Unprocessed’s Leon Pfeifer - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 649

I'm usually like, I want to have as little stuff as possible, which kind of didn't work out if you look at this kit. And the rezo is cranked, so I get good ghost notes. What's up guys, this is Leon from Unprocessed. Today we are in Chicago at Bottom Lounge and I'll show you around my kit today. First off, we have a new album out called Angel, currently touring it through the United States and Europe later this year, so check it out if you like, much appreciated. Let's get into it. I'm proudly endorsing Tama drums, so I'm playing a Tama Star Classic Maple on this tour. Beautiful finish, and the sizes is 12x8, I believe, 16x16 and 18x16 for the toms, 22x16 for the kick, and then this is also a Maple snare, 14x6.5 with this kit. And on my left side here, I have the 12-inch Tama Melody snare, which is a signature by Mike Faulkner. Amazing snare, sounds super well, love it, punchy, pingy, all the things I like. So this setup is a rental kit for this tour, it's basically one-on-one what I play in Europe, besides the finish and this one here, but I'll get that one in Europe as well because I like it so much. So yeah, I'm pretty much at home here, just different colors. And these are my cymbals, I flew them because they're quite specific, but I'll get into that in a moment. In terms of heads, I'm using all Evans heads, super lucky to be partnered with this company for a while now, they've been supporting me amazingly throughout all the tours. And yeah, I'm rocking UV2s on the toms, coated heads, on the snare is the UV1 Reverse Dot single-ply head, allows me to get more low-end in higher tunings, and a bit more overtones so it cuts through the mix nicely. Over here on the side snare I have a G2, that was just stock on that when I got it from the rental, but it sounds great, so I'm not changing it. And on the kick I have E-Mad II clear at the moment, and that can be switched out with the E-Mad coated if I like, so no real preference here, as long as it's thumping. And for rezzos, usually I just use G1 clears for the toms, and the Hazy 300 for the snare. So on the past tours this year I added the 12-inch snare, because we have one song called Solera that has like a breakbeat-type intro, and it repeats throughout the song, and actually my drum tech Max kind of gaslighted me into adding this snare, because I'm usually like, I want to have as little stuff as possible, which kind of didn't work out if you look at this kit, but anyways, he made me take it and add it, and I'm very happy about it because it's such a cool addition, new toy to play with, and it just makes the song much better in my opinion. So in terms of tuning, the kick is rather loose, I would say like half a turn after finger tight, so you get a good blooming low end, I always do that to try to get the shell to actually resonate with the head, because when it's just finger tight I feel like it's just like a plastic ball hitting a piece of paper. And I feel like we get much more low end out of the kick if we do that. Same goes for the toms, the batter head is like a third, major or minor third below the rezzo head, so that way I get like a punchy throw and I can control the sustain. And it kind of differs on which heads we're using, we were using G2s before, and we swapped out for UB2s and that relation changed a bit, but give or take a third above for the rezzo head so I can really make a controlled sustain and kind of have them even throughout the setup. With snare, I think the fundamental for this one is a 220 something, and the rezzo is cranked so I get good ghost notes, yeah, good feeling, and then as I said with the single play head I get the low end back a bit, and it works well with maple, in Europe I have an aluminum snare that works fantastically with that. So yeah, I can really recommend this head. And then for here, I don't know any specific range, we just crank it so it almost sounds like a timbale in a way, but with snare wires, so pretty high, super tight on the bottom for ghost notes. And yeah, that's basically it, listen in the room and see what you get. I'm endorsed by Meinl as well, great company, they've been supporting me for the past years on all the tours as well, and whenever something breaks, within two days I have a replacement, so thank you Meinl for the great support, and I'll show you what I have here. I'll start with a cracked cymbal, because this is the 18 inch extra hammered trash crash from the PureLR series, there's a replacement on the way for that at the moment. Then I go to the 18 inch extra hammered, also from the PureLR series, they used to make great pair for accenting and playing melodies in this area of the drum set. So yeah, moving on to heads, I'm playing 15 inch polyphonic heads, love them to death, washy, crispy, good pedal head sound, just what I need. Over here I have the 10 inch temporal stack 2, signature model by Matt Gartzka, just a small accent thing on my way to the splash, which is a Tessex Custom Dual Splash in 10 inch. So yeah, that concludes the left side, over to the right side I'm playing a 22 inch dark ride, very defined, crispy, stick attack, good bell, cuts through the mix, through dense guitars and loads of bass. Up top I have a 21 inch double down crash ride by Matt Halpern, another signature model, I use it for big choruses or as an accent crash. Then over here, at the moment there is a 20 inch polyphonic crash, I swap it out with a 20 inch jazz medium thin from the Bizon series, depending on what I like, or depending on what I have, but right now it's the polyphonic. Big stack over here is the fat stack, also Matt Gartzka signature model, been playing it for years, perfect sound for me, almost like a big trashy auxiliary hat, because I have it like, very loose, and yeah over here, 18 inch Bizon China, brilliant version, today I also have a traditional version but that one's cracked and awaiting replacement. With sticks, I'm with Promark, and since they released the long versions of their sticks I'm playing the 5A long rebound, gives me good reach for everywhere, good stick control, good ghost notes, teardrop head for smack on the toms, and that's pretty much it. With sticks, that's all I use, plenty of them, and they hold up forever, I usually don't break any in a 75 minute show, so that goes to say, quality is very good. Hardware and pedals is all Tama as well, I'm playing Iron Cobra, double pedals, Powerglide I think, just to have that bit more ramp up for when the beater actually goes to the head, same goes with the hi-hat, Iron Cobra, trusted, standard from Tama, works everywhere, is amazing. All the cymbal stands are also Tama Road Pro, in different variations, small attachments everywhere for all the little cymbals, and for the crash over here there's an attachment, so that's basically it, Tama all the way. We are rocking RH Acoustics in-ears with Unprocessed, and I have two pairs of molded in-ears, so this one is shiny, like a faceplate like that, and the ones I have here right now are a bit more customized, with like a logo and my signature on it, and they sound fantastic, the dampening is fantastic up to, I think, 28-29 dB, so you can really, as a drummer, really hear what you're playing through the in-ears, which I really like, get a very punchy sound. They fit amazingly, they hold up amazingly, and they've been a good partner for us since this year actually, so that's what we're rocking on in-ears. On snare we have a trigger for gates, so basically it opens the noise gate, and with the physical distance between the head and the microphone, it's kind of like a physical look-ahead in a way, so you actually trigger everything and it doesn't get opened by the kick drum. So that's what we're doing on snare, and we plan to expand it on all the shells, but nothing for triggering, just gating. So this is just a rental throne, any time a throne, in Europe I have a first chair with like the saddle top, which is very comfy, enables me to sit for long times and feel like very balanced, which is super important for double bass playing, but yeah, that's it, I'll get this one eventually in the States, so I'm all set. Alright guys, thanks for checking out my setup, once again, please check out Angel, it's out everywhere worldwide, we have it in physical and digital, you can buy our ---- on www.unprocessed.band, check that out, there's also tour dates up there, and music videos, all that good stuff, so yeah, we appreciate your support, thank you very much.