Quick Tips with Joe Crabtree: How To Set Up Your Drums

VF Artist Joe Crabtree shares a quick tip he learned from a Dave Weckl clinic on how to properly set up your drumset!
Check out Joe online:
www.joecrabtree.com
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[@jamesconnors5653]

Thank you.

[@domgreen1859]

Nice definitely going to try this out

[@kpoohs]

wow this was really helpful, thanks so much

[@AmiltonGarcia]

Very nice. Thank you!!!

[@guidoretro]

Nice tip! I'm going to try that.

[@TheCsody]

Thank you!

[@grupopandillaoficial1902]

saludos desde Ecuador ! Excelente video!

[@John123DAoust]

Yep...Dave is the man!

[@PrimoX379]

Great vid! Takes a lot of cahones to admit you've learned loads from something so basic when you're an experienced drummer. I'll try this out tonight!

[@megamania501]

This is how I set up my drums! I wasn't able to afford a drum set when I was a kid, so I played "air drums" for years. When I finally got real drums, it didn't feel anything like my "air drums" and one day I realized that I should set up the real drums to where I imagined the drums would be. It worked out well.

[@oliverroque0822]

nice

[@stumpup]

Joe how do you find proper height of hi-hat? In some cases it can cause of drum sticks collision. Height of hi-hat on tom's level works for me.

[@AntonioZampiero]

What ride are you using in this situation?

[@TwoCablesOCN]

Wow. This video helped me immensely. I've been playing for 25 years. 22-23 years ago, I watched Dave Weckl's 'Back to Basics' video dozens of times, if not hundreds of times. I also have his 'How to Develop Technique' video, which I have watched like hundreds of times too. He discusses in both videos the importance of "the most powerful point of the stroke", and *where* it is. I think I have somehow convinced myself that I have always had that taken care of ever since learning about it in the 'Back to Basics' video. I was dead wrong. I realized from your video here that I never applied that lesson to my own setup. Maybe I assumed it wouldn't work for me and I'd never be able to just relax and still be able to hit just the heads - that is, maybe I thought I'd always be hitting rims when I'm as relaxed as much as I want to be. I mean, I can't think of any other reason for why I never applied what Dave teaches. I recently made tons of improvements over the past year or so as a result of moving my stool a little futher away from the drums so that I wasn't sitting way too close (so, a seating distance more like Benny Greb, Johnny Rab, Gavin Harrison, et al.), and I also raised up my hi-hats to a much more comfortable height much more recently. I lowered them a long time ago because I believed it would help me play more controlled like Dennis Chambers. Raising my hi-hats back up made my entire setup feel better, and all of my playing was better as well. As a result, I made tons of additional refinements to my setup. Little did I know, I was still missing an important piece of the puzzle (and in hindsight, the *final* piece): the height of my stool and the height of the drums and cymbals in relation to my body. Last Monday July 23rd, I stumbled upon your video here and decided to watch it. The simple tip you gave of just standing up and air drumming and then sitting back down to see where you naturally want everything to be was *tremendously* helpful for me. What I ended up having to do is: 1. Lower the height of my stool quite a bit 2. Raise the height of my snare and floor toms (especially my floor toms) so that the batter heads are above my waist (or perhaps I can say they are at or slightly above elbow height when my hands are up in a ready-to-play position so that my forearms are parallel to the floor, or sloping up slightly from the elbows). This encourages the grip approach that Freddy Gruber taught Dave Weckl, which I have been struggling to master. Now I am no longer struggling with it. It's just happening naturally! 3. Re-adjust my hi-hat height to match my imaginary setup while air-drumming 4. Reduce the angle of my toms (something more like Simon Phillips) - *I haven't done this yet, but I fully intend to very soon when I feel up to all the work involved* 5. I also loosened the spring tension on my bass drum pedals to make them even easier to play Overall, this simple tip of standing up and air drumming and then sitting back down to check to see how my actual setup compares to my imaginary one was the best tip I have ever received in the 25 years I have been playing. Thank you, Joe! I have never had so much fun playing my drums before, and I've never found it to be so incredibly easy. I'm also getting a better sound due to playing the drums in a better way, which is something else that Dave Weckl discusses. Crazy. To borrow Dave Weckl's words, your simple tip here has give me the freedom and ease of playing my drums that I have envisioned for a long time - or at least getting closer to it. The stuff I am pulling off now is blowing me away, and my timing and feel has improved quite a bit. I think I have finally reached my goal of making all of my drumming feel very easy. I could probably go on and on about all the different things that used to be difficult to do but are now extremely easy. I think a lot of that has to do with sitting at a much more comfortable height, but my snare and floor tom heights used to be more at the height of my thighs as well. It's super helpful having them up more at my waist or belly button height (or somewhere in between, I'm not sure). Even something as simple as playing cross-stick on the snare for things like ballads is far easier, and it's also far easier to quickly play between the snare head and cross-stick. Setting up this way for the first time might leave you thinking you're always going to be hitting the rims, but really, I'm finding it's encouraging a good grip approach and a very nice touch on the instrument to get a better feel, easier playing with the hands, and a better sound out of the drums (and likely a longer life out of the heads and sticks). It's amazing to me how much of a difference such a seemingly simple tip in a 5½-minute video has made for me.

[@elldan350]

Then you're going to sit on your... Uhm... Stoel? Thats in dutch 😂

[@MagicOfNorway123]

stool, it's like the chairs they have in bars :)

[@elldan350]

Ooops... I knew that! I just wanted to test you 😂

[@stumpup]

It sounds similar in russian "СТУЛ"

[@DanielJerrehian]

Also in German, "stuhl"