Here at Signal, we love a project. Especially, if that project requires building something cool or unique. A few years back we started down the path of making a Cardboard Drum Set after the success of the Cardboard Fender Guitar with Ernest Packaging Solutions. Now, after years of lining up schedules, build days and shoot dates we finally got this thing done!
Our goal? Make a working drum kit out of cardboard. Easy right? Not at all! cardboard is intentionally built to fail. The goal of packaging is for the paper material to take the beating so whatever is inside it does not. When we dig into a project like this we research, focus on the materials, focus on design and start thinking and sketching out combinations of ways to get it done. Luckily, we worked with Masters Of Maple founder and drum master Sahir. He gave us all the information and much of the confidence needed to bring him the shells necessary for a functioning drum kit. Mike Martinez from Ernest Packaging, enough can’t be said about how Mike digs into a project and builds some of the craziest, most innovative cool shit to make ideas like this a reality. Mike’s vision for the drum molds blew us away. A true innovator and a master of detail. Once the shells were complete we took them back to Sahir at Masters Of Maple where he has his shop and could begin to true up, add the hardware and skins to see if we even have something that can make a half decent sound. Time to get nervous! Months turned into years to build this project and now we hand them over to Sy as he has to sand, router and drill to get them perfectly true and ready for parts. He gets it done old school, like how he would build a drum in his garage when he started. The drums were complete, skins were on and now it’s time to tune. After the tune, we hear the first strike! Boooooooom! The floor tom sounds amazing. The Snare, the toughest of the builds btw because of the tension a snare needs to properly function was snappy and ultra responsive. The kick drum? A beauty! The look and feel of this kit is unlike anything else and it is for sure its hallmark and worth all the time put in to it. Once the kit was finished we began to line up a player. Serious players are on the road a lot, but we found one that happened to be home and excited to play. Eric Kretz! The drummer for STP. Eric knocked the shit out of these drums. Instantly started laying into them saying - “we need to see what these can handle.” He loved the feel and said that they sounded great too. Tone is huge for any instrument and we have real tone! This project was a lot of fun to work on and just like our ETT series we always learn a ton and meet great people along the way. If you have a minute, have a watch and let us know what you think. - Thank you.