Various Layouts and Their Purposes
This is what some of the first drum kits more or less looked like. Consisting of a bass drum, one mounted tom, one floor tom, and a snare drum. The reason why this particular kit is considered a jazz and big-band kit is because when the first drum kits where in use the genres of music that where popular where big-band and jazz. And regardless of the genres to come, these kits would always stay big-band and jazz cornerstones.
This kit is an example of a rock and roll kit. You may be asking yourself, "Hey, this looks an awful lot like the jazz kit," well you're right and there is a reason for that. Rock was the next major genre after big-band and jazz. Drummers were looking for ways to add on to the kits they already had, and this was the most famous variation and is still widely used today.
This is an example of the stadard kit we know today. This is what my first kit looked like and is almost always what an aspiring drummer starts out with know a days. This kit consists of a bass drum, two mounted toms, a floor tom, and a snare drum.
This is an example of a progressive rock/fusion type kit. Now the exact setup will vary depending on the drummer but this is the one I thought resembled the icon of the genre. As you can see with this kit, because progressive rock and fusion require more musicality on top of keping the beat, more cymbals and toms are added along with a double-bass pedal.
This is an example of a kit used in the metal genres. This kit could also be catagorized in the progressive rock genre as well. A second bass drum is the main addition here because a lot of drummers believe that a single bass drum with a double bass pedal does not produce the same sound as far as quality as two separate bass drums.
| Kit Type | Artist Example |
|---|---|
| Jazz Kit | Brandon Barnes |
| Rock Kit | John Bonham |
| Kit Type | Artist Example |
|---|---|
| Standard Kit | Robby Ameen |
| Progressive Rock Kit | Carter Beauford |
| Metal Kit | Mike Portnoy |