No Lugs! ARBITER Advanced Tuning & FLATS

Steve shows off a couple of super cool experimental drums from Arbiter AT!
The Flats kit isn't for sale at this time, but you can find the silver sparkle kit here!: reverb.com/ite...
Don't miss out! Our shop is always changing so be sure to follow us on Reverb -- We list our stock there long before the videos make it up: reverb.com/sho...
~Cymbals~
Flats Hi-Hats: reverb.com/ite...
AT Hi-Hats: reverb.com/ite...
~Studio Hardware~
Kick Pedal - DW DWCP9000 9000 Series Single Bass Drum Pedal + Gibraltar Felt Beater
Hi-Hat Stand - Canopus Lightweight Hi-Hat Stand
Drum Throne - Gibraltar 9608RQPRB Round Quarter Panel Two Tone Drum Throne
~Microphones~
Direct Overhead: Shure KSM 141
Room Overheads: AKG C214 (2, Stereo)
Rear Overhead: AEA R88 MkII (Stereo)
Bass Drum: Shure BETA 52A
Floor Tom: Audix D2
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All interviews and footage are property of Steve Maxwell © 2022

[@TXMusicDrummer]

I still have a set of Arbiter Flats toms, and they worked fairly well. The thing is that the head is seated on a hard molded plastic bearing edge, so you can't crank them up too high. I learned that the hard way with my 10-inch Tom which warped out of shape and thus was made unusable. I'm now using TimbaToms from INDē which are also compact yet sound a lot better. FYI, Ivor was the one who sold to Ringo his first Ludwig Black Oyster kit, and he also designed the original Beatles logo with the drop T to emphasize Beat.

[@tomkelsey2303]

the full set sounds good! The snare yes is buzzing and the strainer needs tweaked or replaced.

[@user-kr5dg7gh4x]

Arbiters like to have Remo heads. Something about the way the collar works with the rims. I have a set of the poplar shells and the remos work better. Aquarian are a no go.

[@brent3760]

Very interesting!!!

[@brianglade848]

The No Lug Stache Back kit is nice too. Love it!!

[@Lemon_Drums_USA]

I’ve had a lot of these drums. Here are some take aways. With the snare drum, if you take off the rubber grommets, then you can crank the snare to reggae tightness. It’s actually one of the best maple snares ever made. But you have to take off the rubber spacer. Another thing is, the same company is now making the TRAPS drums. Which sound fantastic, but have traditional rims.

[@tedfurlo2268]

Great showcase!

[@leandrosinco]

I heard Ringo bought his black oyster kit at the Arbiter Drum store. I also know Arbiter made signature sticks for Ringo and Ginger Baker. I had both pairs but I sold them for a pretty penny. Any arbiter stuff is really cool and sought after from what I’ve experienced.

[@michaelsullivan1262]

They sound great! Cool concept as were the Peavey and other branded radial bridge drums, but I’ve always preferred lug having drum looking drums. The dad chunky wallet was fun! 😂

[@stevemaxwelldrums]

I am a purist for sure, so I have to have lugs on my drums. But, ya gotta give Ivor credit here for pioneering something new. It was the same with the original electronic drums. Hollywood “Tronic Drums” (made by Meazzi, in Italy), were basically the first commercially available electronic drum sets. Keep in mind that this was back in the mid 1960s, so “ain’t no such thing as digital”. The set looked like a junior high school science experiment. This was essentially an acoustic kit fitted with electronics. All the drums were mounted on a rolling cart. Each drum then had the equivalent of a mic pickup inside. There was a 1/4 inch output jack and cord running from each drum into a “brain” that plugged into a wall outlet. The “brain” had three selections via switches. These switches would alter the electronic single somewhat. “Weird” doesn’t even begin to describe it. But, everything has to begin somewhere, and this was a first step in the development of electronic drums. And, none other than Max Roach actually used these (for a short time) and was shown in some of their advertising. Everything has to begin somewhere.

[@JonnyJayJonson]

Random fact about the Arbiter Flats kit: the drummer Michael Giles (of King Crimson's original incarnation and all sorts of session work, including Leo Sayer) used a set when playing for the 21st Century Schizoid Band (namely recording their studio album and gigs in the UK). He used two Flats bass drums.

[@dkovorik409]

Just as a followup comment....I noticed the kit is equipped with Aquarian heads. I've never used Aquarian heads for anything, so I can't be sure, but I DO know that the Arbiter AT design works best with Remo heads. And I know that Evans heads do not work well with the system at all. I suspect the Aquarian flesh hoops are the culprit with your tuning difficulty. Personally, I am a Remo guy so it's not a problematic system for me, but I do that this could be a severe drawback for other brands of heads. It has to do with how the flesh hoops fit into the tuning ring. Still, these are some of the best sounding drums you have demo'ed in my opinion.

[@timlancaster9681]

You're correct. I have a AT kit as well and I could never get any other brand to work with them. You can seat the head and even up the tuning all around the drum by tapping the outside of the C clamp with a stick while you are turning your key

[@Avetorro]

Cool, only person I ever saw play these was rod d’ath of Rory Gallagher fame. Wondered what they were all about, thanks.

[@sixtieskid062]

I like the flat toms and the Arbiter kit, but you are correct.That small piccolo SD just doesn't cut it.

[@stevemaxwelldrums]

Yep…that Flats snare really was a rough one!! Definitely wouldn’t taking that to the gig! But, the toms and bass actually work pretty well, and there are loads of nice piccolo snare options around.

[@jglasernyc]

Novel tuning idea, I guess the flats would be good for a touring drummer.

[@matthewpaluch777]

🤔Thanks for sharing Steve! Imho I think this type of tuning would be more beneficial if you were playing calfskin heads.

[@bowds7]

The flats are limited in there tuning range and there sound quality in different venues. Keeping this in mind you can get them to sound great if you use hydraulic heads in a smaller room or small venues an ambassador snare batter and good quality snares can sound really good. But if you use them with the stock heads in an open space they can sound like card board boxes. With a bit of time spent you can have a great little versatile kit that you can get into one case and takes up very little space.

[@stevemaxwelldrums]

Good to know. Thanks! Steve

[@patrickbrennan2864]

That’s really interesting. You showed us what to do to increase tension on the head, but not how it works - why would squeezing around the circle of the head change it’s pitch? I thought the head was being stretched, in every conventional Drum with lugs, but this doesn’t make sense to me. Probably cause I’m not smart enough. But it works obviously! So can you tension the head, removed from the Shell ? Thanks so much Steve - that’s really interesting How do I find out with the sales price is please?

[@jake-maxwelldrums]

I changed the heads for these kits and the mechanism is kind of neat! Starting with the Flats: There's a 3-part system. An upper rim, a lower rim, and an outer rim (which you tighten). You seat the drumhead on the lower rim, set the upper rim on top (essentially sandwiching the head) and close the outer rim around them both. They flare out into that outer rim in such a way that the tighter you close the outer rim, the closer they're pushed together -- creating the tension of the drumhead. The AT kit does something similar, but the lower rim is mounted just below the edge of the shell. That way you get that same mechanism for tuning, but the head is seated against the shell. In this case, the lower rim isn't holding the head, so you'd need the shell to seat the head. As for pricing, check the description of this video - the Flats kit is not currently for sale but the AT kit is listed on our Reverb shop!

[@patrickbrennan2864]

@@jake-maxwelldrums Well hell…..Now I HAVE to buy them, after such an eloquent and time consuming explanation !!! Could I ask, is this a set that might sit around for a bit? Or do they get snapped up fast because of their novelty? And I assume that any types of heads work?

[@jake-maxwelldrums]

@@patrickbrennan2864 Regular heads worked fine for us. And it's hard to say, some of the more novel kits stick around for a while because people don't know how to use them or only think of them as collector's items -- but then again, you never know what someone will be interested in snapping up!

[@dkovorik409]

I've been waiting for you to get one of these kits in the store. Interesting that they sound better than a lot of the other drums. You seem to have a bias against the design from the sound of your review...The design actually works great in my opinion. I will grant you that the drums are extremely heavy. The kit you demo is actually a second generation of this design that's a MUCH lighter weight version of the original, lacquer-shell kit I own -which has TWELVE-ply shells and a hinge on the opposite side of the tuning screw. The shells and edges had to be made with extreme accuracy and they were much too costly to make, so they tried a few different ways to cut the costs later on by using the system without shells -a la the Flats and the second generation kits like the one in this video. By the way, if you want to "tweak" the tuning, you can use the butt-end of a stick and lightly tap on the edge of the tuning ring in the proximity of where the tension is uneven. And you'll have to settle on Remo heads because Evans' flesh hoops are a different shape and they don't work well with the Arbiter tuning system.

[@stevemaxwelldrums]

I actually like the design, but the issue I had was that on anything other than small diameter shells, the tuning was extremely difficult, because the tension required to tighten it was literally more than I could apply without a wrench. This might have just been caused by age, but that compression spring that creates the tension just wouldn’t budge with all my strength. My guess is that if someone took that mechanism apart and perhaps either replace the compression spring or maybe lubricate it a bit, it might be fine. Also, on the larger tom (floor tom), when I got that spring to move, I noticed that the tension was not even across the ahead, causing some odd overtones. Again, it might just be a need for some maintenance work. The only other example I ever had was at least 15 years ago and it was a snare, and I found that to actually be quite good and the drum sounded great.

[@dkovorik409]

@@stevemaxwelldrums Yes, that sounds like the metal in the ring has deformed, somehow. Or, if the heads are not Remo, that could also affect the tension. I do not have any personal experience with this second generation/non-hinged design, but I have been curious to see/hear one to compare it to my own, original lacquered kit from the late 1990's. The drums clearly sound great (even with a somewhat random and haphazard tuning) to my ear. I think it's testament to what the system was hoping to accomplish -that being, to make a smooth, internal air chamber and keep the mass of the hardware at the ends of the shells in a "dead zone" or node that wouldn't impede the resonant qualities.. Before he passed, I was in contact with both Ivor Arbiter as well as his right-hand man, Bob Henrit and a few others who were involved in bringing these drums to market. I asked many questions and learned a great deal from them all. *The AT or "Advanced Tuning" system was the successor to the earlier "Autotune" design -which was a whole other deal! Sometimes, people confuse the two designs. Needless to say...Ivor Arbiter was a creative thinker....maybe even a "mad scientist" who found alternative ways to apply tension to a drumhead!

[@KenKlejs]

I've actually used Arbiter Flats for several gigs, and also on a few of my videos. They have more sound and volume than you would think, and sounds very much like a typical gated 80's big toms when mixed correctly. They made 3 variations of the Flats from what I know, all plastic ones, plastic with metal rim, and the ones you have in the video. I've owned all of them, and only the plastic with metal seemed to work correctly. The cheap (fiberwood?) shell in the all metal crumbled on the last kit I had, and made them completely untuneable. The plastic ones warped and sounded awful from the beginning, but the metal and plastic variant seems to work as intended. Just a shame the metal version had much better hardware. An example of them used can be seen here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJ24hq1_ett9o6c&ab_channel=KenKlejs

[@JonnyJayJonson]

If fitted with mesh practice heads, could an Arbiter Flats make a good home practice kit?

[@markchristopher9716]

Arbiter made Hayman.

[@stevemaxwelldrums]

Yes, Arbitor was the man behind Hayman. Hayman drums were actually really well made. The lug they used was a round lug and not unlike what DW has (which of course, came from Camco). I have had a few Hayman sets and thought they sounded great. There was one downside: The had a wickedly weird double tom holder that was literally a nightmare to use. It was routinely referred to as a “knuckle crusher”

[@markchristopher9716]

@@stevemaxwelldrums I've played my '73 Hayman set since new.I got it from a Ludwig dealer in L.A. who stopped carrying Ludwig because of their quality control problems. I see no problem with the Hayman tom holder,don't know how that story got started.

[@brent3760]

If you could master this concept, without lugs, you should get more resonance from the shell. Right??? 🤷‍♂️

[@boristomakic5995]

I had Arbiter Flats...no problems with tuning and more resonance that you expected from drums without shells...disagree about snare, it was the best part of the kit because it had both heads

[@stevemaxwelldrums]

This little pancake snare probably needs some maintenance to get it sounding right. Likely needs to be taken apart and cleaned and maybe lubricated a bit.

[@danlozza]

Grease the drum heads?

[@chuckc7375]

The drums sound ok except the floor Tom doesn’t. Too bad because the concept is very cool.

[@malcolmbliss777]

Your wallet sucks. I’d love to send you a replacement, except mine is even worse 😅

[@davepounds8924]

The 🥁 drums would be nice as a collector piece but I wouldn’t want to gig with them as the tuning looks unreliable

[@milostopic1514]

There are multiple concepts without lugs which sound better than these and have more sense...