Vintage Drums vs. Vintage Pads: challenges for collectors

I've been collecting vintage drum pads for awhile, over a decade. In my efforts to learn as much as I can about them, I've taken it upon myself to research each pad that comes into my humble little collection. Collectors of vintage drums do this too; in fact, there are a number of books published with histories of each major drum company and photos of significant drum models throughout their histories. Books are now available for Ludwig, Slingerland, Gretsch, and many more.

These histories seldom, if ever, offer photos of practice pads. This is largely because Pads hold little interest for a collector who has room to store and display full-sized drums -- and drum kits -- at home.

In fact, I am the only person I know of who has made it a point to focus on pads and, to a lesser extent, vintage sticks.

The primary reason most collectors focus on drums is that they're sexy. Like vintage cars, each make and model from a certain age has its own distinctive markings and style. They look as beautiful as they sound. And if you find one in poor condition, it's a fun challenge to try and restore it, just like a classic car. Parts are out there for the swapping.

A secondary, but no less important reason for the lack of attention given to pads, is that, unlike many drums, they are not date-stamped or utilize a serial number in the manufacture process. Taking it farther, a number of manufacturers had their pads all made by one or two factories, and simply embossed with the appropriate brand name and logo. Practice pads from the 1940s through 70s were a low-profit item, cheap and easy to make and sell, and they were never intended to be sexy. A practice pad was, and is, a simple tool that aids in drummer development.
With one or two factories cranking out cheap practice pads for mutliple companies, it was common to see the exact same photos or illustrations of a pad design in the catalogs of multiple drum companies.

1. Slingerland, circa 1938. Note the design of the bottom three pads in the photo.

2. George Way, circa 1950. Note the design of the top three pads shown here. There is virtually NO difference in design or construction of these pads from those in the Slingerland catalog of 13 years earlier. That's because there was no real change in standard pad designs during these years.




3. Here's another example. Ludwig Drum catalog, circa 1957. Note the standard rubber-on-wood pad designs shown along the top of the page. Now look at the all-rubber Porto-Pad at the far upper left, and the rubber-on-metal design just to the right of it. The "All-Metal" pad is a design that was adapted from one appearing in the 1950 George Way catalog (which had a round rubber pad instead of a square one). The rubber pad is a design first marketed by the WFL Drum Company, which was absorbed into Ludwig during a consolidation in the 1950's.

The upshot of these examples is that, with so many manufacturers offering practice pads of similar (if not identical) size and design, and with the buyout and consolidation of drum companies throughout this "golden" age of rudimental drumming, it's very hard to determine whose design came first. It's even harder to determine the exact age of a vintage pad because along with this reality, there were no serial numbers applied to pads.

The only pads I've been able to approximate an age on are two with unusual identifying characteristics and/or short shelf lives. The first was my Slingerland Radio King practice pad, which dates from the late 1940's. I was able to date this because of the unusual badge design, which was only used on Radio King practice pads for a few years after WWII and went out of production by 1950-51. The other pad is my recently-acquired Timpette, which was easy to date because of its very limited production run in the late 40s -- information which I was able to research on Google Patents.

If you collect drums and have not yet used Google Patents to aid in your historical research, I strongly urge you to check it out. Though it's generally more useful for researching innovations in design rather than researching by model and year, this site has been invaluable as I've researched the age and design of each of my vintage practice pads -- and in two cases, specialty practice sticks.

Other resources which are more helpful for researching model and year include vintage drum catalogs and individual advertisements, school music educator magazines and the occasional peer review journal (such as PASIC's Percussive Notes). Peer review journals for most musical topics can be found with the help of your public library.
You can sometimes find ads in the back pages of specialty publications like Drum Corps World, which may help you to approximate the age and model of marching percussion instruments.
Finally, always check photographs taken during the era in which you think your drum dates from, as close-ups can reveal small but important differences in the design of lugs, snare strainers and more.

As ever, I am always interested in vintage pads and hearing about what you have. Contact me through the CONTACT link at right. Cheers!

from junk to funk: DIY percussion

I taught this class Sunday evening at the NewCAJE conference, a gathering of Jewish educators from around the country. We made modern-day versions of rattles, shakers and sistrums that were in use in the ancient near east. Then we tried playing them together, to see what kind of music we could make.
It was super-fun, and I love teaching this workshop because everyone is so surprised at how good it all sounds.

the pad fairy brings more interestingness

A few days ago I took delivery on a homemade quad practice pad.

New, factory-made versions sell for $150 and up. This one cost me a total of $30 including shipping.
All I wanted was something to fart around on, when my snare drumming got stale and/or I felt like switching things up for fun.
(I played a single tenor drum in high school band, and it was nothing like today's multi-tenor outfits.)

So far I've been having a great time with it. I'm going to download some free beginning exercises from the web and see what I can learn on my own.

Will I carry a set of actual tenors one day? Doubtful. A set of quads weighs almost as much as the smallest fiberglass timpani I carried in Drum corps, and I'm not up for damaging my back that way again. But as something to knock about with, this is an interesting and nice addition to my practice pad collection.

VIntage pad: 1960s Pep Pad

This is a recent find, a vintage Pep Pad from the mid 1960s, which I found in the original box.

Pep Drum Products, based in Kankakee IL, produced the pad for what seems to be a limited period of time.

A patent from 1963 is on file, and shows an anticipated expiration date of 1982. There doesn't appear to be any follow-up on file, and the patent permanently expired this year.

The pad is unremarkable in design, though the angle of the tilt seems to be good.





























The pad I found came in its original box, which is rare and cool. The box has been repaired with clear packing tape, which I don't mind at all as I'm not fussy about condition issues in my collection.

The pad itself is a solid piece of rubber and is still lively and offers good bounce for its age.

Playing the pad proved easy. There was plenty of rebound, but not so much as to take away some work from my hands -- which is generally how I like my rubber practice pads to feel.

A little video below gives you an idea of how well the pads works for its size and design.

(Apologies for the camera holder obscuring my right hand)

chopping on tour: all you need is a pad

Heading out very early in the morning for my singer-songwriter thing, on tour back east.
I have to pack light since I'm lugging a guitar. So my carryon bag will be just a basic messenger bag, and it has to hold everything that I'll ned to access quickly, including my sheet music, meds, electronics and, well, a pad and sticks.

So I'll be bringing my basic homemade pad with me on this trip.
It's smaller than a full-sized pad, but big enough to sit still on a table top.
And it fits nicely inside my messenger bag with a pair of sticks.
 
See you when I'm back, kids! Happy chopping!

Scenes from HONK!Fest West, Seattle

Last weekend, I went up to Seattle for two days with the Unpresidented Brass Band, to join with dozens of other street/DIY cmmunity bands for the Honk! Festival.

It was my introduction to the worldwide Honk! network of bands, and I had a marvelous time.

Friday night. My drum was locked in my friend's trunk so I started things off by playing on a fire hydrant. It sounded interesting and sort of cool, but playing on iron was hard on my hands after awhile.
I was glad to get my drum out eventually.

The entire festival was filled with the sounds of music from over two dozen community bands from throughout the Pacific Northwest, coming from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Northern California. The repertoire choices varied greatly, and each ensemble had its own unique visual style. Held up alongside some of the more punk-influenced outfits, were were definitely leaning towards the old fart side of things, but people genuinely enjoy every set we played.



Above: Bass drummers from two different bands had no difficulty agreeing on a beat.
Below: A slightly more fleshed-out drum line. Three different grip styles. No judgment.

Below: My favorite band at Honk! - Chaotic Noise Marching Corps, Seattle. Rough, raw and loud, the way a punk marching band ought to be. Drum Corps geeks: note the homemade ISO on the right. It sounds kinda crappy but you definitely hear the snare.

Saturday afternoon, last of three sets we played that day. With the sun going down, things had cooled off enough for me to don my band jacket in the shade, though the shako was still too hot and heavy to wear.

I had a fabulous time and cannot wait for the opportunity to go to another Honk! event.

Thanks to friends of the band, we got a little video while we performed at the festival. I'm gonna toss these up here and let folks pick and choose and enjoy.

Friday night. No warm-up, some members got there with about five minutes to spare.
Adrenaline helped:


Saturday afternoon, first set. It was too hot and unshaded for me to wear anything but my band t-shirt.
Still, we survived. And we made people dance and laugh, which means success:

If UBB has an opportunity to go back to Honk! next year I definitely want to go. It's a great celebration of music, community and can-do spirit that can inspire us all in so many positive ways.
Honk! is a worldwide network of bands and festivals and I knew nothing about it until this spring when one of our members suggested we go. I'm very glad she did.

the ritual: taping up new sticks, and more

It's early summer, and the beginning of the marching season for so many of us.
Whether you march with an uber-modern DCI corps or your community band, summer is the time to play outside!
And so I've been readying myself and my gear.

1.  The heads that came with my Ludwig drum were, along with the snare hardware, pretty beat. The snare-side head had a hole almost as big as my pinky finger. It wasn't too close to the edge of the shell or I would've replaced it sooner. Still, when I noticed a split forming in the batter head -- a CS black dot that was almost as old as the drum -- I decided to bite the bullet and replace both heads.

2. While I was at it, the original strainer mechanism was beginning to fall apart. The tensioning screws for each individual snare had fallen out, and a few snares were missing. The remainder were showing a little surface rust. So after pondering my options, I replaced the entire thing with something simple and more modern (Gibraltar, for all its plainness, sells excellent, serviceable parts that stand up well to daily use). After all, this was never going to be a showpiece. I bought it as a player and the random scratches in the finish never bothered me. I got some trade-in on the parts at Revival, and the new hardware went on fairly easily. I only had to drill new holes for the butt plate.

3. I finally managed to re-shape the steel leg rest I'd scored, so that it would fit my older, larger thigh. (Don't blame that on weight-gain; my quads are a lot bigger now from all that cycling then they were when I was fourteen, and the platform had to be spread a little.)

 Early 1970s Ludwig 10 x 14" marching snare, with angle bar and new heads and strainer.

 With only eight lugs, there is no point in putting a super-high-tension head on this drum. It was meant to have Mylar heads and that's what it's got. I opted for the Power Stroke, which is what my marching snare drum had my senior year of high school. A tad later than the drum, but it sounds crisp and clean.

Mylar heads are tuned lower, meaning that the player has to do a little of the rebound work themselves. But if you tune the batter head a little high than the snare head, you'll get a crisp, dark sound that those of us of a certain age still know and love.

4. Next up: Sticks. After trying several different makes and models, I finally took my friend Mary's advice and went with the Vic Firth Jeff Queen signature model. Although Jeff designed it as a "solo" stick, honestly it's a fine ensemble stick, especially for smaller hands and for use on Mylar heads. With my arthritis, it's the stick I've kept coming back to. So when I pulled out my sticks after my last band practice and saw the telltale ridge (see photos), I knew it was time to buy new sticks and wrap them in fresh tape.

The ritual used to go like this: I'd go to the music shop, spend about half an hour finding two sticks of the same model that matched in pitch (in those days I'd settle for 1/4 to 1/2-step apart if I had to); then begging the shop owner for a quantity break on 4 pairs (he almost always said no, unless he'd just smoked a bowl), and then taking them home and setting out the stuff I'd need to wrap each pair in a fresh layer of white electrical tape. In high school, this would be trimmed in thin stripes of royal blue tape at both ends to make the sticks match our school colors. (In corps we didn't bother with trim, because the snare line went through sticks too quickly on tour. I swear, sometimes they'd tape up new show sticks every two to three days.)

This is something of a tiny ritual for me, and taping up new sticks always takes me back to my teen years as a marching member, in a sweet way.

I'm mostly packed for Honk! weekend, and looking forward to a great time playing live in the streets of South Seattle this weekend. I'm playing with the Unpresidented Brass Band. If you read this blog and come to the festival, find our band and say hello.

 

Above: a little vid. I'm just farting around, playing whatever I feel like. Sometimes it's nice not to have a plan. Cheers!