AztecViking

I recently got ahold of Alain Caron's DVD called Live 5 Cabaret de Montreal and was floored by the Xylophone type percussionist he had playing something called a MalletKat.

I had previously heard the 2CD audio only discs and was super impresseded with what I had thought was the keyboard player. As it turns out it's a guy named Jean St-Jacques on a MalletKat. He does pitch bending like a keyboard player would with a foot pedal.

It just got me thinking that Virgil would absolutely smoke on this thing ( in theory at least ) since he's also a keyboard player. I guess the question is would he want to? But to me it seems it might make a nice addition to a full drum kit.

I saw Bill Bruford playing a hybrid kit once which included something like this with a Japanese Guitarist named Kazumi Watanabe and Jeff Berlin on bass.

Anyways have any of you drummers ever tried your hand at xylophone type instruments or tried playing one of these MalletKats?

PS. the reason I say "you drummers" is that I'm a bass player.