What do you guys think of the pearl ex? Do you think it would be good for playing hardcore (Poison the Well, I Killed the Prom Queen)? Would I get a good deep sound out of the toms? What do you think of the idea of putting a remo pinstripe skin on the top, and a remo emperor on the bottom for my tom and floor tom?

Pearl Export series are good kits (I myself have a ten peice export) but as for hardcore, perhaps you might want to try the hardcore internet fprums and not the METAL ones, as for remo pinstripes, they are okay skins, I haven't tried the pinstrip/emporer combo but it can't sound too bad, and as for a deep sound, depends what you want, do you want a 'booooom' deep sound or just a 'duh' deep sound, if the former, have your heads slightly loose, but not toooooo loose, if the latter, drop those heads very loose and add some dampening

I have pinstripes and they sound good low and high. My friend has a export kit and its pretty nice. I think any regular sized drumset will sound good for hardcore. It depends on how you tune them. Almost any kit will sound good with good heads and good tuning.

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Pretty much like "Lamb of god\m/" said, It just depends on how you tune the toms....I have my toms tuned really low. And I play in a thrash metal/speed metal band...

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hardcore is kinda like an inactive genre, unless you mean metalcore crud, meatheadcore,most of these bands play metal anyway, i dont know what the bands you refer to are, but do you mean like the black flag,born against,charles bronson,avail,bad brains,7 seconds,dri type hardcore coz usually its 4 track like low-fi recording and the kits used are usual not tuned very well and of not good quality, a type of sound i actually enjoy, most of my favorite albums came to be on a shoestring budget,diy releases, recorded with dying gear, but for advice, look in your want ads, the cheapest drumset that looks like it got hit by a truck, that'll do it

the pearl exports will be fine for hardcore.. usually in more old style hardcore you wont even need that great sound toms because you wont use them as much as say a metal drummer would.. i wouldnt suggest emperors or any 2 ply heads on the resos, it sounds horrible to me.. i would suggest either (with a 1 ply reso)

g2's, hydraulics or pinstripes

the evans g2's will make your kit sound a lot better than the hydros or pinstripes.. it will also give you the option of having a nice ring to the toms or having them very dampened.. not many people like the hydraluics because they dont really bring out the sound of the drum and often you cant tell the different between the tom sounds while rolling around the toms, but i think they sound pretty good.. and if ur looking for a deep tone i would suggest just using a 12,14,16,22 setup instead of 10,12,14,20...

I am in the middle of jazz studies, but I play a lot of metal. I use a Sonor Five Star kit.

Get whatever the Strife drummer uses, they sound nice, I ain't no drummer though.

As far as Hardcore goes, I always liked the sound of Disembodied's Drums.
Killer.

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I play in a killswitch engage/shadows fall style band...and i use the Export. Its exactly perfect for it. defenetly if your playin this kind of music, put some new heads on (G2's and superkick II on bass drum, in my case...the "pro tone" heads that come with it suck monkey balls) and the set is insane!!

Sweet. I have an Export too, the Cobalt fade. I use a Powerstroke 3 on my Bass. Nice and punchy.

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i know im a knitpicker and all but shadows falls is not a hardcore band, what the hell are you guys talking about, most bands mentioned in the same breath as hardcore are metal bands, how about this, i own a vistalite ludwig kit from the 70's, robo from black flag had the same kit, black flag is THE hardcore band of the 80's,drummers of this era used mediocre gear or old shitty gear like the vistalite, most of the music from this era is recorded alla 4-track, lets talk about what hardcore punk is or was, power chords,sing along choruses,leftist politics,DIY,youth crew shit for the most part, not fucking imitation iron maiden riffs,headbanging,chuga-chuga nonsense, the early hardcore scene cannot be equated with these psuedo-hybrid metalcore bands out nowadays, there was never a 1000$ pearl custom export whatever super kit behind bands like bad brains,minor threat,black flag,born against,7 seconds,dri, etc etc etc

Damn straight.

Yeah man. I mean, I like lots of metal too, but I get so annoyed when I see those bands referred to as hardcore. When you say hardcore, you need to be thinking of Minor Threat/Fugazi, Black Flag, Articles Of Faith, Bad Brains, Leatherface.. etc. There is still a hardcore scene, but I can't see it's got any relation to the metal scene and I doubt most metal-lovers would even like it anyway.

I'd hate to describe my band as a "Bandname1 or Bandname2" kind of band. Don't worry about what everyone else did 20 years ago, just cut your own path. That's what all the greats did, and it's the only true way to be great yourself.

Would you guys classify stuff like old raised fist, strife, better than a thousand, toe to toe(aussie), throwdown(not the american one,the aus one), straight faced as hardcore?, thats what I grew up listening to and playing, heaps of that sort of 90's style fast hardcore, and now the stuff that gets called hardcore I find ridiculous. I'm just curious wether you'd classify that stuff as good or new school shit, personaly I loved the hardcore we got from the nineties, the first ever gig I went to when I was 11 was Madball, Toe to Toe, and Throwdown at this tiny little beer garden on the beach, I was to little mosh but it was a fuckin crazy show, kinda surreal seeing this crazy NY hardcore band playing this tiny little pub haha.

yeah i heard some of those bands and they are hardcore, nyc has this phenomenom of having ultra tough guy straight edge hardcore stuff or even like this imitation gangster stuff that vaguely came out of that scene in the 90's, i just got on peoples cases about this just to separate apples from oranges, im not really hell bent on accuarate genre definition here, the 90's witnesses this huge fanning out of what we know as hardcore, alot of it turned into metal, some went ultra youth crew, some turned to grind. something that was rigidly defined became meaningless in terms of sound so now in the post-post 80th generation of what people reference hardcore as being is so vague now and that kinda gets on my nerves

i just love the 80's stuff, its so raw, has such energy and power. early hardcore really changed music, it changed heavy metal, it changed the way people dress,talk, thier beliefs,the way they associate and identify with the rest of society, it change the way labels are run, how bands tour, how venues are run, it really introduced politics and activism into the mix, it shaped the whole worldview of what we know as DIY underground music.

I think it's the politicalness of the 80s hardcore that made it so strong, and keeps it relevant now. Modern so-called hardcore bands have dropped into the same, lazy groove that I find so disappointing about modern metal bands (I must confess I include my own band in this). So often you'll hear metalheads say that "metal is the only pure music" or whatever, but it's 90% cartoon references to blood, dying, revenge, war etc etc made by nice middle class boys in their nice expensive digital studios.

You can't take a risk or push a boundary in metal (theme-wise/lyrically) any more, because it's all been covered - many times over. The music is still enjoyable of course and I'm not trying to deride any bands' contribution at all, but there's nothing like the pure energy of Minor Threat or Bad Brains or RDP (my favourite band).

Back on topic, though - I'd say just get whatever kit you can afford, keep it reasonably simple and play it with passion and energy and as hard and fast as you physically can, because you can't buy that - no matter how much you spend.