On buying and selling drums on the internet.

I buy drums and accessories on the internet, more than I buy them from brick and mortar shops.

I do this because, to be honest, even with shipping I can usually find what I’m looking for at a lower price.

Sometimes I buy from a regular seller on eBay, someone with an online store. Other times, I may find something that an individual is offering simply to clear space at home, or because they no longer use it. 

In all cases, if I’m interacting with a private individual I DO NOT KNOW, I will use PayPal to send money, and I will use the “Pay for goods and services” option. I choose this because if I don’t know the seller and something goes wrong — the seller doesn’t ship, or the item is lost in shipping and the seller doesn’t offer any assistance to resolve the issue, I can contact PayPal for help. If the seller continues to be recalcitrant, I can ask PayPal to refund my money and then they can take it to the next level with the seller.

If the seller is someone I know and isn’t running an online store, I am willing to consider using the Friends and Family (“Send money to a friend”) option to save them the fees involved with selling. But this option does not come with any buyer protection so I use it sparingly and only with people I know well.

A new seller, one who runs an online music store and who is someone I ado not know, reached out to me to offer a drum I’d been looking for, and his price was reasonable. He asked me to pay using the Friends and Family option. As he was a commercial seller AND someone I didn’t know, and the price was a bit on the expensive side for me, I asked him if he would allow me to use the other option. He laughed at me — that was his first mistake — then said he would not. So I told him I’d pass. He laughed a second time when I told him the item was expensive for me. So I made a note of his online store, and his name, and I blocked him on FB to avoid bumping into his store or him again. 

Because laughing at a potential customer after you’ve reached out and offered to sell them something, and then refuse to take their payment above-board to avoid seller fees — and responsibility — is bad business.

I also sell things online from time to time. When I do, I take decent photos and, if it’s on a casual place like Facebook, I post an asking price rather than entertain offers. And if a stranger wants to buy the item and asks for buyer protection, I’ll give it to them because they don’t know me from Adam. It’s just the sensible thing to do.

When you sell something, it’s impolite to make the buyer do all the heavy lifting.

Be nice. 

Pedestaled drumstick tips

Pedestaled tips. Often found on Japanese sticks of the 1960s through early 80s, also seen on turn of the 20th century sticks, especially in ebony and rosewood. They show up a lot on student sticks, especially in the 2B size, and I love them.

My friend and drumstick scholar Eric Harris adds: "I find that the pedestal acts like a compressor (sound) or muffler (as a scarf, moreso) by reducing how much bead material is attached to the central core. I find that with a pedestal, the tendency is towards producing less stick resonance. In terms of tapers, that's strong and durable compared to conical ones. (It tends to be more common in a classic 2B style with a curved taper shape.)"

I would agree about the slight muting effect. Perhaps that's why it showed up so often on student sticks of this era.

Sadly, the major stick makers stopped doing this years ago, removing a layer of the production process and makings it more cost-effective.
But you can still find this treatment in some craft-made sticks, like certain models from Cooperman. And artisanal stick makers will happily add the feature to a set of custom sticks if it makes sense to do so.

VIntage Corner: Leedy & Ludwig, 1950-1955

Leedy & Ludwig

In 1909, a pair of brothers opened up a drum shop in Chicago named Ludwig & Ludwig. Among their ventures, they acted as a distributor for Leedy products. However, they also began to manufacture their own products. By 1923, it grew to become among the largest drum companies in the world, rivaling the likes of Leedy. In late 1929, C. G. Conn acquired Ludwig & Ludwig, and similar to Leedy, moved their production to Elkhart.

Both Leedy and Ludwig drums were made in the same factory, only differing in their marketing and name. In 1950, Conn decided that it made financial sense to combine its two drum divisions to create Leedy & Ludwig. To promote this merger, George Way devised a new line of drums called Knob Tension drums. The idea was that the tension rods used for tightening the drumhead could be replaced with a series of knobs to forgo the use of a drum key. This line was pushed to the forefront of production, while the former flagship drums of both Leedy and Ludwig were relegated to secondary status. However, the drums proved unsuccessful, as owners found them hard to maintain and tune. After just a few years, the drums were pulled from the catalog and were seen as a commercial failure.

(Wikipedia)

*****

I've had a set of Leedy & Ludwig 3S (marching) sticks in my collection for awhile. The sticks are beautiful and well-balanced, with a hint of pedestaling and a nice high-gloss finish. I don't play them often but they are an especially nice example of marching sticks from the era.

Recently, I found a practice pad to go with them. Since anything labeled "Leedy & Ludwig" is from a small window of time, it can be hard to find some items in good condition. This pad, which I found from an online antiques dealer on sale, is a nice example of what was offered at the time, and in spite of some dents and paint fading, is in great, playable shape. The red rubber is still pretty bouncy and has the original tacks holding it in place.

The design is pretty simple, and likely a student level pad that would be easy to take home for practice. It's not a very stable design as it tends to bounce around on any accented note and/or with bigger sticks, but it has a nice response. The design is identical to other student pads of the day, a design which has been in production by multiple companies since the mid-1940s and continued to be made through the 1960s. (I have an older Ludwig pad from the 40s that is nearly identical in shape and size, with the only difference being the colors of the wood base and rubber playing surface. It's my experience that the black rubber in use at the time didn't retain its bounce for as long as the red rubber did, but as in so many things, Your Mileage May Vary.

I'm happy to add this pad to my stable.

Good stuff department: Bay Ratz Marching Battery

This is my friend Brian. 

He runs a drumline program for kids in his town. 

As long as they show up and practice, being in the drumline is free.

Brian is cool.

The end.

Brian and I found each other on Facebook a few years back, when he grabbed a video of mine (an early rendition of my song “Count To Four”) and shared it with his drum students. He explained that he didn’t know who this was, but that the combination of singing and Rudimental chopping was proof that rudimental drumming could be an art form. I was flattered, and reached out. We became friends and ever since I’ve followed his adventures as an independent drumline instructor.

Brian founded Bay Ratz in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi about nine years ago, and the group became a fixture in the town. An introductory group called the Mice gives younger players their start in drumming. And as long as the kids practice and show up regularly, they can be in the Bay Ratz for free, with all instruments and instruction provided by Brian and his tiny nonprofit. It fit my vision of a totally grassroots program that heartened back to my time in drum corps, and I became a supporter of Brian and his vision.

Periodically, I gather up a stack of used drum pads found for free or cheap, and ship them to Brian so that new incoming members have something to practice on. I’ve been doing this for about four years now, and he’s taken to calling me the Drum Pad Fairy Godmother of the Bay Ratz. One year, he and his wife sent me a Mardi Gras gift box filled with beads and a Bay Ratz t-shirt.

There was a hiatus during the pandemic but now the group is back at it, rehearsing and performing around town. And I am gathering more pads and sticks for their kids, many of whom cannot afford to buy their own.

A group like this would have a tough time getting off the ground in Portland; it’s too liberal and independent a city and most inner city drummers here would rather just bang on a drum kit than take time to learn rudiments and march in parades. And I’m getting too creaky to create something like that here anyway. So I’m happy to support Brian and the Bay Ratz from afar.

If you have an old drum practice you don’t use anymore, please consider donating it to a youth music group where you live. Pads and sticks cost money, and a lot of these smaller groups literally run on a shoestring. Any help they can get helps a kid who wants to learn to make music, and that’s a very good thing.

Or, if you prefer, send it to Brian for his growing drumline. Reach out to him at the Bay Ratz FB Page.

Cheapskate’s Corner: drum dampener

Keo Percussion has offered this lovely drum dampener for a few years.

It’s basically a hunk of wood and rubber with some magnets attached on the backside, so the pad will adhere to the inside wall of the drum rim.

It’s a smart design, and I went looking for one.

The only one I found was being sold used on Reverb, for twenty bucks.

Then I tried finding one new and saw that they start at $35 retail. If you can find one.

Apparently, Keo Percussion recently shut down and their products are now quite hard to find.

After pondering my options, I decided to try and make something similar for myself.

Using scraps of leather, drum mute foam, cork and some magnets, I created a similar product.

Since I don’t have commercial cutting tools at home, the best I could do was to use sharp scissors and cut my chosen shape over and over for each layer. 

The results weren’t gorgeous but they lined up well enough for m e to glue the layers together and call it good. (I may paint a little glue around the edges to seal the cork and keep it from crumbling.)

What turned out to be slightly off-canter also added a nice accidental feature: I affixed the magnets so that the dampener could be set two different ways to adjust the degree of dampening, something the Keo version didn’t look like it offered. It’s a nice bonus, and it works really well.

My CB700 Fetish.

I love vintage drums.

I’ve certainly played my fair share over the years. 

But I knew that as long as my life was small and my finances smaller, I could never collect vintage drums the way so many enthusiasts do. I know guys who have entires rooms in their houses devoted to the storage and cataloguing of their vintage snare drums and even drum kits.

So, while I lusted after many gorgeous drums and even managed to play a few in the studio, I didn’t buy them. 

Until more recently.

I went down the rabbit hold of CB700 drums, and found a spark of nostalgia kindled by the recognition that, properly set up and tuned up, these drums do not suck. So I started looking for them.

And now I’ve got three different models of CB snare drums, including a CB700. 

Each is different from the others and each has a distinct sound and feel.

And as long as I don’t entertain dreams of a great drumming career at this point in my life, they should provide me with all the sounds I’ll need going forward.

1. CB700 wood shell, 1980s. Eight lugs, the wood tone isn’t vintage but it’s plenty warm enough. I paid the least for this drum and it needed the most cleaning up, including new heads. It sounds really nice with brushes.

2. CB alumi-steel, early 1990s. A special drum. Ten lugs, aluminum powder coating over a steel shell. The aluminum coating gives it a sound that’s akin to a wet Ludwig Acrolite. It’s a cool sound and has a lot of depth.

3. CB brass, 13”, mid to late 1980s. Ten lugs, and a brass shell that cracks with a slightly deeper tone than most piccolo snares because of its 5” depth. I haven’t cleaned this one thoroughly yet, but it will get a new batter head and maybe some different snare wires.

I did a video demo of # 2 the other night, and LOVED the tone. I’ll try and get some video demos of the other two before too long.

And with this lovely trifecta, my collecting jones is likely complete enough.

(Yeah, yeah, right.)

Obviously, there are other CB700 items that would be fun to find, including sticks and, if I’m lucky, a drum key. But I’m in no rush. I’ll enjoy these drums for awhile to come, and probably prepare a couple other drums for resale. Stay tuned.

Vintage Corner: the rabbit hole of CB700

I’ve always loved vintage drums, from the time I was in high school and understood that drums could last long enough to become vintage.

Of course, I couldn’t possibly afford to own anything really collectible, and the many rental addresses of my young adulthood didn’t provide enough security for me to trust keeping anything super-expensive and rare at home anyway. So I stick with practice pads — on those days, so wonky that hardly anyone collected them seriously — and a few treasured pairs of sticks and brushes.

I’d owned a couple of different sets that today would fetch respectable collector’s prices. Both were obtained cheaply when I was young. The first, a 1960s Pearl President, was my sixteenth birthday GIFT from my father. He bought it from a fellow instructor at Mt Hood Community College, who was storing it for a young man who never came home from Vietnam. He placed a call to the young man’s mother, who gave her blessing and told him to sell it cheaply to a student. So my dad paid a hundred bucks for everything, including hi-hat and crash cymbals. I played that kit through the end of high school and all the way through my junior year of college. Then I took a year off from school, moved downtown and stored my drums in the space above my Murphy bed. One day, I came home from my barista job to discover my apartment had been broken into. The thieves took my boom box, my cassette tapes, all my nice Oxford shirts, and my Pearl drumkit. I was heartbroken. They had kicked in the door, breaking the door jam and one of the hinges. The elderly manager was asleep in the basement and never heard a thing. The thieves had broken into several apartments this way, and there was nothing to be done.

A few years later, I had gone back to school, and moved into another, more secure apartment, and saved up my money and bought another kit, this one a Ludwig “Ringo Starr” model with a beautiful white marine finish. I used that kit for a few years in pit orchestras and as the drummer for a vocal jazz quartet, and loved playing it. Then, I lost my day job and had to sell my drums. I made twice what I’d paid for them, but I’ve never again owned that fancy a drumkit.

Fast forward to now, and the drum kit I play today. Since I’m not gigging, I’m content with a suitcase kick drum, a selection of snare drums and some cymbals. It fits in the corner of my studio, sounds good, and Sweetie doesn’t mind when I want to play indoors most days.

But I still have the vintage itch.

I decide that I’m going to focus on vintage models from a budget brand, so I won’t have to invest as much money. CB700 drums were part of my school days, and an easy choice for where to start.

CB700 was originally the company Carl Bruno & Sons, operating in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century. Bruno eventually sold his company and it ended up with Kaman, which also owned other instrument companies. Kaman shortened the name to CB Drums, and had them made at factories throughout Southeast Asia in the 1960s through 80s (including, for a time, by Pearl drums). I played CB700 drums in middle and high school, and thought they were fine as long as they were maintained. 

Today the CB brand is gone. But the drums made in Taiwan are decent-sounding drums for a very affordable price, and they are just starting to get the attention of collectors, mostly people who grew up playing them like me. I figured if I could get in on the ground floor of that notice, I could acquire a few useful drums and call it good, before prices go up.

My first CB700 drum came last year, a wooden shell snare drum that was dirty but in great shape. I paid fifteen bucks for it at a thrift store, brought it home, tuned it up and loved it. It sounds warm and full and I do a lot of brush work on it.

My most recent CB700 arrived this week, a metal shell snare drum that I scored online. It was in much nicer condition and cost more, but still less than a hundred dollars with a padded case and shipping. What’s interesting about this drum is that it was powder coated with aluminum over a steel shell, giving it a lively sound that comes close to that of a much more expensive vintage snare, the Ludwig Acrolite. The Acrolite has a full aluminum shell, so it’s lightweight and very bright and crisp. This CB700 drum sounds like a wet Acrolite, and cost me a fifth of the average price.

I cleaned it up — it didn’t need much — and put it through its paces today. I’m very pleased with the sound and response, and am happy to have it in my very little snare drum collection.

(There is one more CB700 drum on its way to me, a 13” brass shell snare that will make a great piccolo snare and complete the stable of snare drum sounds I want at hand. Stay tuned.)

Some CB700 info — If you have more specifics, please share.

More recent CB700 history: https://killerdrumrigs.com/what-were-cb700-drums/

The Original C. Bruno & Sons, late 19th century: http://ia600205.us.archive.org/5/items/illustratedcatal00cbru/illustratedcatal00cbru.pdf

Lateral Drift pad chopping

Here's an extended play item. 

I call it Lateral Drift.

Vintage Ludwig tunable pad, Vic Firth 2B sticks.

These pads feel so yummy to chop on.

If you find one, buy it.

UPDATE: FM Dynamics practice pads -- DEMO VID

I've received both the earlier and later versions of the FMD pad, and created a short demo video so you can hear and see the differences and similarities between them.

The red pad is the older and possible prototype. However, there's no way for me to verify other than the seller's word. This pad looks A LOT like many, many other pads manufactured between 1950 and 1970 under different labels, so it's impossible for me to know. Still, it does fall in line with the design goals outline by Mr. Fornaszewski's son, Stan.

The pink pad is NOS from the Fornaszewski Music shop, and is among the last of the last crop of pads made by John Fornaszewski himself. (I got the pink pad because it was priced lower than the other colors available.) Construction on this pad is solid, and the rubber a touch harder than on the prototype. Both pads function as advertised, and I think they acheive the stated goal pretty well. They are NOT, however, going to make a splash among the Kevlar generation and that's probably why they're being sold on closeout now.

Still, I'm happy to have them in my collection.