How to convert a 16″ Floor Tom into a Bass Drum

Avoid taking your 22/24/26 inch Bass Drum to a gig take a 16″ one instead! This article describes how you can do this quickly and non-invasively without drilling extra holes in and devaluing your gear!

This is a quick Acoustic Drum post, for anyone with:

1) A dodgy back who is fed up with lugging around a 24″ Bass Drum around pubs and clubs

or

2) You simply can’t fit it into your car and get the rest of the gear and passengers in too…

or

3) You are due to play at a small venue which is short on space

Here’s the answer: Downsize!

Grab yourself a spare Floor tom and convert it into a bass drum – this cost me about $100 AUD using parts bought from Megamusic in Myaree.

To do this, you will need:

1) 1 x “Spare” 16″ Floor Tom

2) 1 x Pearl Optimount for a 16″ diameter drum (a mounting bracket used to avoid drilling holes in the drum)

3) 1 x Pearl JG-16 Jungle Kit Adaptor (a bass drum pedal mount and a couple of replacement floor tom legs)

and optionally,

4) 1 x Remo Falam Slam dampener pad for the batter head, as recommended by John at Megamusic.

Note: the above links are for you to see the same parts I used and are for reference only – you may not be able to get the goods delivered to you if you live outside the US. Do check before ordering and find a local supplier if you experience difficulties.

To fit the Optimount, first work out where the top of the drum is and where the 2 replacement legs will need to go. Note: Please click on the photos if you can’t read the text. You certainly don’t have to remove the heads to do this, I just think it’s easier to show you the positioning of the lugs with the heads off.

Line up the lugs for the legs (Click to enlarge)

Assuming your floor tom is fully assembled, all you need to do is loosen 2 tension rods from the top and 2 tension rods from the bottom. You may want to loosen the heads a bit all round if you are worried about damaging the heads. You do not have to remove them completely, just enough to slide the Optimount between the top of each leg lug and the underneath of the metal drum rim. Use the bolts either side of the bracket to adjust it to be just a little under the total shell height (rim to rim) so you can tension the heads later without it getting in the way.

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Locating the top tension rods (Click to Enlarge)

Once it is the right length, slide the Optimount into position and relocate the loosened tension rods back into the lugs, through the black rubber washers and refasten. Re-tune the tension rods to same tension as the others and check your heads are in tune.

I wasn’t absolutely sure the Optimount would fit, so I took the floor tom to MegaMusic and tested various parts in store to see what would actually work before I bought anything. In fact I tried the alternative Pearl ISS mounting system first – it would not stay on, as the rim hooks supplied were too shallow to grip the drum rims and kept sliding off. It was a non starter for my Fibes Drum. I ordered the Optimount instead and tried that on my second visit. If you are buying on line, you don’t have the luxury of ‘try before you buy’.

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Relocating the bottom tension rods (Click to Enlarge)

Now fit the Bass Drum bracket from the Jungle Kit into the Optimount.

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Fit the Bass Drum Pedal Mount (Click to Enlarge)

Once this is in position, replace the floor tom legs with the Bass Drum legs and adjust the memory locks to suit the final position.

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Replace two of the three floor tom legs (Click to Enlarge)

Optionally, add a Remo “Falam Slam” pad to the skin for extra oomph! wellie! attack, etc.

NB Don’t do this with a skin you will want to use again as a floor tom, in case you can’t remove the sticker easily.

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Positioning the Falam Slam (Click to Enlarge)

There you go. Once you know what you are doing you can change this around in under 5 minutes.

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Job Done! (Click to Enlarge)

We could go further and add an inner bass drum foam lining, felt strips, a hole in the skin for a microphone (but then you can’t revert to using it as a floor tom so easily), but I thought this would get you started. It takes longer to explain than it does to do!

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Voila! Your new bass drum (Click to Enlarge)

And if you are prepared to leave the Optimount in place, changing it back into a Floor Tom again is just a case of changing the legs back to the original ones. I would remove the bass drum pedal holder for normal floor tom use and for transport purposes – it will wreck a car seat!

I also found that the Premier 252 pedal shown here wasn’t particularly suitable. When the metal mechanism rotates it almost touches the metal rim. In a live situation it would only have to move slightly and you could end up damaging both the drum rim and the pedal mechanism.

You can adjust how far the Bass Drum bracket sticks out. Experiment with this and try it out in a rehearsal first to make sure things stay where they are supposed to.

I noticed that the new bass drum legs are not really “spurs”  – they are really just feet, using the same chunky Pearl rubber feet that you can get for normal floor tom legs. If you remove the rubber feet, there are no spikes to stop the bass drum from moving, just flat metal rods.

Note: you can get other Optimount sizes, too, so in theory, you could have a smaller bass drum than a 16″, e.g. a 12/13/14/15″ tom – but you will have no leg brackets. I think Gibraltar do external leg brackets (without drilling extra holes) but they would bump the cost up a fair bit.

 

Good Luck!