T. G. LAFREDO

I switched to the Gibraltar Road Series rack last fall. Before that, every drum, cymbal, and percussion instrument in my kit had its own stand. Bringing in the rack allowed me to get rid of eleven tripods. That’s thirty-three legs—a forest of hardware. Now I can position everything right where I want it. I’m no longer dealing with the limitations of the hardware below.

Recording is the priority around here, and the increase in floor space has also made it much easier to position mics wherever I need them.

Finally, the rack looks cool. That counts for something.

In this clip, I’m playing my DW Collector’s Series kit. The rack toms are 7″ x 10″, 8″ x 12″, and 9″ x 13″. Before I got the rack, I could never fit the 7″ x 10″ in a way that worked for me. It always pushed the hi-hat too far to my left, or it shoved the other two toms too far to the right, sending my ride cymbal to the edge of oblivion. This, again, was all because the tripods down below blocked me from getting the positions I needed.

The rack has solved all those problems. I can finally play the smallest tom and still reach everything.