Mike Mangini drumkit explanation

When I contacted Dream Theater’s press folks for a Rigged interview with new drummer Mike Mangini about his new kit, I didn’t realize I’d end up publishing a book.

But that’s the kind of dude Mangini is; incredibly passionate, earnest, easy-going, and without a doubt one of the nicest guys I’ve ever spoken with on record. He’s also a gear nerd of the highest order, and the drum kit he’s hauling around with him on tour with Dream Theater is no joke. Mangini’s set up is so complex and his explanations so detailed, we’ve decided to split up this Rigged feature into three parts to avoid the dreaded wall of text. Drummers in the MetalSucks readership are gonna LOVE what we’ve got in store for you.

Up first: Mike takes us through his quadruple kick set-up, his pedals (8 total), hi-hats and snares. He also talks a good bit about technique as it relates to his drum setup and playing ambidextrously. Here’s Mike:

These two pictures were taken from Pearl headquarters. That’s it right there. That’s what’s being sent to rehearsal and that’s what I’m going to play.

Starting with the bass drums: there are four acoustic bass drums, one 26” diameter bass drum to the far left on a slave double pedal so I can reach it. Two 22” diameter kick drums in the middle on regular single pedals and then an 18” diameter bass drum to the right on a righty slave pedal. So the far right and left kick drums are set up on slave pedals from the double pedal so that they can be placed where I can reach them. The purpose of the four kick drums is firstly that the two 22” kick drums are the main kick drums for double bass playing, although I don’t use them in a typical fashion. In other words, I’m not always leading with my right foot; sometimes I lead with the left foot depending on the part of the song. With the 26” kick drum and 18” kick drums being far left, I am able to reach them both from the same stool which means that I can play a song like “Fatal Tragedy” starting out with the big 26” bass drum to the left and then I don’t have to get up to go to the two 22” kick drums; likewise I can do the same for the 18” kick.

I have two hi-hats, but they’re remote cable hats. They are wired on opposite sides that I step on with my feet. For example, the hi-hat pedal that I step on with my right foot is on the left side of the kit. This means that when I’m playing on that lefty hi-hat, which is essentially a darker hi-hat sound, my left foot has to become the main kick and that is where I would use the left 22” kick drum as the main bass drum. When I step on the hi-hat with my left foot, that cable stretches all the way to my right and the hi-hat cymbals themselves are struck with my right hand. What that means is that I play kick drum with my right foot so the 22” kick drum to the right becomes the main kick drum. The hi-hat to the right is a set of brighter cymbals.

Basically the pedals thus far are four acoustic kick drums and two remote hi-hats. There are two more pedals: one to the extreme left and extreme right. They’re both also slave pedals. On my far right foot is actually a righty double pedal where I’m playing slave such that the beater connects to an E Pro Pad. Pearl has an electronic drum set called E Pro, and I’m using one of the pads to my far right. Similarly, on the far left I have a lefty double pedal, a slave double pedal that stretches to another E Pro. These I use for triggering. For example, with the upcoming tour, I have a giant concert bass drum for one particular tune with the right foot and I have a cowbell assigned to that E Pro Pad on my far left foot. With the new album, those two trigger pedals are triggering anything from timpani to cowbells that are tuned exactly to the notes that Jordan (Rudess), John (Myung) and John (Petrucci) are playing.

By having 8 pedals (4 acoustic kicks, 2 electronic ones and 2 hi-hats) they are arranged such that I can adhere to Mike Portnoy’s original drum track – be it a 26” kick drum or a 22” kick drum or a small one because Mike grew from having just a regular double bass kick starting with 24”s, I believe. I think he started out with two 24” kicks and then went to two 22”s. At one point he put an experimental kick to his right which was a small bass drum, and I chose to use an 18” because on the new album I actually use that 18” in the same beat where I use the 26”, for dynamics. So in a non-heavy metal kind of a structure, I can get away with dynamic on one bass drum by hitting a note softer or laying the beater into the head to get a slap, but with a heavy metal situation, especially Dream Theater, I have to exaggerate everything. In other words, the dynamics kind of get lost and you really have to hit those drums. Having an 18” bass drum do subordinate notes while the 26” bass drum fires off the huge downbeat is the way that I get dynamics. That’s an entire overview of the pedal scenario.

I have been nurturing this for the past decade or so and before I got a call to audition, I had a very down moment in my studio looking at my drum set saying “who the heck is going to let me use this?” It’s always someone telling me what to do, that I have too many drums and too this and too that. I swear, I’m just a kid at heart having fun and I don’t know why the world is such that we have to tap each other on the shoulder and say that you can’t do this or you can’t do that. It’s almost like somebody is talking to a kid saying “hey, stop having fun.”

It’s funny because I say that to my kids all the time, in fun of course. They’re acting their age, and I can’t go there and say “don’t act your age” or “stop having fun.” So I’ll say it in fun and my five year old gets the humor of that. That’s kind of how I see it. “Man, I got this set designed for orchestrating, and that’s what it’s for.” I’m a trained classical drummer, and I’ve got these skills that I’ve developed. Why can’t I just use them? These guys in Dream Theater are so secure and so pleasant to work with and so supportive that I’m still pinching myself going “how did this happen?”

Onto the rest of the kit. I have two snare drums. They’re both placed in the center as far as a left/right axis is concerned. The main snare drum, well there’s nothing much to say about that other than it’s a main snare drum. The mini snare which is dead center but up above my rack toms, is used for a few different reasons. Firstly, I use it for dynamics where I will play a pattern using two snare drums and a sticking. For example, drummers know what a paradiddle is. I might play a paradiddle between the two snare drums but by racking the back beat on the main snare with a really hard hit rim shot and having the subordinate notes be the mini snare just brings that paradiddle to life. It’s like nothing that I’ve ever heard before. It’s not that none of us can pull it off on one drum, it’s that it doesn’t work on one drum the same so why not have two. That’s one purpose. Another purpose is Mike eventually set up two snare drums, so I use that mini snare for backbeats in a song like “These Walls” and I turn it off for a song like the Great Debate. I can access it with either hand, and that’s the third thing: that when I make the decision to play lefty or righty (which I will explain very specifically once I get to my cymbal setup) essentially if I had my snare drum off to one side that would limit me depending on what side I’m using.

Almost every drummer that I know is either a righty or lefty, but my drum set is not set up that way. The fact that I’m not righty or lefty or ambidextrous or not ambidextrous has nothing to do with it. In fact, I’m not ambidextrous. I trained myself to play ambidextrously because I didn’t want my flawed, awful body to get in the way of my musical soul. I have a flawed body. It doesn’t do what I tell it to do. By my deciding for the right reasons (which would be musical reasons) that I would place this mini snare dead center and my hi-hats flipped lefty and righty, it means that I had to work my butt off to play “Back in Black” by AC/DC lefty. I’ll tell you what – it’s not an easy song to play.

I don’t care what anyone says. I think real musicians know... people that are happy, too, that are secure in themselves and happy, you can accept your own lack of skill in different areas because you simply see it as something you didn’t get to yet. It’s just not a big deal. You either do it or you don’t. My placing the snare drum dead center meant that I had to develop ambidextrous skills, although I am not an ambidextrous person.

So that brings me to the cymbal arrangements. The cymbal arrangement is setup where for the most part darker sounding cymbals are on the left side and brighter sounding cymbals are on the right — higher pitch right, lower pitch left. That determines whether or not I play righty or lefty. Let me give you an example: on a song like “Caught in a Web,” the musicians in the band change key signatures from whatever key signature that they’re in to one that’s up a couple of steps. When I go from a lower key signature to a higher key signature, I will often switch from my left side hi-hats (which are lower pitched) to the right side ones (which are higher pitched).

That is the one thing that is going to stick out as being distinctly different from me and everybody, and that includes Mike Portnoy. When it comes to playing Dream Theater songs, I’m not going to play on just one hi-hat. I’m going to be switching hi-hats when the guys change key signatures.

Since that is the root of where and when I choose to hit cymbals, that brings me to the rest of them: stacks, splashes, crashes, rides, and oriental/China types. I follow the same protocol there, such that when the key signature changes, on a song like “The Great Debate,” I know that Mike plays one part on a China type cymbal with his right hand the whole way through two progressions but since the band changes key signatures halfway between this, I switch to orientals. I think that’s going to be a very pleasant visual thing, not only the sound of it, but the look of it. People are going to be paying attention to everything I do, and I’m fully aware that people are going to be paying attention to everything I do.

I’m going to be able to present this to them such that I’m preserving Mike’s legacy with the parts, but I’m also taking care of my own self. I’m watching out for me and being grateful for my life, saying, “I want to do something, and I want to offer something to it.” This is my thing that I’m going to do that doesn’t compromise, corrupt, distort or hurt Mike’s original parts but brings it up that extra notch that the band noticed. This is a small tangent, but what does everybody think it is that they found in my audition footage when they reviewed my entire audition? What do you think they found? This is what it was. They knew that I knew every note. They knew that I learned their parts, and they darn well saw it in my drumming at that audition. When they went back and reviewed it, it must have hit them like a ton of bricks and that’s why it was a unanimous decision as far as the playing. Believe me, Dream Theater, the whole talk about me playing on James’ record, that I jumped onstage with Mike and that I’m friends with Mike and I went to the shows and got backstage and blah, blah, blah — let me tell you something: these guys do not mess around. If I didn’t show up and do what I did, they would have chosen someone else because they owe it to themselves and they owe it to the fans.

That tangent’s over, so now I’ll go back to the use of these cymbals so that when people watch me play, I’m not just hitting hunks of metal. They’re not hunks of metal, where gosh, I’m this limited righty drummer and my left hand is busy, so gosh, I’m going to have to hit a hunk of metal with my right hand. It’s not like that. I will switch halfway to hit the right cymbal with the right hand, and that’s what determines what side of the kit I’m using or what ride source I’m using.

I have two ride cymbals. On my far left is a tight earth ride (a real thick, heavy thing) and on my right side it’s a Zildjian 20” A Custom cymbal which is a more open sound. It’s a very airy sound, not so much Alex Van Halen or John Bonham openness, but it definitely has more ring to it. I’ll choose one of those ride sources based on how much tightness or openness I want for the ride cymbal. That is kind of the way I choose an open hi-hat vs. a closed hi-hat.

Recapping this: the hi-hats chosen from low or high pitched depending on what the band is doing or depending whether it’s a verse or chorus. A closed hi-hat is more typical for a verse and an open hi-hat is more typical for a chorus. My ride cymbals are chosen on the tightness or the openness of it. My ride source, which is way up high, would be crashes or the China types that are chosen for the same reasons. They’re very specifically setup such that the main crash ride that I use is up to my front right. My far right is a bigger crash cymbal. Up to my front right (which is used for more of the crash ride parts) is a 17” fast crash cymbal, and it really kind of explodes with a high pitch. The one that is far right has a little bit more of a lower pitch. It’s an 18” A Custom Medium which you’ll see from the photos. What I do is I save that far, far, far right crash for big moments. I’ll do most of the crash riding on the 17” fast crash, and then when it comes to the end of the song, I’ll go to that one to the right provided that that’s the part for crash cymbals. If I need a crash cymbal for the left side (which has a similar arrangement), my left hand front crash is also a 17”. It has a little bit more of an open sound to it. I’ll choose to use that on a song like “Sacrifice.” I’ll alternate main ride sections where I’ll hit one phrase of 16 bars with my right hand, and then I’ll move to the left hand 17” crash to play another 16 bars because of the key signature changes. I’m adjusting for that.

On my very far left I have the biggest of all crash cymbals, which is a 19” Rezo crash. That one is just a step up from my far right 18” medium; when I say “a step up” what that means is that it’s slightly bigger, so it’s slightly deeper and that’s reserved for really special moments — not just the crash at the end of a tune but maybe for two parts in the entire 2-hour set. I’m only going to hit that thing for a crash just a couple of times in a 2-hour set, and I will also use it for the biggest impact crashes. For example, it’s all over the new album where on the very, very first crash I might use that one to have impact or I might lead in with a different crash and save that one for a lower tone like when the band modulates to a lower key. Again, and to reiterate this, all the metal on my kit is a frequency based thing to match the music.

Which leads me, finally, to the stacks. Mike typically had 3 stacks where he had 2 small ones to the front and a medium one with his right hand. I don’t know for how many years, it could be 2 decades, I’m not sure, I’ve used 3 stacks that start with the medium and go bigger. I added 2 smaller stacks to my setup once I started to learn the audition songs for Dream Theater. So I have 5 total stacks. The front 2 are used in typical Dream Theater fashion to emulate what Mike played, and the medium one, which is to my right hand (the same place Mike had it), that’s used in every place that he uses it as far as I know. [Laughs] If I’m learning the songs right. Then I have two lower ones: one to my left and one to my right. The reason I have those as stacks is because hitting an open Chinese type cymbal rings too much for me and has too much of a splash impact sound for my orchestral uses of it. For example, I’ll use the bigger stacks when I’m really looking for tone. In other words, if I hit them (and this is all over the new album) but if there’s a place where I need a stack and it’s within a section where those guys are changing notes all over the place, I change oriental stacks based on the notes being used. So if they’re playing three notes in a row that are going low, medium and high in a pattern of 7/8 that goes “boom, boom, Boom; boom, boom, Boom” I actually use those cymbals to match what those guys are playing. I don’t so much use those bigger stacks with the older catalogue, although I am using them a little bit here and there. That’s mainly Dream Theater’s future.

The final thing I want to say about the metal is the way that it’s arranged in pitch, because that will transition with the tom-toms. The way that the cymbals are arranged in pitch is neither from left to right or right to left. For example, the highest stack is with the right hand. The next one below it is with the left. The next one below that is with the right. The one below that is with the left, and the one below that (the last one) is with the right. So for 5 stacks, the physical arrangement is right, left, right, left, right from high, lower, lower, lower, lower and lowest.

The tom-toms are arranged like that in an apex shape from the middle out; they neither go from left to right or from right to left either. The center tom-tom is a 6” diameter drum. To the left of that is the next one below it which is the 8”. So when I say the toms go 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 what I’m saying physically is: right, left, right, left, right, left, right and then the gong bass drum is with my right. That is the only part of this kit that breaks the protocol; that the 20” drum isn’t all the way to the left just for the sake of me doing it for some reason just to do it. I’ll put the gong bass drum to the right because in the future of Dream Theater with me, I’ll use that gong bass drum as a connective orchestration tool between my toms and the kicks. Because it is a bass drum, I use it for some bass drum hits. It allows me to do that with my right hand which frees up my left hand for some other purposes. Here’s my point: the gong bass drum being next to the 18” floor tom is the only part of the kit that breaks that protocol of right, left, right, left.

The way that I use the toms is extremely specific to the music. For example, there might be a riff in Fatal Tragedy where Mike does a regular kind of drum fill where a drummer starts on the snare drum and goes to the high drum and whips around the kit. Upon studying exactly what, for example, Jordan Rudess is playing, some of the transitions, Jordan is going up. He’s ascending in pitch, so I’ll use my drums to follow him. I’ll play the same rhythm that Mike played, but in this case specifically, I’ll change the notes that I’m hitting – the actual pitches of the drums so that it reflects a little bit more of what one of the band members is playing. I cannot do that if my drums are ascending or descending. I can only do that, and I think that any human is in the same boat as me, where you really can’t hit a drum set one note at a time from ascending to descending.

For example, if Jordan is ascending in a D major scale – he starts on a low D and ends up at a high D (he hits an entire octave), the way that I do that on my kit, I can start on the low drum and play it with the following physical picking going right, left, right, left, right, left right up the drums. But if I was on an ascending or descending pitch arranged tom-tom setup, I’d have to cross my hands over to do that. And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t keep up the speed like that. With the acoustic drums, the setup is very specific. I’m an orchestral trained musician that loves heavy metal. When I look at the band I’m in and check out the drum set, which makes me go back to that comment before, “who’s going to see this? Who can I work with that doesn’t tell me what to do all the time” or “that I have too many drums. Why don’t I groove and use a small bass drum and a small kit and just show up with 3 drums and a cymbal?” I have no problem doing that, and I enjoy it and love it but it’s not my potential. It’s not what reflects the thoughts in my mind and the feeling in my heart. I’m going to die one day.

I’m not going to be on my death bed saying “I can’t believe that I let others, who should have minded their own business, make me feel bad and change my drumming. Screw them.” I’m doing it now. I have done it for a long time. It’s just that when somebody hires you, you need to do what they need. As a hired guy I never opened my mouth. I just did what I was asked to do and found joy in it because I was composing many times. In this case, it turns out everybody in the band sees it. Everybody gets it. Everybody is secure. Everybody is so supportive of this growth of mine. I get inspired by them and hopefully my attention to detail and learning how to play this drum set can be inspiring to them and be positive all around. I don’t have to worry about those taps on the shoulder anymore. I’m in Dream Theater now. I can do this. When I sit back and say “man, that is a huge thank you for the entire organization” I think after this explanation it’s not hard for you to believe that I really mean it.

I want to end with the electronics. I’m using what’s called Tru-Trac pads that Pearl developed to use with their e-Pro drums. Pearl’s electronic drums are not trying to rival Yamaha or Roland’s fabulous electronic drums; those are awesome and those guys make absolutely great stuff, but Pearl is not trying to copy or rival them. Pearl decided that they wanted to have a drum set that could be smacked and it would feel like an actual drum set. It’s not that the other electronic kits don’t work and can’t be learned and adjusted to; it’s just not the same as hitting the acoustic drum. They know it. Everybody knows it. Pearl said “we’re going to make something different.” Because I’m an acoustic kit player and I play a lot harder than it looks like I’m playing (but you can tell if you look at the dB meter), what’s happening is when I hit these pads, I have a connection to them with the feel. That’s the reason I’m using the Tru-Trac pads. As far as the sizes are concerned and the amount, I have one with each foot and they’re all 10” diameter pads. Why 10”? The bigger ones are heavy. I don’t want to be putting a large electronic drum way up high on a rack. Somebody has to lift that and god help me if it falls.

Pearl, especially now this guy Mike Farriss (the head of A&R at Pearl), also happens to be a very skilled worker with his hands. He works with wood and metal and things like that. He makes stuff. These are things I don’t do. He asked me once to drill holes in my gong bass drum, and it took me less than 2 minutes to all of a sudden have blood all over my finger. That’s me. I rush. But this guy is really great. What he did was he asked me questions about my intentions, and he took this very short depth shell that Pearl makes for practice kits called Rhythm Traveler. He put these 10” two track pads on a 10” Rhythm Traveler shell such that it would be small. Because he did this, I can place these things where I can hit them. When you look at the pictures above, you will see two pads to the very far right and the very far left up high. The way that I have those arranged for a total of six pads would be two with my left hand and two with my right hand, one with my right foot and one with my left foot. I arranged them, as far as what they trigger note-wise, kind of similar to how the drum set is arranged. On the new album there’s a song where I’m using six cowbells; I assigned a note to each pad to match each riff. I’m playing a guitar line with both hands and both feet on six pads. That’s the new stuff. With the older catalogue, I’m using these six pads to replace all of Mike’s percussion except the wind chimes. For example, when we do a song and he uses temple blocks, I’m assigning temple blocks to these things. When he uses cowbells, I’m assigning cowbells to them. The new record has a tune opening up with timpani, and I use it for that. They are controlled with the red box on the left. The other great thing about these e-Pro pads being used to replace all the percussions is the sound. I’m going to be able to send four exactly leveled, perfectly setup cowbells or temple blocks out to the front of house via these pads without any worries about mic’ing.

The only thing I really haven’t talked about yet specifically are a couple of splashes. The last thing that I can say about them is that the splashes were added to my kit to reflect Mike’s setup. Before I recorded the new album, I spent time playing along with Mike’s DVDs so that I would get used to it without really learning the catalogue… which you can’t do. Nobody can, otherwise there would have been 200 drummers equally capable of auditioning and equally capable of playing the songs note for note. Clearly that didn’t happen. It’s harder to learn his parts than it seems. Way harder than it seems. You’ve got to hit rewind 37 times and be patient and go back and do it again and again. What I did by just playing along with Mike’s DVDs is a different issue. By throwing in a DVD like Scenes from A Memory Live or Train of Thought Sessions and just playing along with those, what I was able to do was modify my setup such that I didn’t go into the new album and then all of a sudden realize “oh my gosh, I’m going to be spending more time with Mike Portnoy’s drum paths than my own. I’m going to have one record and he’s got ten”.

So if I don’t setup the drum set to play that catalogue, I’m going to be up a creek. That’s why I just played along and just went through the catalogue in a one-take thing making a million mistakes. Just playing along and saying “I’m not going to be able to use the splashes the way I normally would. I’m going to have to put them the way Mike has them” or “I’m going to have to add stacks” or “I’m going to have to put this crash that I’d normally not hit here and put it there”.

The last thing are the four octobans center-mounted up on the rack. Pearl calls them Cannon Toms but everyone refers to them as octobans and that’s what they are. They’re way up high for three reasons: Firstly they’re in the middle for the same reason as my signature snares because I need to access them with either hand. I can’t have them stuck way to the left because sometimes my other hand is tied up. I just need them in the center for access. Another reason, which would make the most sense and be the most simple for anybody to understand even if they’re not a drummer, is there’s no other place to put them. Finally, they look like exhaust pipes up there. It’s just a good, fun look. I think that’s a great way to conclude the whole basis of my setup beyond the musical purpose of it. Me being who and what I’m making myself to be, and being happy to play, and all that. It’s fun. Drums are fun. Setting them up is fun. Hitting stuff is fun. I don’t know a better way for it to hit home than to say “putting those octobans way up high in the middle was a lot of fun”. I think that’s a good explanation.

– Mike Mangini / Dream Theater