Gretsch Catalina Club Mod

I have always had a soft spot for Gretsch drums, ever since a good friend lent me a kit for a gig a few years ago. "Go on, try it. You'll love it!" he said. The setup had a comparatively small bass drum of 18 inches. At the time, I was gigging with a 24-incher and massive concert toms, so this kit was petite to the extreme — especially as the bass-drum-mounted tom was no bigger than an M&S biscuit tin! Due to its diminutive proportions (and the fact that the first time I managed to see the kit out of the cases was at the gig), I felt almost too embarrassed to play and even began apologising to the other band members, who didn't seem to notice any physical difference! The embarrassment lasted as long as it took me to play a few beats, because the sound that emanated was pure drum heaven, with such a warm tone that belied its stature. I knew in that instant why drummers like Charlie Watts, Vinnie Colaiuta, Taylor Hawkins and Phil Collins love that 'great Gretsch sound'! Although, at first glance, the review kit appeared to be very reasonably priced — on the better side of £600 — it still had an awful lot to live up to.

The Catalina Club Mod kit ('Mod' being short for modern, and 'Catalina' taken from the island just off the coast of California) is a four-piece drum kit, manufactured in Taiwan and distributed in the UK by the Arbiter Group. This model sits in the mid-range of a stunning variety of Gretsch drum kits. It has a fairly typical layout in the following configuration: 12 x 8-inch suspended tom, 16 x 14-inch floor tom, 22 x 20-inch bass drum, matching 14 x 6.5-inch snare drum and a mounting post for the suspended tom. Also included for review purposes is a hardware pack consisting of 6600 series hardware from Gibraltar, which includes stands for two cymbals, a hi-hat, a snare and a bass drum pedal.

With the exception of the snare, each model here has offset staggered lugs, which look a little unusual, particularly on the bass drum, and make stashing a spare pair of sticks impossible! As Gretsch mention, the lug position and black chrome give the whole ensemble the feel of a bespoke drum kit. Gretsch parked off a revolution in drum production by being the first to produce ply drums, and the choice of shell wood here is Philippine mahogany in 9-ply. Whereas many of the drums we see here have a 45-degree bearing edge, these come with a 30-degree angle cut, which effectively sharpens the edge at the point where the head makes contact and should allow for more sustain.

The choice of mahogany may seem an unlikely source of shell material, as one of the most popular materials of late has been maple. Mahogany drums were very popular a few decades ago (Ringo Starr's famous Ludwig setup was made from mahogany), but they appear to be making something of a comeback, with some top of the range kits available in this warm and dark-sounding wood. Here, the interiors of the shells are left au naturel, with no evidence of the famous silver sealer employed on the USA Broadkaster, American Custom and other Gretsch kits that I've seen.

The only silver found here is on the black and silver wrap, which features two bands of silver effect running through a background of black laminate. There are three stripes for the black and two for the silver, and the width of each depends on the actual size of the drum (the bigger the drum, the larger the stripe). The choice is extremely limited, with only three available including the review kit — the 'Silver Stripe', the 'Black Stripe' and the peculiar 'Blue Alien', which has a sort of mottled blue effect. To achieve the shiny silver surface here, millions of tiny six-sided foil pieces have been embedded within the extremely smooth laminate coating. And a Gretsch drum just wouldn't be an authentic Gretsch without the familiar square logo badge, which is held on by a rivet-come-breather and features the fairly standard Gretsch moniker to the top and the 'Catalina Club' signature to the bottom.

The suspended tom is mounted using Gretsch's GTS system, which is a simple but effective way of isolating the shell.

Here, I have yet another big, long bass drum, at 22 x 20 inches (although, this model is simply dwarfed by the 26-incher of the Catalina Club Rock kit). Despite this being fairly generous in its proportions, it is surprising just how light mahogany is. Each natural finish mahogany rim, together with its small strip of matching laminate, looks great in contrast with the expanse of black laminate wrap. The telescoping spurs don't look particularly beefy enough, especially up against the sides of this large drum, but they seem satisfactory in holding it back during performance.

Each head is tensioned by eight square-headed tuning bolts accompanied by pressed-steel claws, finished in matt black to match the ironmongery on the rest of the kit. The front head is a pre-damped ebony model with a large Gretsch logo printed in white, which virtually fills up the top portion of the surface of the head. The clear batter head is also pre-damped with a strip of head material and has been fixed into the head hoop at the time of manufacture. These make an amazing difference and usually help to make the drum sound good straight out of the box. The finishing touch to this batter head is a neat but tiny Gretsch logo printed in black.

All the drums in this kit, with the exception of the snare, feature staggered lugs — these give the kit a custom-made look, but make stashing a pair of sticks on the bass drum impossible!

With the 1.6mm triple-flanged hoops and one-piece lugs all neatly finished in black chrome, this is one tasty looking drum. Unfortunately, on this review model, there is a slight lifting of the wrap at the point where the two ends of the laminate meet, but this is easily remedied and a dealer should be able to help sort this out. More pleasant features of the 14 x 6.5-inch model snare are the 10 tension bolts per side and the very welcome inclusion of an Evans Genera G1 drum head for the batter — both characteristics are more often found on more exclusive (and expensive) models. I am sure the thickness of the Evans (and the mahogany shell) will help to obtain quite a meaty sound and, head-wise, should prove more durable too. The lower or snare head is of unknown manufacture, but this shouldn't affect the overall playability or drum sound nearly as much as the batter does.

A 20-strand snare is fitted to the underside and operated by an extremely smooth and positive snare throw-off lever. Quite a neat and unusual feature is the 45-degree angle at which the nylon strainer strap is held on the lever assembly, which I presume is to avoid any sharp angles down onto the snare head itself. A single adjustment is provided at the lever end and, while this does a great job of clamping the snare strainer firmly in place, there are also two standard square tuning bolts, which provide ample grip on the nylon strap.

Both the 12 x 8-inch and the 16 x 14-inch feature the now familiar black hardware, triple-flanged hoops and neat low-mass lugs, with the only chromed parts being the actual tension bolts. There are just five lugs per head on the 12-inch model (the 16-inch model has eight) and I would have preferred to see six on a drum of this size. I can't quite make up my mind whether this is typically Gretsch or a cost-cutting exercise, rather than an element of design. Fortunately, the batter heads of both of these toms are fitted with the superb Evans G1s and, as on the snare, the resonant or lower head is of an unknown make.

Mounting the suspended tom is by way of GTS, which is the equivalent of the RIMS mounting method. The system is a fairly simple, but nonetheless effective, way of isolating the shell from the hardware as much as possible. This comprises of a rounded bracket straddling two tuning lugs. At either end, a tuning bolt passes through a rubber grommet, isolating the drum as much as possible from the shell. To the lower portion of the bracket sits a rubber stop, which is the only point of contact with the actual shell. The assembly is attached via a Gibraltar SC-SLRM L-Rod universal mounting clamp, which the tom slides down onto. This neat piece of hardware attaches to one of the cymbal stands, and has a multitude of adjustments available for positioning the tom at just the right angle. The 16-inch floor tom is well supported by three well-designed clamps and a set of 12.7mm knurled steel legs.

A 20-strand snare is fitted to the underside of the snare drum, and is operated by an extremely smooth and positive snare throw-off lever.

All Gretsch kits come with the option of excellent and 'Rock Solid' Gibraltar hardware. For review purposes, I have been sent a selection of roadworthy double-braced Gibraltar hardware, which is lightweight, yet extremely sturdy. Each cymbal stand has three tube sections separated by the excellent abs inserts, in order to stop metal-to-metal contact. To aid a speedy setup, die-cast memory locks upon each and every section. The boom cymbal stand has a 'disappearing' cymbal arm, which is neatly hidden inside the tubing itself. This is handy for storage, or if the boom section is not required, the tilt can remain in situ.

The 6606 snare stand is extremely versatile, with wide leg spread and height to ensure it can give ample support to the fattest and heaviest of snare drums without fear of any catastrophic collapsing mid-gig. The basket assembly has a large nylon winged adjuster, which locks the drum firmly into its charge. And with the ratchet-less adjuster, it's possible to get the snare drum angle just perfect. The hi-hat has a single large chain-pull mechanism and a fully variable adjustment for the pull spring. To help stop the whole unit creeping forwards, two knurled bolts provide just the right amount of anchorage.

A welcome inclusion to the kit is the superb double-chain drive Avenger bass drum pedal. This has many of the features normally associated with far more expensive models, including a one-piece steel footplate with strips of Velcro attached to the underside and two knurled pointed bolts, all designed to help avoid that nasty creeping. To the top, we find a very useful drum key holder, complete with drum key and a hoop clamp, which is designed to keep you from trapping your precious digits under the footplate. The fully adjustable cam may be altered to give just the right overall feel from the pedal.

The front head of the bass drum is very thin and, long after the creases have been smoothed out, takes some winding up before the head stops flapping about. Once this is controlled, there's not much to do on the batter, as this is taken up just past the wrinkly stage and appears far more forgiving than its front counterpart. With the pedal attached and the beater positioned with the felt side facing the batter, the drum pumps out a very welcome punchy thump, even with the front head up to a seemingly high tension. It's a big drum that sounds immense!

The toms are tuned as low as I can possibly get them without any annoying 'flicking a ruler on the edge of a desk' noises. I don't have to be too fussy here to be able to obtain a very pleasing rich drum sound from both of these, surprisingly so on the 12-inch tom — 'eat my words' comes to mind here. Experimenting with tensioning up a bit further still manages chunky fat sound, just with a slightly better stick response — these heads are great! The same applies to the snare, where, thanks to the excellent combination of coated Genera head and ten lugs, I can apply quite a reasonable amount of even tension here, obtaining a good snap and, oddly, retaining much of that underlying warmth too.

I have to confess that I am not a great fan of laminated drums, partly because I feel that some wraps inhibit the shell resonance, and partly because I wonder if they have been covered up purely to hide something nasty underneath (dodgy grain or a poor finish to the shell). I know that there's a number of top drum manufacturers who make some quite stunning finishes, but I have never been tempted and have, along the way, always put sound before appearance. However, this kit does sound surprisingly good and gives a great sound for your pound. If you are a fan of mahogany drums, then this setup will be right up your street.

With, perhaps, only one exception (the dodgy laminate of the snare), this kit is very well made and, due to the fact that it is manufactured in Taiwan, the overall standard is high and it will no doubt be the uniform for each Catalina Club Mod kit produced. This kit sounds much better than the price suggests, and with some careful searching around the various dealerships, there will be a great sounding mid-range kit to be had at a very reasonable cost. 0

Gretsch Catalina Club Mod

Drum kit