These are two Craviotto Diamond Series drums. They are two of some of my all-time favourite drums I've come across over the years and represent what has to be the some of the ultimate in looks and sound.
When I first saw the press release about these drums in early 2007, I never really thought I'd have the two sizes. What I did say at the time though was that I would get hold of one. I'm still not sure why I went after both sizes as aggressively as I did though, but I am glad I did.
These are hand crafted nickel over brass shells made by Adrian Kirchler in Italy. The top one is a 14x6.5" (#7 of 50) and the bottom one a 5.5" (#13 of 50). They look amazing and are very bright and sensitive to play.
The 6.5" came from Steve Maxwell in the US in mid Janaury 2008 and was the second drum I've got from him. I originally spoke to Steve about getting hold of one of his limited versions of this drum with gold hardware, however, me being me, I took too long over deciding about whether or not to wait until one came into the UK and then, of course, missed my chance as they'd all gone by the time I did anything about it.
Much to my delight, this drum sat in the holding warehouse in London for eight days prior to my picking it up thanks to UK Customs not bothering to mention at any point it had been cleared.The 5.5" is the only one in this size brought into the UK by Craviotto's distributor (only one of each size came in) at that time and was reviewed in Rhythm magazine in early 2008. I got it in late January 2008. The run of these drums will be limited to 50 of each size and then that's it - as of August 2009, there are still a few knocking about in the UK and the US. Ronnie Vannucci has #12.
There are also three versions out there as well - the 'natural' ones like mine, the Steve Maxwell limited gold hardware versions and the 'Black Diamond' version of which there are apparently five. I've only seen photos of this last one and it featured black hardware with single flanged hoops. There is also a full gold version out there somewhere that was a special order.
Ronnie Vanucci used one of these live with The Killers.
