In the early part of the 2000's, noted drummer Barry "Frosty" Smith was using a bop sized Fibes (Austin era, Jasper shells) to gig around Austin and the world. He was running a 14 x 18 bass drum, a 12 x 14 floor tom, a 8 x 12 tom and a huge 8 x 14 snare. He also used a 5 x 8 Fibale. His cymbals were El Sabor, specifically, an 18" crash ride, a 16" crash and a set of 14" El Sabor hihats.
Single braced Yamaha snare, hihat and cymbal stands, an LP bracket for the Fibale and small cowbell and he was done. He's also using a Yamaha bass drum pedal, and I think it had a metal link instead of chain, but memory fails. He's using a Yamaha tom holder mounted to the side of the cymbal stand, and the drum had the Yamaha mount attached directly to the shell, sans RIMS mounting device.
Back then, he was using a Vater Fatback 3A, a stick I came to find was my favorite. Just a little bit fatter than a 5A and not as fat as a 2A, the beefy shoulder of the 3A means great rimshots and few broken sticks.
Of course, Frosty is an extraordinary drummer and can outdrum mere mortals like me with only a snare, ride and bass drum. I've seen him do it, on more than one occasion. Although Frosty changes setups as often as most of us change the oil in our cars, here's what I noticed back in the early 2000's about the great rig shown in the photos of Omar's Big Delta CD.
Note the bass drum has an 18" metal floor tom rim on the reso side, instead of the traditional 2" thick wooden hoop that goes on bass drums . That's because with this rim, instead of the much larger wooden reso hoop, Frosty could get the bass drum into the trunk of his car in a soft case.
Of course, Frosty is an extraordinary drummer and can outdrum mere mortals like me with only a snare, ride and bass drum. I've seen him do it, on more than one occasion. Although Frosty changes setups as often as most of us change the oil in our cars, here's what I noticed back in the early 2000's about the great rig shown in the photos of Omar's Big Delta CD.
Note the bass drum has an 18" metal floor tom rim on the reso side, instead of the traditional 2" thick wooden hoop that goes on bass drums . That's because with this rim, instead of the much larger wooden reso hoop, Frosty could get the bass drum into the trunk of his car in a soft case.
Frosty has also been known to use a Fibes Cymbal Cup, which is a plastic curved disc about 4" in diameter that mounts under the cymbal. Frosty can make an 18" El Sabor mounted on a Fibes Cymbal Cup sound like a high hat, a stack of crash cymbals, a crash or a ride. I don't know how he does it, but he does. The Fibes Cymbal Cups were made by a long ago version of Fibes and can be found often on ebay for a nominal cost.
Having watched Frosty gig tens if not over a hundred times, I've noticed that he carries extra snare and tom heads, sticks and the like in an old pillowcase.
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