They say a great guitarist can make even the nastiest guitar sound good. Unfortunately, this isn't the case with drums. While a well-trained drummer can tune a bad drum kit to get the most out of it, if the equipment sucks, it won't sound good. Like any accomplished musician, a drummer should have the most professional equipment he or she can afford and keep it maintained and tuned. Great drummers play great sounding drums.

I like to have at least two kits in active use at all times. My primary kit is a vintage Pearl custom 10 piece, consisting of a 22" kick drum, toms- 6", 8", 10", 12", 13", 14", 15", 16", with a 6.5" x 14" Tama wood shell snare. The kit is supported by a Gibraltar rack system. My cymbal set up consists of a varied collection of Zildjian cymbals that I interchange based on the project I'm working on. This kit is house in my home studio (it rarely see's the outside world) and is fully mic'd into a 16 channel Behringer mixer.

For most live show work, I'm currently using a Yamaha Stage Custom 5 piece kit. This kit consists of a 22" bass drum (with single pedal), toms- 12", 13", 16", snare 5" x 14". All cymbals are Zildjian. This kit has a relatively small footprint and sets up in under 30 minutes, so it's great for show work. The purple/black fade finish looks modern and cool without being an eyesore or center of attention on stage.