The Complete Handbook of Drum Kit Mounting Hardware
A Practical Reference for Selection, Installation, Maintenance, and Business Use
by Alumigogo Books
non-fiction
The definitive technical reference for mounting hardware: how it works, how to choose it, and how to make it work for you.
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About this book
Drum mounting hardware is the silent infrastructure of a great-sounding kit. A poorly chosen or badly installed mount can choke the resonance of a shell, cause a cymbal to move mid-song, or make a solid kit feel like a rattletrap. This book is a practical, engineering-minded reference that pulls back the curtain on the clamps, arms, brackets, and suspension systems that hold your kit together.
You will learn how to read a specification sheet, understand the differences between materials and finishes, and match a mounting system to the specific drum, player, and playing situation. Separate chapters cover installation and day-to-day use, maintenance and field repair, and the business landscape of buying, selling, and servicing mounting hardware.
Written for working professionals and serious hobbyists, this handbook avoids hype and jargon. It is filled with concrete examples, comparison tables, and troubleshooting procedures you can use on stage, in the studio, or in the shop. If you have ever stripped a wing screw, fought with a slipping boom arm, or wondered if a suspension mount is worth the money, this book was written for you.
Reader Reviews
Charles Carter
★★★★★I'm a working drummer and I've been dealing with mounting hardware for years, mostly by trial and error. The Chapter 1 breakdown of how a suspension mount actually affects resonance was worth the price of admission for me. A lot of it I already knew, but it's good to have it all in one place with clear explanations. I just wish the whole book had more diagrams; the text gets a little dry in places when describing physical parts you can't see.
Edward Green
★★★★★This is a solid reference, but it's not exactly a page-turner. As a high school band director, I appreciated the clear explanations of the different clamp types and why a cheap memory lock is a false economy. The chapter on choosing hardware made me feel more confident about our next purchase order. I took off a star because it feels a bit academic in tone, and I could have done with more photos and less text in a lot of places.
Kathleen Allen
★★★★★Bought this for my partner who's a serious hobbyist drummer, and he's actually read the whole thing. He says the troubleshooting chapter saved him from paying a tech to fix a slipping tom arm. I'm reviewing it from a spouse's perspective - it's the first book he's finished in a while and he keeps quoting facts from it. The only complaint he mentioned is that some of the spec-talk in the later chapters gets a bit dense. Still, a very practical gift.
Paul Young
★★★★★I run a small drum repair business, and this handbook is now on my workbench. It's not the last word on anything, but it's an excellent baseline to give to new techs. The chapter on installation workflows is a good refresher on torque and alignment, and the gear section for resellers helped me think about a few supplementary products I can offer. My biggest gripe is that it's very drum-kit centric; there's not much on mallet instruments or timpani, but that's not what it promised.
Nicholas Thomas
★★★★★As someone who has toured and has a home studio, I wish I'd had this book years ago. It explains the 'why' behind the 'what' so clearly-the acoustics arguments made a lot of sense, and I immediately went and adjusted my tom suspension, which solved a long-standing tuning issue. The chapter on choosing gear is useful if you're building a kit from scratch. The writing is efficient and gets right to the point, which I appreciate. Maybe not for beginners who don't care why things work, but for professionals and techs, it's a great resource.