Well, some birthday money, and a need to use my own kit at church on a rather regular basis, has prompted me to put some more money into my DIY eKit. Maybe you know how it is; you get on Musician’s Friend to buy some strings or a pair of drum sticks, but you realize it would be silly to spend $5 on shipping $10 worth of gear. So you find a couple other cheap items, and before you know it, you need “just” $50 more dollars to qualify for free shipping, and by the time you’re done, you’ve blown past the $99 free shipping requirement, and then some.

Anyway, in my particular case, I started with a tuning peg that was on clearance for my violin, which is pretty much a conversation piece anyway. I really did need a set of strings for my mandolin, so they were next, and of course one can always use some spare sets of strings for guitar, so in went two sets of the Musician’s Friend premium 80/20 acoustic strings (I can’t recommend these enough; $1.99, and they are fantastic. Without a coating, they don’t last quite as long as some others, but you can afford to change these when you should).

Then, what do I see in the clearance bin, but a set of the Pintech 5-Piece Practice Cymbal Set for about 25% off. They were “blems”, but considering I planned on hitting them with a blunt object anyway, I didn’t figure any blemishes they might have would matter all that much. To mate with those, I came across a set of Pulse cymbal mutes on sale for $7.99 (regularly $15.99). They are made from .25″ neoprene, and should be perfect for attaching to the playing surface of the cymbals to reduce noise and give a little spring to the attack. They are already in almost the perfect shape, plus, they are way cheaper than any mouse pads I’ve seen in a while.

To round things out (here comes the “splurge”), I was finally able to justify a Buttkicker. The Buttkicker Gamer had been available for $69.99 for quite a while, but I noticed the other day it had gone up to $99. Ouch (edit: These are listed at $119.99 now. Double ouch; wait for a sale). This is more inline with most of the rest of the internet, but it looked like I missed the boat. Well, on my little shopping spree I noticed they were on sale for $79.99. So why not? I know I won’t be able to get near the monitoring volume I’d like on stage, so I think this will be a nice luxury that will become a necessity after some use. Plus, since I can hook it up to the xBox, computer, and home theater (okay, I don’t know if a DVD player and a 27″ CRT TV qualifies as a “theater”), it’s not just a one-trick pony.

So, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening, and, you should probably go outside or something; looking at the computer too much can rot your brain.