More about the Remo TSS. It’s a weird thing.

 So after hanging out with this thing a couple days, I wondered if it was really all that.

I wondered if I wanted to keep it, and in fact I seriously pondered selling it.

Along the way, I heard from a longtime Remo artist, a couple members of the 2008 Glassmen drum corps (who had incorporated the TSS sound into their show for a couple seasons) and a rep from Remo that gave me some additional information:

— the original TSS was designed and released in the mid-2000’s. It caught the interest of the Marching Arts crowd, but Remo never really made a big point of marketing it. 

— the original TSS, with its metal and laminate design, was very costly to manufacture, which meant its  retail price was beyond the reach of all but the most well-funded music programs and a handful of rock artists who incorporated it into their existing drum kits. In spite of its innovative qualities, it never really took off.

— Remo only supported the product line with parts and tech support for a couple of years after it was pulled from the catalog in the late 2000’s. As of now, Remo has NO TSS drums or spare parts in its possession, and has no plans to reintroduce the product again.

And that, my friends, is how you make a unicorn. 

But then a local guy I know who’s a machinist asked me to show him the pad. He thought someone might be able to fabricate a snare module for it. It wouldn’t be stock, but it could be functional. He told me to hang onto it because it might prove to be a fun side project. 

So I’m keeping it after all. While I continue to look for the unicorn that an original Remo snare module represents, I’ll explore this other, equally intriguing possibility and see what comes of it. It might prove to be a useful alternative drum voice in my work accompanying vocalists with brushes and thin sticks. We’ll see.

Here’s a technical drawing of the snare module that Chris from Remo provided me, and a little video.

Stay tuned and happy chopping.