YojimbO wrote:When I play acoustic drums, to me Pearl is second to none. Even the cheaper series have VERY sturdy hardware too, and they sound just awesome!
While we're at it Ryan, what's your idea on having "bells and whistles" on you setup (you know, the "exotic" stuff, anything varying from windchimes to gongtoms) and using it effectively? I recently bought an icebell and it really works in terms of adding possibilities... 
Yeah, I love Gongtoms and splashes and bells...stuff like that. I really like how Tim Alexander from Primus adapts these cymbals and tom's to his playing and the song's he play's....
I take the same approach. I don't own a Gongtom but I've always wanted to, they can be used as an awesome accent drum or even used for a cool tom beat or two. As far as splashes and bells go....i got 'em and i love to use them if the project is right. I'm currently getting ready to lay down the drum tracks for a band called Non-Human Level with Christofer Malmstrom (Darkane guitarist) and Gustaf Hielm (ex-Meshuggah bassist). I'm using ton's of cool splash and bell work in this project to really bring out certain parts of the song's. I did the same thing with Viven Lalu's "Oniric Metal" album that's being released on March 25th, lot's of cool splash and bell work on tha album.
I find it's a fine line where you can add the "Specialty" cymbals, it all depends on the music. For example, I don't bring one splash or Bell into my DTB drumkit setup, Dev likes a more solid foundation with no specialty cymbal sound's for all the DTB stuff, the furthest we go is with China Cymbals. Although, if he asked me to add some of that Splash and Bell stuff in....I would have no problem finding some very cool places in his music to do it !
Well there it is bro, hope that answered your question....
