Vended's Simon Crahan - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 483

[Applause] what's up everybody it's Simon cran from Bend dead we're on tour with Bullet for My Valentine and a m and Men we just had a new single come out am I the only one and this is my kit so this kit was made by SJC it's like a mahogany purplish reddish finish um it's got gold splatters gray Hardware it's um it's normally an eight piece but right now we're running with the the six piece right now but it's just suitable for what we're doing for this run in front here we got a 20x 22 bass drum uh I just like how the way it feels it's very just it's like a cannon you know what I mean everyone does like the you know they do the what it like the 18x 22s and it's just super thin but I just wanted to feel more power pushing through for live and it just it just cuts through for what we're doing and I just love the way it sounds for me personally and then we have a 10-in Tom right here usually I run a 10 in 12 in and a 13 in but for this run I'm doing a 10 in and a 12 in and just feels good because it's smaller to high and it's just and it just feels good to roll around and we got a 16in right here and this is just a beast I think I'm going to change it though I'm going to do like a Bas drum I think right here just to sound like a cannon so it's going to be awesome so the snare I'm running is 6 1/2 by 13 it was a tribute snare from my sister um she recently passed away but you know uh it's gold Hardware White shell purple splatters I don't know if you guys can see the splatters or not just an absolutely beautiful snare the 13in I just love I'm I'm very short and I also just have bigger legs so the 13 in is really good just because it's not carving into my thighs and then the 6 and 1/2 is because because I fell in love with Joey jordon's uh signature snare which was a 6 and 1/2 by 13 I used to play that for a long time and it just felt right you know what I mean I played with a 7x4 but it just felt so massive and I just wasn't a big fan of it but yeah the 6 and2 uh with the wooden burned uh emblem I got the snare weight on top those guys are amazing they sent me a lot of great products and with the trick yep and then the the 40 40 strand wire the that's probably why I get the massive Cannon sounds throughout the whole live set so yeah that's my kit so I run with Remo lately I've been doing Emperor on tops Ambassador on the bottoms I used to do pin stripes but when we released our signal uh Ami the only one I used Emperors on this track and it just kind of stuck it sounded just really dark and it sounded heavy the fills just sound on it just big so yeah Remo Emperor throughout the whole thing and um ambassadors on the bottom and the little trick that I do is uh this little spider web right here no one can steal it but uh yeah it just helps for like toning and just helps for that resonance that no one wants it kind of like flies in the air and it just just flushes away it's really cool really good trick the snare is a Remo controlled uh sound coded x uh right now I don't I don't know where the dot went there's usually a DOT right here in the middle I think I just hit harder cuz recently I've been playing with with the snare jazz style which is more in front of me like this it's kind of angled down so I think the snare the dock kind of just powered away so my ride is on the left side for anyone who doesn't know I'm left-handed so I play like open-handed like this I got a mega Bell a custom 21 in this thing is a beast really good for blast beats really good for belt parts having fun with it never clean it though because it just sounds way better dirty moving on to my main crash which is an a custom 20 in uh dirty as well but that's how we are so I mean this one's fun I use this mainly throughout our whole set um and then for high hats I've been kind of experimenting I used to have a 14 in but I've been doing a 15in the a custom Master sound high hat I'm thinking about doing a like a dark a dark uh series that just came out those look really cool but I'm not sure yet this really cuts through though for parts cuz we have a lot of high have parts that just really just so I just need a lot of cut through uh and here this little guy that's kind of hidden is my little splash This Guy's new he's an fx crash or FX Splash I'm sorry this is a 10 in having fun with this guy a lot really good for close High half Parts really good for fills just good for just like simple beats like this and play around that's really fun I that's fun up here this is new uh usually my China's over here and my crashes so they're swapped but at home recently I just been messing around with placements and stuff like that and China here felt really good cuz it just felt high and just up here so I'm playing with an oriental this is I believe a 19in yes A 19in I'm not used to a 19in and I not used to an oriental uh China crash I usually have the uh Ultra hammered a custom but this has been really fun just sounds really heavy I mean everything sounds heavy with these symbols so but this one's really cut cuts through with like massive China Parts moving on here this is fun for doing fills around the kit like this this one's my 10-in a custom Splash same as this one except it's not an fx this one's really cool I've had this one since I was like 13 or whatever I've had it for a long time really good guy this guy I just brought out today uh this is the sweet crash uh the K series Ser uh this one's a 20 in I'm excited about this one I haven't we tried it at sound check and I'm pretty sure it sounds really good so I'm I'm excited i' been mainly an a custom guy so I'm excited to see what this sounds like live this guy is the it's a really weird one this is the the raw crash that I found there was only one left in stock I got my hands on it and I guess this is a crash that like they never finished you know what I mean like it has the logo going on everything but they never smelted it down to look like a beautiful circle symbol so sounds really dark and it's pretty sweet so love this guy weird just like us um my my favorite symbol now is the crash of Dune the 22in Oriental this one is so so fun for just coming down on the down be like with a breakdown just like that so fun my favorite symbols by far I make sure it's all the way to the right right so I have a thing to attack yeah that's my symbols sticks right now I'm running with um Manhattan 7A from Vader uh recently I tried their classic uh 7as but these ones just feel really light everyone's always like why do you why do you play with the 7 a and it's just faster you know faster to go round the kit cuz a lot of our parts are just constant constant just around so these are really fun really light I like the little tips right here um they just absolutely just slam on the kit really good love these guys thrown I don't know I found it in a storage unit uh of ours one time and just tried it out really comfy just like it like it had I don't know what about it it's just really comfy it's just like I've tried so many Thrones from jalter T and like a love those guys it's just like those just didn't suit how I wanted to play this has like a I don't even know what brand it is but it's so like just you fit into it it's really nice so I like this guy a lot and it's cushionable so that's good my sample pad which runs all of our 808s our interludes our intro and Lisa multistrike pad those guys are great I love those guys I also love them because it's super colorful really helps like I mean it won't play or anything but um when I do hit it like it turns white so I can tell if there's a track playing if I accidentally hit something I can hit the panic button I can hit the next kit over next kit over it's really nice it's really just efficient and it's definitely just helpful for our kit like our set cuz a lot of the songs like I don't have time to like press this button so like I'll be playing the last not I just go boom right there like I'm just immediately into the next song or the next part so it's really efficient for what I we're doing right now the hardware this is a new piece that I got recently I've been with jalter since I was like like a little baby but I recently bought this because it just looked so low profile this is the bass drum shaped rack it's really cool cuz like when you're far away you can't even notice it super clean shiny it's just like and it's just easy it's easy to take apart it's less like less space above and then we go around here and then we got the low profile rack right here which is really cool because it's just I can pick this up move it across the stage it's so stealth mode that's what it's called it's called the stealth kit and that's what I've been calling it it's just the I've been calling it The Batman in my head cuz it's just it's so quiet and it looks so like low to the ground and that just for the crowd it's really cool cuz I don't want them to see bulkiness I don't want I want them to see clean and just everything look clean and organized so that's the hardware I use which is jalter really good guys Sam with the high hat stand jalter as well my pedals are iron chra 600s they're a double pedal I usually run uh single pedals I have two bass drums but right now it's you know with space and time it's just been a single B but these are really really fun really fast just you know just really really cool I love these guys recently I've been trying to like try new pedals I might try direct drive but fell in love with the chain for a long time and I just think that's just who I am and these are just this gets me through the show they're really quick and I need to be quick to do what we do cuz we have a lot of fast bass drum parts and I have to be just on my aame with everything that's why everything's super low super close because I need to be just in the corners and it's just that's just how it is this is the first tour we're running ears for me I usually just run monitors but this is the first tour I have ears so I'm just running a s Sennheiser in ear pack really nice it's kind of the most like dumb way to do it which is a mixer right in here and then this is running through the mixer and I have a track running through the sound guy but it works so I hear the show so much better and I feel like I can I'm connected to these guys so much more and I can just focus on what I'm doing and I can hear what I'm playing and what mistakes that I'm doing so yeah I I just know I I mean yeah this just this is the whole thing this is the Beast I love sing behind this thing every night it's just so fun just to come here and look at it and then also change things about it and that's why I'm experimenting with different crashes and because that's just the whole fun thing about drums you know that's why I think everyone should learn is like everyone should get out of their comfort zone and that's what I'm trying to do like I change my crash over here to the left instead of up there and it works so much better for me so yeah thanks for checking out my kit I'm I'm Simon cran from bended uh we're on tour right now with Bullet From My Valentine you can check our tickets out on FAL banded.com we have some head siging dates through those tour thanks to everyone for watching I'll see you guys [Music] later