Once upon a time, if you were a drummer and had the dubious pleasure of carting your own gear from gig to gig, you used reinforced Spaulding Russell fibre cases or similar. The buckle straps were fiddly and the cases themselves tended to fall apart if they got wet. Nowadays, you generally fit into one of two camps – either you’re a ‘softie’ or a ‘rigid’. I am, of course, referring to the choice of case – soft padded gig bags or rigid plastic cases. By far the best known brand of the latter is the eponymous Hardcase. Formerly avid users of the Henry Ford palette (any colour as long as it’s black), of late they’ve expanded into glorious technicolour, as well as endlessly adding new products to let you move your odds and sods in cleverer ways.