Huntsmen's Ray Knipe - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 232

you hello I'm rake a knife from Huntsman and we're here to talk a little bit of gear so to get to it this is my four piece mahogany poplar cue drum company kit never know if any anyone out there is familiar with cue they're a la-based company owned by Ilan Rubin and it is just they are monstrous drums I mean they do copper kits they do stainless steel but I really fell in love with their woods I also work at Chicago music exchange with our bass player mark and so the story goes I bought this seven by fourteen mahogany poplar snare and from the shop you know and I just started using it and playing on it and I recorded with it and once I did that I kind of I fell in love with it you know and it was just the best snare that I had ever owned so that kind of spurred me to get this kit built to kind of go with the snare and match the snare so then I started thinking like what are the purposes that I I want it for the drums and for the band you know and I wanted something really booming and really powerful and I'm a really heavy hitter anyways so I wanted you know I wanted people to be able to feel that when we play um I wanted it to come across and recordings and you know traditionally the mahogany is a little more of like a studio wood that people use because it's really resonant and you can get really warm nice tones out of it and then the the poplar in there it kind of gives it that contrast where it gives it a little more like punchiness and a little more projection and they kind of just like the way they work together I mean it's kind of a traditional you know combos of wood anyways but they just really mix together perfectly for what I want to do so once I had that in mind I wanted to keep with the mahogany poplar you know I started thinking about sizes so here with the rack Tom I have the 8 by 13 rack and then I have my 16 by 6 to 16 floor top and then I have my 16 by 18 second floor and then of course the 16 by 24 bass drum and you know these sizes like the they're like the you know the Bonzo sizes so they just are like really really massive and I tend to detune the drums a little bit to give it a little more just like hard hitting like a tiny bit of that click with as the you know the head kind of vibrates and resonates temper you hit it and it works perfectly like right out of the box these things sounded amazing I mean I did very little work on top of that to really get them sounding good another thing I really love about these drums that all of them have these really thick maple re-rings on the inside and that not only you know gives it a good sturdiness and a good heft to the drum itself you know it's just like a powerful drum you know that maple it influences the resonance of you know the airflow inside of the drum and gives it a little more warmth to I feel like and it's just another one of those little added features that make it you know amazing and in terms of like plies on the kit I think it's 11 ply but someone might fact check me on that it's kind of their standard ply that they use um but so then I you know I started thinking about the color scheme and stuff I already had the natural finish snare which I absolutely loved because it's the decimal hoggin e wood on the outer layer that you see and I just woodgrain I mean in general wood grain hunt drones just is amazing to me and I knew I didn't want to get flashy because I'm not really a flashy person in general so you know I went with the the black stain which kind of is textured a little bit too you know you can see the wood grain through there and it really just turned out great and then I got the the natural stripe on the bass drum hoops to match the snare which turned out you know really good too although that the snare was made you know years before the rest of the kit which is pretty amazing to me you know but all in all I mean more people need to be hip to cue drums because they are they're amazing and literally they can do no wrong and you know up to every single detail is great I mean even the throw you know they use the the trick throws in these I mean a lot of a lot of companies use these but they are just the best like they they're so fluid and the way that they turn you know this one's a little bit older even and it still is like completely silent so that's another thing I just really like is like the attention to detail you know and how they just kind of construct everything to to be exactly what you wanted it to be you know I got to just call them and tell them exactly what I wanted and there it was in terms of heads I always kind of you know mix it around a little bit but most of the time I'll do the controlled sound codes which I have here I also like Emperor's you know you go with classic with Emperor but it's it's one of those things where clear heads on the Rezo they're on the batter side sorry um always tend to like sound too just to tonal like the overtones that come out of the drum are like crazy and I mean obviously I have my moon gels on every single drum just to give it that more muted vibe I mean I like the I like the more vintage feel to it although I'm not really a fan of the vintage sound of drums but I want it to be a little more muted and closed in because of you know the the intricacies of what I'm playing there's a lot of ghosts no it's even on the towns and all the way around you know and I really those two be like crystal clear to be able to do some even though I'm like whaling away and I'm hitting really hard you know that's important for me and then I always do clear Emperor's on the on the resonant side and that's basically what I stick to I mean I've tried out a bunch of different stuff throughout the years and these are just I mean they work they're really easy the only problem I ever have with controlled sound is the dot on the inside comes on unglued and falls into the drum I've had that happen a couple times but you know no big deal so with cymbals I'm a Zildjian guy you know I always have been I like to try out a lot of other stuff my know those such good good work too but you know for for what Zildjian does they are amazing symbols for like a price that won't you know completely destroy you at least for what I'm buying you know like I'm the traditional a custom the 19 and the 18 inch crash that's the more brilliant finish to those cymbals so it really cuts through and it's really loud and very you know metallic sounding and then for the for the ride and the high hats I tried to go a little more dry because that's what you're kind of riding on to move the to propel the song along you know you're traditionally using these two which is what I use so I wanted it to be a little more dry which is why I got the 23 sweet ride and I got the 15 inch new beat abs and together you know when you're hitting a crash you want it to stand out it's like a triumphant moment right so I wanted those like the brilliant finish on there to really shine through but everything else I don't want it to take over the song or the part or you know I don't want it to clash with anything else that is going on with the music so and you know my opinion the more dry that you can get the ride and the hi-hat the better for me sticks vic firth man and right now I'm using the extreme 5 B's which if you know anything literally is about 1/2 an inch longer than the regular 5b and that's all it is but for me you know I do have long arms but you know if you want to hold the stick properly and you want to choke up a little bit you know sometimes reaching those those far other symbols out and some of that stuff on the second floor Tom I just need that extra a little bit of length and and then you know I always want to find that balance point when you get to it and I just can't when I use regular 5 B's I'm choking all the way back you know and I'm and then i'll pocket the end of the stick like that and you know it doesn't feel good i'm not playing right you know so that's that's pretty a no-brainer you know the extreme 5b is a way to go hardware-wise i use all DW hardware this is a you know a PDP boom stand unless the DW 5000 hi-hat stand and the the 9000 boom arm with like the the secondary attachment there you know try to keep it simple the stands are heavy enough a lot of people complain about that but you know you don't want your symbols to move so to me it's just if I get the heaviest ones it doesn't matter to me and then the only thing non DW that I use is my kick pedal and this was more of a recent recent there just but I got that Tama speed Cobra double pedal and then the only little mod I've done to that as I put these maple lowboy beaters on here and the point of that was the you know the speed Cobra is kind of the metalheads like go-to because they're really light there really quick they're very precise like you can you just hit everything exact on it but for me I always bury the beater anyways so with that really lightweight beater that they come stock with it just was too light you know I was ahead of the beat a little bit every now and then so the maple lowboy beaters kind of put a little added weight to the back and also gives it that extra propulsion when you actually you know push your foot all the way down you know bugs it into the bass drum with just that extra little bit of heft that I I think is necessary and you know I can totally tell the difference too and I mean you know a lot of drummers already turn the beater upside down so they get the the plastic side you know to give you that extra a little bit of punch to it and the maple beaters just do that on their own I really think other people should get into these too because they are it's such an easy thing to to get into mod your kit with and it but it's really necessary and it really really does a lot of difference you know and I I even go as far as like I just got these tackle they're like leather and felt combo seats and they air the you know these little felts and they they give it like extra little bit of room like the leather wears in and kind of forms around the the stoppers that you have on there which I really like because I always have a problem with Stoppers spinning off and I mean it's a really dumb thing but these little felts like they make the difference you know that little bit added bit of leather and I was like a more recent thing that I got to but all in all you know I really put a lot of a lot of thought and - exactly you know what you want to buy like like all drummers do but I'm really happy with what I have now like we recorded our first full-length album that was out last February American scrapped I recorded with this and we recorded the whole album here in treehouse studios but it's all analog you know all the tape so you know what better way to know exactly what your drums are going to sound like and the performance that you that you gave on the album to record the tape you know this very little manipulation and poster you know while you're recording you know so that was really fun and I was like so happy you know it's such an organic real feel to the album and like you know just showed like these drums were pretty fresh at that point when I started recording and I couldn't be happier with what they sound so we're gonna be you know playing around a lot I tour with these you know I got nice bags and I'm not worried about messing it up it's it's what it's what I want to do you know like I'm not worried about you know the wear and tear of playing the the kit that I love so um yeah we're gonna be doing a good amount of touring with these the album that we're writing right now or I'm gonna be recording with these drums too you know quick drum head changed we're good to go so once again thanks for watching ray from Huntsman and yeah watch out for us we're gonna be doing a little bit more touring coming up hopefully we'll get all around the country maybe even overseas a little bit and all in the works and yeah just listen to the album and keep keep an eye on us for the future thanks you