Good afternoon,

I don't spend a lot of time directly working on the
maintenance of our percussion equipment.  My
tenor players tell me they have trouble leveling their
drums and keeping them level. We have Pearl:
6"; (spock), 10";, 12";, 13"; and 14";.  Does anyone have
any particularly advice on addressing this challenge?
Additional hardware from Home Depot or Lowes?
Other fixes?  I look forward to your responses.
Sadly, my OCD kicks into high gear when I look at the drums
and they look like a ride at the carnival:-)

You can e-mail me at:  [email]nflum@music.ua.edu[/email]

Take care!
Neal

It depends on what you mean by ";leveling";--I'll go ahead and address both.

If you mean keeping the drum-to-drum relationship level it really comes down to keeping on top of tightening the spacers.  Any slack can make the drums twist, and all of the sudden the level plane is botched.  There's always the option of redrilling the spacers with 9/16"; bolts so that they're easier to get to, but your mileage may vary.  If the drums are really screwed up the easiest thing to do is to slightly loosen all the spacers, and set the drums upside down so they're level against the floor (a hard linoleum floor or something similar is best here).  Then carefully tighten the spacers starting with the 1-2 spacer and moving out.  Once they're all level you may want to check the place where the carrier attaches to 3-4, since that can get loose from time to time and mess with the plane as well.

If you mean keeping the drums level on the carrier (not having boners, droopy tenors, etc.) that's just a constant battle with the mechanical grinding caused by the motion of the players and the ability to flip the drums up.  The leveling screws that come with the drums should be more than enough to keep the drums level.  If it's ever the case that even all the way out the drums are still droopy you more than likely have loose screws where the carrier attaches to 3-4.  For carrier designs that have the horizontal post that you can loosen and slide forward or backwards again just make sure it stays tight as the drums will droop when it gets loose.

General rule is that you have to be anal about keeping everything tight, and likely your players can't get things level b/c some of the hardware is loose or twisted.  In either of these cases you definitely have the option of replacing things with your own hardware--just depends on how deep your ocd goes. :P

Just a stupid, obvious statement.  When leveling, don't work with the drums on a stand.  Take them off and work with them flat, upside-down.  Slightly loosen as necessary, then tighten.

Is there anything this forum can't accomplish?!

And I just wanted to say hey to Neil. I still have some of your Flumco exerices from when I attended the Hannum Marching Percussion Camp back in oh... '96. :P