Luc Bergeron drum gear descriptions and maintenance of drums cymbals and mics

General Gear Descriptions

As far as drums go, my main kit is a Sonor Delite set in the "Birdseye Sunburst" finish. I have never been so pleased with a set of drums. They have Sonor's "Vintage" maple shell, which is very thin with support hoops, and they just sing. This kit is the one I use constantly with the Bob Charest Band. I also have a 5-piece Yamaha Stage Custom Standard shell pack in Matte Green (20" bass drum, tom diameters 10"-16") as a workhorse kit that I use for gigs outside the Charest venues. My hardware consists of Sonor 600 series snare, cymbal, and double tom stands, DW 9000 single and double bass pedals, Pearl Eliminator hi-hat and remote cable hat stands, and miscellaneous Yamaha 700 and 800 series hardware.

I’ve been really fortunate to be able to get such wonderful kits; I’m also lucky to have some cool snare drums to accompany them. I enjoy all of them, and they all have their own sound for specific purposes and settings, but I especially love the 14x6 Delite snare that matches the Sunburst kit and my Pearl Dennis Chambers signature snare.

I have been a Paiste fan ever since I heard John Bonham as a kid; I've always been able to identify with that sound. I’ve tried other things, and there are a lot of sounds out there that I really like, but I keep coming back to Paiste. There's nothing else like them. My usual setup contains Signature, Dark Energy, 2002, Traditionals, and Dimensions series cymbals. For louder gigs/bigger venues, I'll put up Giant Beat crashes and a 21” Dark Full ride. For trio gigs, I use 14” Dark Energy prototype hats, Traditionals series rides (a 20” Medium-Light and a 20" Light Flat Ride, into which I installed 3 rivets), and a 16” Signature fast Crash..

(mouse over images for descriptions)

Pearl 14x6.5 Dennis Chambers Signature snare, used by the man himself at a Drum Shop clinic.

Yamaha 14x5.5 Manu Katche signature snare

Pearl 14x6.5 Sensi-Tone Brass with vintage-style tube lugs and single-flanged hoops

Other Gear:

I also have a Paiste 14" Prototype Crash (Signature alloy with the “Sonic Texture” lathing pattern), 8" and 6" Cup Chimes, a 502 Splash that I sometimes stack onto the china cymbal for a white-noise effect, as well as some Meinl Gen-X cymbals (12" Alien Hats and a 10" Drumbal), a Zildjian 8" K Splash that I've had for about 20 years, and some Sabians (20" HH Medium Ride that I've always loved, 14" AAX Stage hats, a 10" B8Pro China Splash, and a pair of hi-hats that were hand-hammered and lathed at The Drum Shop on Sabian Day in May of 2004).

I use Evans heads on all my drums. The bass batter side gets an EQ1, and the resonant side gets an EQ1 Resonant. I also use an EQ Pad on the batter side; in some cases on the resonant head as well, depending on the needs of the moment. The Delite tom batter heads are coated; most often G2’s, with black Genera Resonant heads (I’ve also been happy with the results with G1’s top & bottom). The Stage Custom toms, I’ve found, sound their absolute best to me when I use clear G2's with Genera Resonant heads on the bottom. The toms get MIN-EMAD dampeners on them if I have to tame down a little of the high-end tone and decay for microphones. The snare drums typically get Power Center Reverse Dot heads and the 12" snare gets a coated G2. All snares get 300 Hazy snare side heads.

For electronics I have two Roland items: an SPD-S sampling pad and a Juno-D keyboard. I've been using Audix microphones for a few years now, and I’ve been really happy with them for live and studio use, including the D6 bass drum mic mounted internally with a May no-drill mount, a D1 for primary snare, D2's for rack toms, D4's for floor toms, and Fusion F15 condenser mic's for hi-hat and overhead. D-Clips hold the mic’s to the snare and toms. I'm also using an HT-2 headset mic' for vocals. Lastly I have a Behringer 8-channel mixer for house recording or sub-mixing live, which seems to do the job well enough.

For sticks, I switch around a lot, but I'm using the Vater “Session” model most often. I'll use their “Phat Ride” model when I need to be quiet, and their 5B wood tip for the loud stuff. I'm also using their retractable brushes and "Acousticks" dowel sticks.