MusicRadar

• Review

Though officially founded in 2003, Liberty Drums have been being manufactured for well over a decade.

Based in Shildon, County Durham, the company is run by Andrew Street. The R Series kit on review is from the company's newest range.

Build

Like many drum-builders, Andrew Street began playing drums as a youngster and today remains a committed player. His first steps toward becoming a manufacturer were taken when he began reconditioning old kits for his own use.

One thing led to another and experiments in shell building ensued, again just for personal use. However, musicians are nothing if not a fraternal bunch and friends began enquiring about his creations until eventually Liberty Drums was born.

"The shells are beautiful examples of drum-making that have clearly been built by a capable and experienced craftsman."

Since launching the company Andrew has worked hard at developing Liberty as a brand, to the extent that he now has a small but enthusiastic roster of Liberty endorsees.

The 'R' in R Series stands for Recording, so it's clear these drums have been designed to excel in the studio.

For review we have a four-piece shell-pack made up of a 22x18-inch bass drum, 14x5½-inch snare, 12x8-inch tom and 16x14-inch floor tom. The price of the kit only includes the two toms and bass drum; for the rest of this year Liberty is offering the snare drum free to anyone ordering an R Series kit.

To produce a perfectly balanced recording kit Andrew has used two different woods in the kit's construction. So while the toms and snare are made from birch, the bass drum is 100 percent maple.

Thin shells have featured on a lot of Liberty drums to date (snares excepted) and the R Series continues in this vein with the tom and floor tom shells being 4.5mm thick while the bass drum is marginally broader at 6mm.

Though thin, the shells manage to pack a few layers of ply - a total of nine for the toms and 12 for the bass drum. The snare drum tops the ply count with 15 layers, which make its shell 7.5mm.

In comparison with Liberty's MPX range, which features shallow 6-inch-deep toms, the R Series toms are built to more conventional dimensions to encourage projection.

Other than the bass drum spurs and floor tom leg brackets, no mounting hardware is fitted to any of the drums, so the bass drum is undrilled and the rack tom doesn't even have a suspension mount, though one can be fitted on request.

The shells are beautiful examples of drum-making that have clearly been built by a capable and experienced craftsman. Bearing edges - cut sharply at 45° on the snare and toms and a little more rounded on the bass drum - are executed faultlessly across the drums.

Shell hardware and hoops are bought in rather than being produced in-house, but Andrew has chosen a distinctive rounded lug design that has been compared with the curves of VW Beetle. On the snare drum the lug is reproduced as a double-ended bridge lug.

Triple flanged 2.3mm-thick hoops and substantial floor tom legs complete the chunky look. All the fittings work well, with the threads yielding smoothly while keeping tunings stable.