Noticed how everyone's started calling them 'acoustic' drums? Shows you how far has spread the bacillus of the microchip. Are real drums still alive? 'Course, and this month we dip into them as Andy Duncan reviews a shopful of kits and more than a dozen snares. Dave Sinclair examines the unique styles of some of the most legendary drummers and Geoff Nicholls supplies words on the vexatious problems of tuning. In part two next month, advice on keeping the sound of your kit balanced, the best mikes to apply, how Big Country's Mark Brzezicki maintains his kit on the road, plus a history of skin over log.

Dave Sinclair sorts out seven significant strikers

With customary expertise and patience, the One Two team is about to take you through the tinkering, twiddling and thumping that goes towards priming the endlessly mutable instrument known loosely as the drum kit. But, at the end of the day, it is the drummer, a human being, who actually harnesses the vast potential of the equipment, and applies the musical skill which all this technical know-how exists to service. Lest we forget, here is a personal appreciation of some of the great drumming stylists; in no particular order then, a fairly arbitrary seven of the best.

CHARLIE WATTS

Charlie, along with Ringo Starr, was the prototype "punk" drummer; punk in the sense that when the first Beatles and Rolling Stones records came out in the early 1960s, millions of kids all round the world thought to themselves, with Yosser-like naivety, "I could do that". And in truth, they probably could.

To this day, dear old Charlie is still so strapped by his lack of formal technique that he can't (or possibly won't?) play a continuous eighth beat figure on the hi-hat and hit the snare at the same time. When he hits the snare he actually misses the hi-hat or cymbal beat — a trait commonly associated with the playing of a complete novice. His chops are non-existent and his style instinctive to say the least. "I never tune drums", Watts once said. "It's one of the blind spots I have. I just hit them." Yet Charlie Watts has been the only drummer in the most successful rock'n'roll band in the history of the universe and is the living embodiment of the drummer who is right for the band. He locks in, and with uncluttered enthusiasm, drives the Keith Richards' rhythm machine with just the right degree of ragged empathy. From 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' to 'Brown Sugar' and 'Start Me Up' it is no accident that Watts has powered more dance-floor classics than most drummers with twice his "ability".

The guardian of the basic rock pulse, a hero and inspiration to generations of players, he's just Charlie, and I love him.

JOHN BONHAM

Bonham was a big man with an enormous drum sound who influenced a generation of heavy rock players. For sheer weight of sound from a drum kit, Bonham was, and still is, a difficult player to surpass. Although capable of speedy licks, and actually possessed of a high degree of finesse, Bonham carved a niche for himself with Led Zeppelin as the Conan of rock drummers.

The sound which defined his style was achieved by a combination of simplicity in his playing approach and very distant, ambient miking of his drums which were all, including the bass drum, double-headed and largely undamped. He used a relatively small, single bass drum kit, and in working out an arrangement for a Zeppelin number, Bonham would strip away any beats or notes excess to the song's requirement.

His execution of a slow blues like 'Since I've Been Loving You' reveals an overwhelming sense of space and also illustrates Bonham's habit of lagging ever so slightly behind the beat. This trick gave his playing its supremely muscular feel. 'Kashmir', another favourite, featured some tricky time changes that would have tempted many drummers to extemporise in a tour-de-force fashion, but which Bonham simply powered through like a steamroller set on automatic.

Eddie Kramer, who describes Bonham as "the loudest drummer I've ever recorded", recalls engineering the recording of the drums on 'D'Yer Mak'Er' using three ambient mikes only. Bonham's playing spoke volumes.

SIMON PHILLIPS

The latest in the Billy Cobham mould, Simon Phillips must rank as arguably the world's most accomplished virtuoso jazz-rock drummer. In terms of speed, stamina and sheer technical ability, he has very few peers.

The Phillips trademark, as with Cobham before him, is the massive double bass kit. (Cobham now uses a kit with three bass drums, but don't ask me how he plays them.) When Phillips appeared with Jeff Beck in 1981 at the Hammersmith Odeon, the mere unveiling of his Tama kit brought a rousing cheer from the audience in admiration of its scale and complex splendour. Four double-headed rack toms mounted on two identical bass drums, flanked by three floor toms, a gong drum and a set of octobans surround two snare drums and a hi-hat, while a vast array of eccentrically-angled cymbals take up all available airspace in the vicinity of the kit.

Phillips dominates this daunting set-up with apparent ease. He has taught himself to play ambidextrously, and can execute complex patterns in awkward time signatures at high speeds using either left or right hand to lead on the ride cymbals. He can play phenomenally fast double bass drum patterns, and overlay them with ingenious crossrhythms on the top kit. He performs regularly at Tama and Zildjian clinics, and is one of the most highly-paid session players in the market. It seems there is nothing the man cannot do, and his playing prompts feelings of admiration and dismay amongst the drumming fraternity. A likeable chap.

BUDDY RICH

Buddy Rich, now in his 68th year, is still the all-time great mainstream jazz drummer. In 1925, at the age of eight, he toured Australian variety circuits, a prodigious working drummer before he was out of primary school. Since the 1940s he has led his own band and has rarely been far from the top of the jazz drumming polls ever since, a staggering feat of musical longevity.

A product of the swing jazz era, Rich has the rare capacity for leading a band from the back rather than imposing himself as the predominant instrument or personality on stage. He has a reputation as one of the fastest players in a world where even average jazzers are all adept at breakneck tempos. He is also renowned for his virtuoso solos, but it must be said that Rich is not a man to hog the limelight with grandiose displays of his blinding technique.

For most of his set, Rich is entirely supportive of his band and ever-conscious of the dynamics of the arrangement. He has a very light, agile touch powered almost entirely from the wrist, and plays a small, conventional jazz kit. His sensitively-arranged solos are constructed to be musical rather than as a vehicle for showing off his undoubted expertise, and incorporate repetition and modification of phrases held together by a firm thread of logic. He is an extremely creative player, and stamps his trademark firmly on the jazz standards which he mostly favours in performance. Cole Porter's 'Love For Sale', a famous ballad which his band performs at very high speed, is an exemplary Rich performance. A fast swinger.

STEVE GADD

If there was a musical equivalent of 'Private Eye', I'd have to nominate for inclusion in the 'Great Bores of Today' series the kind of person who collars you at parties and, on discovering you play drums, proceeds to drone at insufferable length about this demi-god called Steve Gadd.

Gadd is a brilliant drummer, make no mistake; he's division one, a total pro who can turn his hand to any type of music that the person paying the cheque requires. I'm sure he's a lovely bloke, too, but this received wisdom that he's simply the best player who ever picked up a pair of sticks has got to be refuted at some point. Personally, I've never been much affected by his playing. He is the ultimate studio professional, approaching the prospect of a Brecker Brothers session with the same enthusiasm as a job on an advertising jingle.

He uses a Yamaha kit, which he varies according to the job in hand, and mostly Zildjian cymbals. He's played some outstanding parts ranging from his jazz work with Chick Corea to the complicated breaks on Steely Dan's 'Aja', and the precise military figures on Paul Simon's '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover'. He's done it all faultlessly, but I don't hear the soul. Complaints in writing please, but could we talk about someone else at the next party.

STEWART COPELAND

With 'Synchronicity' being voted Number One Recorded Performance in Modern Drummer's 1984 poll, Stewart Copeland seems at last to be gaining some of the musical accolades which his toweringly energetic and innovative playing have deserved, though not received, for some time.

Apart from his imaginative fusing of rock and reggae rhythms (which has been well-documented), and his overall technical facility, Copeland never fails to impress me with the sheer energy and attack of his performance, and with his distinctively high and dry snare sound. In common with Simon Phillips and Billy Cobham, Copeland uses Tama drums, and from an early age skillfully employed accessories such as octobans and woodblocks.

Further, he was one of the first players to use electronic aids, and by running parts of the kit through a Delta Lab DL4 digital delay unit was able to achieve all sorts of fast echo effects, used to particularly good effect in the rim-clicking sequences at the start of 'Regatta De Blanc'. The bass drum mike also triggers an electronic bass drum sound at very low frequency, so that while the acoustic drum is tuned high, giving a good attack and pedal response, the bottom end is also well covered by the electronic sound.

On 'Synchronicity' and the 1984 gigs, Copeland's contribution to the overall texture of the Police's sound was further enhanced by a striking array of Paiste percussion effects: Rotosound (rotating) cymbals, sound discs, finger cymbals, tree cymbals, chimes and a xylophone were all employed to great effect in numbers like 'Walking In Your Footsteps'. Copeland has become one of the most forceful and well-rounded percussionists in the game.

JON MOSS

In the forefront of the new breed of drummers to embrace the good technology as a means of achieving liberation from the confines of the traditional drum kit, is Jon Moss.

A capable drum-set player, Moss, in collaboration with Culture Club producer Steve Levine, has used the drum machine to relieve him of a lot of the studio donkey work, as well as an aid to keeping perfect time. With the onus of maintaining a steady backbeat thus removed, Moss is able to focus his attention on playing a more creative percussive role in the band.

Live, the use of backing tapes to recreate the core of many drum parts further frees Moss to prance about banging on free-standing Simmons drums and timbales, and perhaps shaking the odd maraca or tambourine where desired. Most importantly it allows him to stand up, move about the stage and take a more active part in the visual aspect of the show. The drummer's live performance is increasingly based on work done before the show starts, and Moss is as much to the forefront in a Culture Club showas any of the others in the band.

While the advent of the new drum technology has been viewed in some quarters as a threat to the drummer's job, young guns like Moss have harnessed the benefits and significantly altered the drummer's role within the modern pop group. Clever chap.