Setting Up Your Drum Kit in a Hurry

Ever played a gig where the band that performed before you overextended their set, leaving you just a few minutes to set up your drum kit? It’s a nightmare for most drummers, if not an impossible challenge. Thankfully, there are various ways to optimise your kit and prepare it for a speedy set-up when you’re in a hurry.

Optimising Your Gear

Before you can pull off a new personal best in terms of the time it takes you to set up your kit, you need to get properly organised. If your current kit includes faulty hardware like a snare strainer that doesn’t stay locked, worn-out drumheads or cracked cymbals, then it’s a good idea to replace any janky gear with fresh bits of kit.

Memory Locks

It’s also a good idea to critically examine your drum kit as a whole, so you can eliminate the problems that you run into when setting up. When you only have mere minutes to set up and adjust your gear, it’s never going to be absolutely perfect, but what can help tremendously are memory locks. Most drum hardware comes fitted out with memory locks, but not every drummer makes use of them. If you’re one of those drummers, then I would recommend the next time you’re setting up your kit for a rehearsal or practice session, that you try out the memory locks after you’ve set everything up as preferred. What’s great about memory locks is that they remain in the set position, even after you break everything down again. When you then set up again at a later date, the memory locks prevent you from setting your stands and hardware up any higher or at a different angle from the last time you used them.

Get Racked

Another practical solution is using a drum rack. That said, whether or not a drum rack can help you out does depend on the size of your drum kit, the type of gigs that you play and, frankly, the size of your car. A drum rack takes up quite a lot of room, both on stage and when you’re getting it to the venue. Compared to separate stands with memory locks, a rack does take up less floor space and guarantees the exact same set-up every time since. Whenever there’s room to assemble everything backstage, you can simply lift your entire drum kit – cymbals and all – onto the stage and start drumming right away.

Mike Portnoy or Dave Grohl?

Now for the most important question: how many bits of kit are you bringing? If you’re going to perform for an audience of 30, bringing three rack toms, two floor toms, two snares and twelve cymbals is probably overkill. In other words, you should adapt your kit based on the kind of gig you’re playing, how many people are coming out to see you, how big the stage is, and how much time you have to set everything up. Proper preparation can save you a ton of frustration — something that doesn’t just apply to drummers but to all musicians. It should also go without saying that the fewer pieces of kit you bring, the less time you need to set up.

Setting Up Your Drum Kit in a Hurry

Accessories

We’ve yet to mention accessories like your sticks, stick holder, water bottle, in-ear monitors and your mixer which all take time to connect up. A solid solve for this type of gear can be packing it all up inside one gig bag or stick bag and maybe using a small case for the mixer if you use one. This way, you can simply zip open the bag, pop the lid of the case and get started in no time.

Be in Control

Now that you’ve sorted out your gear, you need to make sure that you’re always on top of the chaos that comes with setting up a drum kit in a hurry. One of the most important bits here is making sure that any mess-ups are never your fault, by which I don’t mean to say that you can use this as an excuse. Your aim is to ensure that you’re never in someone else’s way and avoid uncomfortable situations like having to ask another drummer if you can borrow their snare drum because you forgot to bring yours.

The Logical Order

Lesson 1 when it comes to being in control is knowing exactly what you’re doing, which includes setting everything up in a logical order. Don’t start assembling hardware only to switch to adjusting your bass drum pedal when you’re halfway through. Try to stick to doing one thing at a time and memorise the steps. If needed, you can even practise setting up and breaking down your drum kit at home and use a stopwatch to track and reduce the time it takes you to get ready.

Setting Up Your Drum Kit in a Hurry

Share Your Plans

Doing everything you possibly can to guarantee a swift and fuss-free assembly of your drum kit also involves letting everyone else know what you’re going to do. This way, no one will get in your way, and vice versa. The most important people you’ll want to give a heads-up are the gig organiser, the pub owner or, in the more professional scene, your tour manager. Make sure you’re always aware of where you can store your kit before and after the show and where you can set up, adjust or pre-assemble bits. Feeling in control will only increase your self-confidence, which in turn will increase your odds of delivering a successful performance.

Sacrifice Yourself

If you’ve done everything within your power to ensure that not a second is wasted when you set up your drum kit, but external factors throw a spanner in the works, then be prepared to sacrifice things, no matter how difficult this may be. There’s nothing more frustrating than playing a show with a kit that isn’t set up the way you want it to be, but ask yourself what’s more important: that you’re 100% comfortable with how things are or that the crowd is treated to the best show they’ve ever seen?

Hopefully, these tips will help you focus on what’s truly important: taking joy in making music together and blowing away your audience. After all, that is what (almost) every musician lives for. Got your own tips to share? Feel free to leave a comment!