In Matt's current home, there is space for an experimental drum set.  After researching all of the current drum company offerings, he chose the best value in American-made drums - Drum Workshop.  DW manufactures their Collector's Series and Performance Series in Oxnard, CA.  Matt's DW Performace drums are made of hand-selected plies of North American Hard Rock Maple, using HVX shell construction.  HVX shells are formed using wood plies in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal grain patterns.  Making plywood shells in this manner produces a low, punchy fundamental note.

This set consists of 6 drums and 11 cymbals.  Each drum is made of 8 plies of maple wood, and wrapped in durable Delmar drum covering.  One of the great aspects of DW Performance Series drums is that some retailers have them in stock; choosing a drum set and having it delivered in less than 1 week is not the typical drum-buying experience Matt's accustomed to.

The drum sizes are 18x22 bass drum, 9x12 rack tom, 12x14, 14x16, and 16x18 floor toms, and 8x14 matching snare drum (not pictured, 5.5x14 Collector's Series Carbon Fiber snare is pictured).

When assembling this drum set, Matt decided he wanted to have as few hardware stands as possible.  He managed to assemble the entire kit with only a tripod for the throne, and a 2-legged hihat stand; everything else is either mounted on a floor tom leg, the bass drum, or Matt's custom "FrankenStealth" rack.  The rack is made of high-quality parts from Tama, DW, Gibraltar, and Pearl.

The cymbals are a mixture of Zildjian and Sabian brilliant models.  

Current Zildjians include 12" A Custom Mastersound Hihat, and 18" and 20" Oriental China Trash cymbals (both custom-vented by Christian Kline at Drums on Sale in Haggerstown, MD).  

Current Sabians include 18" AAX Concept Crash, 13" HH Fusion Hihat, 16” AAX V-Crash, 20" HHX Evolution Ride, 17" AAX Crash, and 18" Vault V-Crash.

Finally... we can get to the pics now!