready for staining.
But I was not always going to stain them. Initially, I was going to paint them with satin enamel spraypaint - to match what the old vintage Ludwig drums looked like. However, after many days of testing on scrap shell material, I could not come up with a professional-looking result. So I turned to staining. The hoops will be stained with an oil-based Ebony finish that allows the wood grain to show through. It will have a satin/semi gloss finish to it and should add a nice "hand-crafted" touch to the kit. The hoops will still feature the silver sparkle inlay strip.
I sanded the hoops last night and will begin the staining process later this evening. It should take a few days to complete the staining/finishing of the hoops - which means that the kit (minus the custom bass drum head) will most likely be completed this weekend!
Here are some kick drum production pics:
The process was the same as the other two drums: wrap, layout, check measurements several times, drill, finish the interior and assembly. Wrapping this large of a drum has to be done with two pieces of the wrap material (the wrap manufacturer cannot produce one sheet of the wrap to cover this large of a drum). Overall it turned out well. There are two overlapping seams on this drum instead of one - and one of the two seams is not aligned perfectly - similar to the rack tom. Again this problem was solved with the careful use of my utility knife.
The interior finishing, assembly (including the vintage-style Ludwig gullwing bass drum spurs) and badge installation went off without a hitch.
I am currently not quite finished with the kick drum, however, I'm on the downward side of the hill. I have ordered a custom Roberts Drum Company bass drum logo head - which arrived a few weeks ago. However, the printing quality left a lot to be desired. So I am working on getting the head reprinted.
The very last process that is still in production are the bass drum hoops. These are wooden rims that hold the heads in place. These hoops have a small groove cut out of the middle of them in order to allow an inlay strip of the silver sparkle wrap to be installed. The hoops are standed and ready for staining.
But I was not always going to stain them. Initially, I was going to paint them with satin enamel spraypaint - to match what the old vintage Ludwig drums looked like. However, after many days of testing on scrap shell material, I could not come up with a professional-looking result. So I turned to staining. The hoops will be stained with an oil-based Ebony finish that allows the wood grain to show through. It will have a satin/semi gloss finish to it and should add a nice "hand-crafted" touch to the kit. The hoops will still feature the silver sparkle inlay strip.
I sanded the hoops last night and will begin the staining process later this evening. It should take a few days to complete the staining/finishing of the hoops - which means that the kit (minus the custom bass drum head) will most likely be completed this weekend!
Here are some kick drum production pics:
Kick drum being wrapped.
Wrap process completed.
Kick drum after drilling.
Fully assembled 14"x24" kick drum with no heads.
Ebony stain sample (in the sun).
Ebony stain sample (in the shade).
Production Update #2: The Floor Tom
The second drum that underwent production was the 16"x16" floor tom. It was alread sanded down (see previous post) so I began with the exterior wrapping process. This time around, I got the overlapping wrap seams to line up on the money. The wrapping process for this drum went a little faster than the rack tom - due to the fact that I had one wrapped drum under my belt already and felt more comfortable with the process.
After wrapping the drum, the production process pretty much followed the 9"x13" Rack Tom: layout, check, double-check, triple-check, check against all hardware fittings, drill very carefully, finish interior of the shell, assemble, install badge and heads.
The only difference for this drum is that I had to install 3 extra brackets and legs in order for this drum to stand on its own. This proved to be pretty easy - the most difficult part was deciding exactly where the brackets/legs would be positioned on the drum.
I did have a moment of sheer terror while working on this drum. During the badge installation, somehow the badge spun almost 90 degrees counter clockwise while I was installing the air vent grommet. Luckily, the contact cement had not fully cured and I was able to carefully rotate the badge back into place and tighten the grommet down before the cement hardened. Whew! That was a close one!
Here are the production photos of the 16"x16" floor tom:
After wrapping the drum, the production process pretty much followed the 9"x13" Rack Tom: layout, check, double-check, triple-check, check against all hardware fittings, drill very carefully, finish interior of the shell, assemble, install badge and heads.
The only difference for this drum is that I had to install 3 extra brackets and legs in order for this drum to stand on its own. This proved to be pretty easy - the most difficult part was deciding exactly where the brackets/legs would be positioned on the drum.
I did have a moment of sheer terror while working on this drum. During the badge installation, somehow the badge spun almost 90 degrees counter clockwise while I was installing the air vent grommet. Luckily, the contact cement had not fully cured and I was able to carefully rotate the badge back into place and tighten the grommet down before the cement hardened. Whew! That was a close one!
Here are the production photos of the 16"x16" floor tom:
Wrapped shell.
Drilled shell.
Assembly.
Completed Rack Tom & Floor Tom.
Completed Rack Tom & Floor Tom.
Production Update #1 - Rack Tom
From the beginning, I had decided to produce this kit one drum at a time. Normally, a drum builder would do all the processes for each drum at the same time - like sand all the shells, wrap all the drums, drill all the drums etc. But I wanted to be able to give each individual drum the attention it deserved. This would also allow me to hone my building knowledge as the kit moved through the production process.
I started with the 9"x13" rack tom. It was the smallest drum (read - the least expensive to replace should anything go wrong) and required the least amount of hardware, assembly etc. It seemed like a good place to start. I started by taking stock of all the materials I had rec'd - to ensure that I was not missing any important parts. Turns out that the suppliers I used were on the money - I was not missing a single thing!
The first thing that needs to be done is shell sanding. I took an afternoon and sanded all the shells (the only production process that I performed on all three drums together). The sanding is done to enable the finishing process (wrap on the outside and a satin oil finish on the inside) to be completed later during production. Once I was satisfied with the feel of the shells, I moved on to wrapping the outside of the shell with the Silver Sparkle wrap.
I learned that wrapping the shell(s) is not quite as easy as I anticipated. No matter how much time I spent lining up the wrap, it always ended up just a bit crooked where the two ends of the wrap overlapped. However, I was able to trim up this slight misalignment with my utility knife to make the overlap look more uniform.
After wrapping the shell comes layout for drilling. Here's where all the high school and college math comes in handy. I measured and marked all of my holes to be drilled, then double and triple-checked them. Then checked them again against all of the hardware to be installed.
Once the layout was done, drilling begain. Going slow and steady is the key here. That and starting with a small drill bit and gradually increasing the bit size until you get to the desired sized hole. This took a while - but I ended up with the perfect sized holes for all the hardware.
The result? The drum assembled with no problems what-so-ever! I decided to do a few small things during assembly to make these drums "that much better". Things like using Locktite on the hardware screws so that the hardware fittings wont loosen up over time. And packing the lugs with cotton pieces, to ensure a pure tonality from each drum. The tom took about an hour to assemble. The last part of the assembly process before putting on the drumheads is the badge installation. I affixed the badge to the drum using contact cement - then reinforced it with the air vent grommet - for a very vintage vibe.
Check out these photos for a step-by-step view of the rack tom production:
I started with the 9"x13" rack tom. It was the smallest drum (read - the least expensive to replace should anything go wrong) and required the least amount of hardware, assembly etc. It seemed like a good place to start. I started by taking stock of all the materials I had rec'd - to ensure that I was not missing any important parts. Turns out that the suppliers I used were on the money - I was not missing a single thing!
The first thing that needs to be done is shell sanding. I took an afternoon and sanded all the shells (the only production process that I performed on all three drums together). The sanding is done to enable the finishing process (wrap on the outside and a satin oil finish on the inside) to be completed later during production. Once I was satisfied with the feel of the shells, I moved on to wrapping the outside of the shell with the Silver Sparkle wrap.
I learned that wrapping the shell(s) is not quite as easy as I anticipated. No matter how much time I spent lining up the wrap, it always ended up just a bit crooked where the two ends of the wrap overlapped. However, I was able to trim up this slight misalignment with my utility knife to make the overlap look more uniform.
After wrapping the shell comes layout for drilling. Here's where all the high school and college math comes in handy. I measured and marked all of my holes to be drilled, then double and triple-checked them. Then checked them again against all of the hardware to be installed.
Once the layout was done, drilling begain. Going slow and steady is the key here. That and starting with a small drill bit and gradually increasing the bit size until you get to the desired sized hole. This took a while - but I ended up with the perfect sized holes for all the hardware.
The result? The drum assembled with no problems what-so-ever! I decided to do a few small things during assembly to make these drums "that much better". Things like using Locktite on the hardware screws so that the hardware fittings wont loosen up over time. And packing the lugs with cotton pieces, to ensure a pure tonality from each drum. The tom took about an hour to assemble. The last part of the assembly process before putting on the drumheads is the badge installation. I affixed the badge to the drum using contact cement - then reinforced it with the air vent grommet - for a very vintage vibe.
Check out these photos for a step-by-step view of the rack tom production:
Materials.
Wrapped Rack Tom shell.
Shell after drilling and interior shell finishing.
Assembly.
Installing the contact cement for the badge.
Badge installation.
Completed 9"x13" Rack Tom!
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