Recently I purchased some stands for my drum kit. I've been mulling over what to go with for a few months now. Did my usual pre-meditated purchase ritual; checked out company websites, went into stores, talked to drummer friends, etc. After all that, I decided to go with Pearl hardware exclusively.   

    My affiliation with Pearl hardware goes back a few years when I purchased their  Powershifter Eliminator pedal. At the time this was their top of the line pedal, which I bought a year before the first Demon Drive model was released. One thing that sold me on this pedal was some of the featured options; switchable cams, 4 sided beater, and an easily adaptable strap drive conversion. There are more cool features as well. I loved it! Pedal was unbelievably smooth & durable. Still is in great shape today! I loved this pedal so much I bought the Eliminator Hi-Hat stand a few months later. Equally as awesome!!

    At the same time I was choosing mounting hardware for the toms on my first custom drum set. I remember back to when I worked at Guitar Center how much I loved the Pearl ISS mount. Even though they were used for the mid level kits, I loved the fact they were lightweight, simple in design, and easy to remove when needed so requested  those. The ISS mounts also made my snare / tom hybrid "The Variable" (see "current set up & blog" page on this site for more details on this drum) extremely versatile with positioning and application. 

    Now this brings me to my most recent purchase. I decided after 10 long years and hundreds of shows I would upgrade my snare & cymbal stands. I do take care of my equipment and do the proper maintenance; replacing felts, rubber pieces, wing nuts, etc. But one issue I couldn't avoid was reoccurring chips on the metal from my road case. There would be sharp edges that would slice my hand during set up, usually just leaving a cut similar to a paper cut. Nothing drastic by annoying none the less! Plus I got a little paranoid with getting metal in my skin. I even tried scrubbing and sanding the rough edges on the stands. Also tried padding the hard case for awhile. Regardless the rough edges still came back. No doubt it was time to upgrade.   

    For the new cymbal stands, I went with the BC-900 model. I did quite a bit of  research online with this selection. I wanted boom stands, but with hiding boom  feature since I usually don't need booms on my kit, but as mentioned above, I like options!  The 900 worked great as a straight stand. The best features are the toothless tilter, which gives you so many positioning options, and the plastic wing bolt on top. The latter feature gave me so many more sonic possibilities live. I was more easily able to control the sustain of my cymbals than before. Worked great live & can't wait to use them in the studio! The BC-900 also has multiple memory locks saving me valuable time with set up.

      For the snare stand upgrade, I went with the Pearl S-1000. This stand is straight up awesome! This is the best snare stand i've ever seen or used! One of my drummer friends was with me when I opened the box and he was also impressed. The patented Uni-Lock system gives you so many positioning options it's ridiculous. My favorite feature on this stand is the rubber L's on the snare basket. It's no secret that the tension of your stand basket around your drum affects the sound. This stand is more dramatic in that department, which is great because now it's easier than ever to do slight adjustments to the overall tone of the drum. I even switched snares on a set break, between a 13X6 birch  and a 5 1/2 X 14 Pearl Sensitone steel shell. Both were easy to swap out and  again, really can't wait till the next studio session w/ this stand! I also ordered the S-1000D, a low basket version of the original, for my 8 inch deep  snare / tom hybrid drum mentioned above. This stand will give me even more options with the drum. Just got the call this morning that it's in so i'll be picking it up asap.    

     I'm totally pleased with my purchases and look forward to getting many great years out of this new stuff, as well as tacking on more with the gear that's been in my arsenal for years already.