The Yamaha Stage custom is a very well built kit, which equally sounds and looks fantastic. To the advantage of the customer it ranges at a price a lot lower than your average Yamaha drum kit but still is of the original Yamaha quality.
I have owned the Yamaha Stage Custom Advantage for a year now and I haven’t looked back once. I bought it as a 7 piece in a metallic green with hardware. It now also has Paiste Signature cymbals and a Pearl double bass drum pedal also. But if you bought it new you would pay £690 for it. This is only with 3 toms though, with mine I have 5.
Y.E.S.S. ball claps which come with the kit are the best I have seen, they allow the player to move the toms in to any position which is required which normal mounts just do not allow you to do. The Y.E.S.S. clamps are also designed so there is as little as possible attached to the toms so they can vibrate freely. This creates a smooth sound, which you can reply on.
The hardware is not the best because it does not come with double bracing. But there is not much reason why it needs to be that strong anyway unless you plan to be maintaining a lot of weight on them.
The skins (Remo U2) for the drums do not quite keep up with the quality of the drum kit. But lets face it the heads obtained with a new drum kit, are never very good anyway. I added Remo Pinstripe to my Yamaha Stage Custom and they really do it justice. Once with good quality heads have been fixed that’s when you can really get the sound out of them, which you bought it for.
The type of sound, which you get with the original heads, is more of a jazz sound, but as your average rocker I prefer the deeper sounds, which come from Remo Pinstripe heads. With the U2 heads on the kit it gives a long sustained tangy sound, which is nice but just does not seem to fit with music as easily as a deep rumbling sound. The U2 heads can be made deeper by dampening the heads with duck tape and tissues if you like, this now would give a smooth note with little sustain. Loosening the head also deepens the sound. But as I have said time and time again why not just get Remo pinstripes. For a deep bass drum it is best to put two cushions inside the drum resting on the inside head.
The Yamaha Stage Custom Advantage is lacquered unlike the cheaper version the Yamaha Stage Custom Standard which is almost the same but not with a high quality lacquer coating on it. The difference is that with a standard coating of just coloured plastic you may sometimes get rattling from the gaps between the coating and the wooden shell. The clear lacquer coating is better because it can freely move and vibrate because it is just a coat of clear ‘glass like’ hard wax over the colour underneath. Also clear lacquer looks amazing and gives the drum kit a perfect shine.
Over all the Yamaha Stage Custom is an amazing drum kit, which is good for anyone. It is more aimed at semi-professionals if not professionals but if there is someone which really knows they are going to take drumming seriously it is a buy you cannot go wrong with.
Hope this has been helpful,
Steve
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(Jul 15th, 2002)
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