rdavidr | David Raouf | The DIY king of drum YouTube
What happened to rdavidr? David Raouf, the DIY king of drum YouTube, is still building. His story, his kit, his quiet spell and the latest news.
David Raouf, better known as rdavidr, is a drummer and content creator who has built one of the most watchable channels in drumming — by building almost everything else, too.
Pizza-box kick drums. Dumpster snares. Kits made from parts nobody else would have bothered picking up. If you haven’t come across him yet, you are in for a good evening.
What happened to rdavidr? He went quiet on YouTube for a while in 2024, but he has not gone anywhere — he was back in August 2026 with one of the biggest builds his channel has done.
We keep this page updated with the latest rdavidr news, so check back.
What happened to rdavidr?
It is one of the questions people ask about David most, so let’s answer it plainly.
In the second half of 2024 the channel went quiet. By late December, more than four months after his last upload, drummers on DrumForum had started a thread asking where he had gone.
The short answer is that he has not gone anywhere. In August 2026 he teamed up with Steve Weiss Music for an 11-piece roto-tom kit — by his own account the largest kit he has ever assembled on the channel — and it pulled around 150,000 views in two days.
What we do not know is why the uploads slowed down, and we are not going to guess.
Who is rdavidr?
David is based in Richmond, Virginia, and has been posting to YouTube since 2011. What separates him from the rest of drum YouTube is not his playing — although he plays perfectly well — it is that he is a genuine tradesman.
He builds. He turns wood, he cuts metal, he refinishes shells, and he takes second-hand gear that everyone else has written off and turns it into something you actually want.
That combination is rare. Most drum channels can only tell you what to buy. David can tell you what to make.
rdavidr on YouTube
The channel has grown a long way since we first wrote about it. It now sits at roughly 380,000 subscribers and 93 million views across around 350 videos — up from 220,000 subscribers and 47 million views when this page was first published.
The content splits roughly three ways:
- Drum hacks — small, cheap fixes for problems every drummer has.
- Builds and restorations — full kits, snares and stands made or rescued from scratch.
- “Can this be made to sound good?” — the challenge videos, where the answer is usually yes and always entertaining.
Why not make a pizza kick drum?
And if you are after hacks for your own kit, start here:
Our top pick from rdavidr
It is hard to pick just one. After much debate it still has to be the video where David and Stephen Taylor took a kids’ drum set and tried to make it sound good.
Haven’t we all wondered whether one of those cheap kids’ kits could be made to sound decent? If anyone is capable of it, it is rdavidr.
What kit does rdavidr play?
This is the fun part. Unlike most content creators, David does not really have a kit — he has a rotating cast of them, which is half the appeal of the channel. You never know what you are going to see.
A few things do stay constant:
- Sticks — Vic Firth. He joined the Vic Firth family as a drum set artist, and his stick of choice is the 2B.
- Heads — Remo, across the board.
- Kit — a Tama Imperialstar has done plenty of service on the channel.
- Snares — a rotating collection with better stories than most drummers’ entire setups: a 6.5”x14” Ludwig Acrolite found in a Goodwill, a Ludwig piccolo pulled out of a dumpster, and a “frankensnare” built around a Rogers Dynasonic bought on eBay.
- Damping — Moongel, like the rest of us.
The configuration is usually the same underneath all that: a four-piece — kick, snare, rack tom, floor tom — with hi-hats, a ride and a couple of crashes.
If you want a properly documented gear history for a drummer, that is what the Rig Vault is for. David is the exception that proves the rule: nobody could keep up with him.
Where can I find rdavidr?
He is on most platforms. Go and have a look:
Final thoughts
David Raouf makes some of the best drumming content anywhere, and he has been doing it for well over a decade now without repeating himself. That is the hard bit.
More than that, his videos leave you wanting to make something rather than buy something — which, given how much drum content exists purely to sell you gear, is genuinely refreshing.
If you like the builder-creator end of drum YouTube, try ZackGrooves next for the comedy side of it.
Do you have a favourite drummer we should check out? Let us know in the comments below.
Frequently asked questions
- What happened to rdavidr?
- Nothing dramatic that has been made public. His YouTube channel went quiet for several months in the second half of 2024 — by the end of that December fans on DrumForum were asking where he had gone — but he is still making videos. In August 2026 he released one of the biggest builds of his channel, an 11-piece roto-tom kit made with Steve Weiss Music. Read the full story.
- Is rdavidr still making videos?
- Yes. His 11-piece Weiss roto-tom kit build went up in August 2026 and picked up roughly 150,000 views in its first 48 hours.
- Who is rdavidr?
- rdavidr is David Raouf, a drummer and YouTuber based in Richmond, Virginia, who has been posting since 2011. His channel is known for DIY drum builds, hacks and restorations — turning second-hand and thrown-away gear into kits that actually sound good.
- What drumsticks does rdavidr use?
- Vic Firth. David is a Vic Firth drum set artist and his stick of choice is the 2B. He uses Remo heads across his kits, which otherwise change from video to video.