Chapel Kit

Drums typically ship within 2 weeks of purchase

Cymbals purchased with a kit are expected to ship sometime in September '26

For 30 years, I've played drums with artists like Shane & Shane, Phil Wickham, and Chris Tomlin - on some of the biggest stages in worship and Christian music, and in some of the smallest, most intimate settings. But no matter the room, one conversation kept coming up: the drums are too loud. Sound engineers fighting the mix. Worship leaders & pastors asking for less kit in the room. I designed the Parish kit to finally solve that problem - not by enclosing a great-sounding set or shifting to an electronic facsimile, but by rethinking every ingredient to rebuild from the ground up.

Wood Choice

Most modern drum kits are made from very dense hardwoods, the most common being Sugar maple (Acer saccharum). While beautiful to finish and easy to machine, this material was chosen as a way to "complement settings demanding greater volume and projection" according to the website of one of the most notable drum companies manufacturing today. Tonally, maple is considered very even through the frequency range, including the higher "brighter" frequencies - and because human hearing tends to be most sensitive in that upper-midrange band, sound energy concentrated there can be perceived as louder and more dominant.  

The Parish Difference - I chose much less dense woods, mahogany and poplar, for this shell design. Mahogany inner and outer plies with poplar sandwiched in the middle produce a more rounded, muted high-frequency tone. With less energy concentrated in the frequency range where the ear tends to be most sensitive, the drum can read as quieter and more controlled - even under comparable playing force - while also benefiting from a shorter sustain and the drums being easier to tune.

Bearing Edges

The bearing edge is the point of contact between the drum shell and the drum head. The way that these are designed and cut can have a substantial impact on the tone and resonance of the drum. The most common profile for bearing edges today is what's called a double 45. This is produced by cutting the inside and outside of the shell at 45º angles producing a sharp edge and minimal contact between the drum head and the shell. With little contact and resistance the drum heads are able to move more freely which results in more projection and resonance, often requiring the use of gels, gaff tape, etc., to minimize ring and overtones. Paired with a brighter maple shell, the effect is more pronounced in the higher frequencies as they resonate longer.

The Parish Difference - I use a proprietary bearing edge on the bass drum and toms that utilizes a full outside round-over cut folding into a small flat plane on the interior of the shell. This edge is perfectly matched to the molded "collar" or curve at the edge of the drumhead resulting in a very large surface area of the shell in contact with a very large surface area of the drum head. This large surface area connection yields a drum that is easier to tune, has less high frequency information, shorter sustain, and is able to be tuned lower than the sizes would suggest.

Drum Lugs - size and placement

Drum lugs are the metal parts on the side of the drum, evenly spaced, that receive the tension rods or screws used to tension the drum with a drum key. There are generally two options when designing lug layout - larger, "single" lugs mounted to the center of the shell, or smaller "double" lugs mounted closer to the edges of the shell with the center left bare. The common belief is that more expensive drums, striving for maximum resonance and projection, will use double lugs mounted at the edges - leaving the center of the shell to resonate more freely - while less expensive drums use center-mounted lugs simply because it's fewer parts and cheaper to manufacture. There are of course exceptions, but this is the general "word on the street."

The Parish Difference - In my own testing and experience, I found that larger, center-mounted lugs have a slight but present dampening effect on the shell. Part of this comes simply from the added mass of a larger object attached to the shell. What I've found is that placement matters too - the center of the shell's height is generally where a cylinder's vibration tends to move the most, so a lug mounted there may interrupt more of that motion than one mounted near the edge. Rather than treat this dampening as a drawback to engineer around, I chose it on purpose. Since this entire kit is built around reducing volume and increasing control at every stage of the design, a lug layout most manufacturers avoid for being "too damped" is exactly what serves the goal here. Larger, center-mounted lugs pull a bit more energy out of the shell before it ever reaches the head, working alongside the wood choice and bearing edge design rather than against it.

Wood Hoops

I chose maple for the wood hoops, paired with vintage claws at both ends of each shell. Mahogany or poplar would offer even greater warmth, but those woods don't have the density or durability to withstand the tension and wear hoops are subjected to over years of use. Maple gives me the warmth and reduced high-frequency ring of a wood hoop over a standard triple-flange metal hoop, while still holding up to the structural demands of the job.

Clothtone Heads

Most drumheads on the market today are made from mylar - a thin plastic film chosen for its durability, consistency, and ability to hold a bright, resonant tone under tension. It's a reliable, well-understood material, and it's part of why drums have gotten louder and brighter over the decades, not quieter.

The Parish Difference - I developed our patent-pending Clothtone heads from densely woven cotton canvas duck, the same kind of tough, tightly-woven fabric used in things like sailcloth and heavy-duty tents. Woven tight enough to hold pitch and produce a musical, short-sustaining note, Clothtone heads are extremely quiet compared to a standard mylar head - built specifically for rooms where volume is the enemy, not the goal. Because of how they're built, I recommend them only with brush-type sticks, like our Chapel Brush - the combination is what unlocks their full tone and control.

Cymbals

My approach to cymbals follows the same logic as the rest of the kit. Larger diameters and thinner weights both lower a cymbal's fundamental pitch and reduce its mass, keeping the sound low and controlled rather than loud and cutting. These cymbals are hand-hammered from B20 bronze using techniques developed over centuries in Turkey, the birthplace of modern cymbal-making. I also favor a "dry" sound - a quick attack that decays fast, clearing the sonic space rather than washing it out with sustained overtones. Pitched low and voiced dry, these cymbals steer clear of the harsh, cutting highs that bleed into every mic and echo around a room - staying consistent with the shell, hoop, and hardware choices throughout the rest of the kit.

Kit sized as follows: 

18" x 8" Bass Drum w/Spurs 

12" x 6" Rack Tom 

14" x 10" Floor Tom w/Legs 

No other hardware is included

Add a snare drum to finish out your kit 

A set of Chapel Brushes is included with this order