L'Arc~en~Ciel: DUNE
Sakura joined L'Arc~en~Ciel in early 1993 and they quickly entered the studio to record their first album. By luck, in a SOAP Post response, Sakura himself detailed the specs of the kit he was using at that time. Nonetheless I can only make educated guesses at much of his gear, mainly based on what he used on the CLOSE BY DUNE and FEEL OF DUNE tours. Given that DUNE was recorded on a very tight schedule, I do not think he changed gear between songs very much.
DRUMS:Snare drums: 14"x5.5" Pearl Custom Classic, 14"x5.5" Pearl Hammered Steel, 14"x6.5" Pearl Brass Free-Floating
Toms: Pearl MXL 10"x8", 13"x8", 15"x14", 16"x14"
Bass drum: Pearl MXL, 24"x16"
While much of this information comes from Sakura himself and should be considered reliable, the snare drums are a point of difficulty. Sakura himself mentioned the first two, but I've heard from a reliable source that the whole album was actually recorded with his free-floating brass. I suspect the first two were mainly used for concerts rather than recording. So although it is hard to discern which was used, almost certainly one or all of these appeared on the album.
HEADS:Snare: Remo Coated Ambassador (top), Remo Ambassador Snare Side (bottom)
Toms: Remo Coated Ambassador (top), Remo Coated/Clear Ambassador/Diplomat (bottom)
Bass drum: Remo Smooth White or Clear Ambassador (batter), Pearl stock reso head with a large off-center hole (resonant)
Sakura was experimenting a lot with resonant heads at this point, so it's unclear what he was using for the album. Based on the sound, I think there was a large hole in the bass drum resonant head, as was the case during the CLOSE BY DUNE tour.
CYMBALS:13" Paiste Signature Dark Crisp Hi-Hats
22" Paiste Signature Dry Ride
20"-16" Paiste Signature Full Crashes
12", 10", 8" Paiste Signature Splashes
20" Paiste 3000 Reflector Chinese
These have been basically confirmed by Sakura. This set is likely the set primarily used for all of L'Arc~en~Ciel's records.
Shortly after the CLOSE BY DUNE tour ended, Sakura procured a new drumset (Pearl FX), and used that for the FEEL OF DUNE tour and the Tierra recording. The MXL kit has not been seen since. Interestingly, the sizes and general set-up at this point bear a lot of similarity to his set-up with SOAP. According to Sakura this was done puposefully. Just one more reason why I love studying this stuff.
Since I have no pictures of his recording set for DUNE, the pictures on this page are from the "As if in a dream" PV. This is his Pearl FX set, which was used for recording Tierra, not DUNE, but the overall set-up should be fairly similar to what he played on DUNE. The cymbals should also be mostly accurate.
