# Blood Mountain Drum Setup: Brann Dailor's Gear on Mastodon's Breakthrough

> Discover the exact drum kit, cymbals, and gear Brann Dailor used to record Mastodon's mainstream breakthrough Blood Mountain (2006). Full breakdown of the DW Collector's Series kit, Zildjian cymbals, DW 9000 double pedal, and the fills-as-lead-instrument approach behind one of progressive metal's most inventive drummers.

**Type:** Album Drum Setup
**Drummer(s):** [Brann Dailor](/llms/drummers/brann-dailor.md)
**Band / Album:** Mastodon — *Blood Mountain* (2006)
**Genre:** Progressive Sludge Metal

## Overview

Released on October 3, 2006, Mastodon's *Blood Mountain* was the album that introduced [Brann Dailor](/drummer/brann-dailor)'s melodic drumming philosophy to a mainstream audience. The band's first record for Atlantic Records debuted at #28 on the US Billboard 200 — a commercial breakthrough for a band that had built its reputation on the underground metal circuit. The album arrived as a creative step forward from the rawer, more abrasive *Leviathan* (2004), with Dailor's fills becoming more prominent, more melodic, and more obviously central to Mastodon's compositional identity.

*Blood Mountain* is a concept album built around creature mythology — a man's journey up a mountain, encountering fantastical beings and forces at each stage. The narrative ambition matched the musical ambition: Brann's drumming on this record functions not as rhythmic support but as a melodic narrator, his fills weaving through the music like an additional voice commenting on the story's progression. This approach — fills as lead instrument — would reach its peak refinement on [Crack the Skye](/articles/crack-the-skye-drum-setup) three years later, but *Blood Mountain* is where the philosophy became unmistakable.

The album was produced by Matt Bayles, whose previous work with Mastodon on *Leviathan* gave him deep familiarity with Dailor's playing style and its demands on the recording process. Where *Leviathan* emphasised density and aggression, Bayles and Mastodon used *Blood Mountain* to bring melodic clarity to the drum sound — allowing Dailor's tom melodies and complex fills to sit higher in the mix than they had on any previous Mastodon record. The result is an album where the drumming is as much a focal point as the guitars.

This article breaks down every piece of gear Dailor used during the *Blood Mountain* sessions: the DW Collector's Series kit that gave his fills their warm, resonant voice, the Zildjian cymbals that defined this specific chapter of his career, and the DW 9000 double pedal that drove the album's rhythmically complex foundation.

## Gear Breakdown

- **Drums:** DW DW Collector's Series (Natural maple / custom finish finish)
- **Snare:** DW DW Collector's Series Steel Snare, 14" x 6.5"
- **Cymbals:** Zildjian — Zildjian A and K Series
- **Hardware / Pedals:** DW 9000 Double Pedal; DW 9000 Series Hi-Hat Stand; Roc-N-Soc Nitro Throne; Vic Firth 5A American Classic
- **Heads:** Evans UV1 Coated (batter), Evans Hazy 300 (resonant)
- **Snare tuning:** Medium tension — balanced attack and sensitivity for ghost note work

### The DW Collector's Series: Dailor's Fill Canvas

For the *Blood Mountain* sessions, Brann Dailor used a DW Collector's Series kit with maple shells — the same premium shell line he would carry into the [Crack the Skye](/articles/crack-the-skye-drum-setup) sessions three years later. DW's Collector's Series is the company's flagship custom offering, built to spec at their California workshop with shell tolerances and bearing-edge geometry that produce consistent, musical pitches across all drums in the configuration.

The maple shell construction was central to what makes *Blood Mountain*'s drum sound distinctive. Maple resonates with warmth and fundamental tone — the shells produce pitches that register as musical notes, not just percussive noise. This property is essential for Dailor's compositional approach: he uses toms as melodic instruments, cascading through fills that function as melodic phrases rather than rhythmic interjections. On tracks like "The Wolf Is Loose" and "Capillarian Crest," those tom cascades are melodies with harmonic intention.

The three-rack-tom configuration (10", 12", 13") gives Dailor the dense melodic resolution his playing demands — three adjacent pitches close enough to form melodic shapes without large intervallic jumps. Combined with the 16" floor tom, he has a four-voice melodic palette that spans a usable musical range. This configuration is consistent with the setup he used on [Crack the Skye](/articles/crack-the-skye-drum-setup), demonstrating that once Dailor found his melodic tool, he kept it.

The double bass drum configuration on *Blood Mountain* reinforces the album's rhythmically aggressive character — more urgent and driving than the compositionally sophisticated double-kick work of *Crack the Skye*, but establishing the physical foundation that the *Crack the Skye* sessions would build upon. The DW 9000 pedals (detailed below) drove this configuration throughout the recording sessions.

### The Snare: Cut and Projection in the Mix

On *Blood Mountain*, the snare drum serves a dual role: it anchors the groove with authoritative backbeat presence while providing the crack and brightness that Dailor's ghost note work requires to register in Mastodon's dense guitar mix. A steel snare at 14" x 6.5" gives the drum projection without sacrificing sensitivity — essential for a drummer whose ghost notes are rhythmic content rather than mere texture.

The 6.5" depth provides more body than a standard 5.5" snare, giving the backbeat the weight to anchor Mastodon's down-tuned guitar arrangements without getting lost in the low-mid frequency range. The steel shell keeps the response quick and bright — important for the album's more aggressive passages where the snare needs to cut cleanly through the mix.

Ghost notes are woven throughout *Blood Mountain*, most prominently on the album's more progressive passages where Dailor uses them to maintain forward motion and rhythmic density between the larger fills. The snare's medium tension tuning allows these ghost notes to speak clearly without bleeding into noise — a balance that reflects Dailor's jazz-influenced approach to the drum kit as a dynamic instrument.

### Zildjian: The Bright, Cutting Voice of Blood Mountain

Brann Dailor's Zildjian cymbal setup on *Blood Mountain* reflects the sonic priorities of this specific era in his career. Where later Mastodon records would see him move toward the darker, more complex tones of Meinl Byzance — a change most audible on [Crack the Skye](/articles/crack-the-skye-drum-setup) — the Zildjian A and K series cymbals on *Blood Mountain* bring brightness, attack, and cutting power to a record that needed to assert itself on Atlantic Records' mainstream rock radio landscape.

The Zildjian A Series hi-hats provide a clear, responsive top-end that sits well in dense, multi-layered arrangements. Where the album's guitar tones are thick and saturated, the bright Zildjian hi-hats cut through with definition, marking Dailor's intricate patterns without competing with the frequency range of the guitars.

The crashes are fast and articulate — Zildjian's A Series medium-thin cymbals respond quickly and decay cleanly, suiting the album's tempo and the band's tendency to crash on strong beats without letting the cymbal sustain wash over the following measure. The 22" A Medium Ride provides defined bell response for riding passages, and its clear bow tone marks time through even the densest arrangements.

This Zildjian setup represents Dailor's pre-Meinl era — a period where his cymbal choice emphasised attack and clarity. The eventual transition to Meinl Byzance's darker, more atmospheric character would parallel Mastodon's compositional evolution toward the richer, more layered sound of *Crack the Skye*.

## Key Facts

- Recorded at Doppler Studios, Atlanta with producer Matt Bayles
- Mastodon's Atlantic Records debut — US Billboard 200 #28, mainstream breakthrough
- DW Collector's Series maple shells — warm resonance for fills-as-melody approach
- Zildjian cymbals — bright, cutting top-end that defined Brann's pre-Meinl era
- DW 9000 double pedal — foundation for the album's complex rhythmic architecture
- Concept album: creature mythology, guest vocals from Cedric Bixler-Zavala (The Mars Volta)
- DW Collector's Series — premium custom maple shells for melodic warmth and fill clarity
- Three rack toms (10", 12", 13") — melodic range for fills-as-lead-instrument approach
- Double bass configuration — aggressive rhythmic foundation for the album's creature mythology concept
- Consistent shell spec with Crack the Skye — Dailor's gear philosophy stabilised around this era
- Estimated kit value: $4,000–7,000 (DW Collector's Series shell pack)
- Estimated snare value: $500–900 (DW Collector's Series steel snare)

**Source:** https://metalforge.io/articles/blood-mountain-drum-setup

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*Last updated: 2026-06-25 · Source: [MetalForge.io](https://metalforge.io)*