Name Brand cymbals — affordable and innovative

I bought a set of Name Brand hi-hat cymbals a couple years ago from Jon’s Third Floor Bazaar on Facebook. They were clean, bright, and $125 for the pair.

Jon has expanded his cymbal offerings under the Name Brand moniker, made by multiple small, independent craftspeople. While Jon favors ride cymbals with a lot of color and wash, he also gets in some ride cymbals with greater stick clarity. And he kindly offers short video demos of most Name Brand cymbals on his Facebook page. 

I just ordered a 20” Rose Gold ride that offers that level of clarity and I’m excited for it to arrive next week.

Meanwhile, I’m using this old, janky 18” ride cymbal; and just added in a little Tom I scored for five bucks at Goodwill. I’m hoping to keep my kit compact and easy to schlep (though I’m not currently playing out), and I like how things are coming together.

I’m able to play for about 10-15 minutes at a sitting, a couple times a week, before my hands begin to hurt. I’m realistic and don’t expect to get my form of thirty years ago back now. But it’s fun just to be able to play at all.

Drumslinger redux?

I reached out to Bill at Drumslinger Percussion, and asked about the possibility of replacing the bottom platform of my Marcher Series pad, which I’d gotten secondhand and then dropped, causing damage.

I tried to stabilize the bottom platform, which was deformed, to keep it from collapsing further. But the malformed bottom platform now cannot really be tensioned properly. 

Bill responded to my query by suggesting that I send him the entire pad and he’d determine what needed replacing. He didn’t say what it would cost. I suggested that since I know how to disassemble and reassemble the pad, I could just send him the bottom platform and he could create a replacement platform, to save weight, postage and money.

After a little more back and forth over the following couple of days, Bill sent me this explanation as to why he’d prefer that I send him the whole pad:

So I heard back from Bill. Here’s what he told me about my sending only the base plate — 

“Hey Beth, the only problem with that way of doing it is that I center punch and drill the baseplate to match the individual rim ear hole alignment, which can vary from rim to rim, especially with triple flanged and stick saver rims, which are hand bent, welded, rolled for flanges, and press stamped and punched for ear holes. Die cast rims are more evenly spaced, but vary by brand. So, each rim stays matched with its baseplate throughout each build. Even the 12 o'clock position orientation is marked on those components, so they align perfectly for assembly.”

We agreed upon the cost of refurbishment and his offer was incredibly reasonable. I’m sending him the entire pad. He’s currently making new baseplates and will set one aside for my pad. I told him to paint it any color he likes, throw it in at the end of a paint run to save time. Figure t could be cool to show that this s a refurbished pad.

After several family and health challenges on his end, I’m glad to know he’s up and running again and can deliver pads in a more timely manner. It will be interesting to see what comes back.

Beetle Percussion enters the fray: a tuneable practice pad

Beetle Percussion has entered the arena of high-tension tunable practice pads with The Last Pad.

There are some significant differences between Beetle’s pad and everyone else’s.

(By everyone else, I mostly mean Rudimental Drummer, Drumslinger and Rudimental Control, all of which make single-sided, tunable pads with a wood or fiberwood base. I do NOT include RCP’s tunable pad because it’s made in China and is a behemoth at over twenty pounds.)

First, Beetle uses a Valchromat base, an environmentally friendly wood compound that does not give off noxious gases like MDF. Secondly, both sides of the base have tensioned heads with rims and tuning bolts, so that the base will not collapse under the tension on only one side. This allows for the higher tension desired by modern marching drummers, and allows for a lower-tensioned side that can be used for concert work. Finally, a series of small foam discs are included that can be positioned under the head to fine-tune the sound and response. A nice added bonus is an integrated carrying handle, which frankly will be needed because the finished pad weighs around 16 pounds.

I’m not likely to need one myself, but I think it’s an exciting development in high-tension practice pads because it’s more environmentally friendly and it’s made in the USA. I hope that at some point I’ll hear from someone who can run this pad through its paces.

(Photos taken from Beetle Percussion web site)

DIY department: practice pad

I found this thick orange rubber strip in a FREE box. Brought it home, played on it, decided it would make a suitable chopping surface.

I cut strips and super-glued them to an old X-Pad platform I’d pirated the rubber from. 

Cut and glued a piece of torn drum mute for a nonskid bottom.

Works great.

(I have enough rubber leftover for a small second pad.)

#diydrumpad

#reducereuserecycle 

New to the stable: primo Ludwig model P-359 practice pad

I snagged this lovely pad from an online music retailer.

This is what it looks like out of the box, no adjustments made. The Ludwig Ensemble head is in nearly excellent condition, and the metal hardware shows NO rust or excessive tightening. Unusual to this model are four soft rubber feet (instead of three smaller, harder composition feet) and a rim that’s powder coated in textured black. The underside is the older style plywood base instead of later fiberboard.

All in all, a stunning pad, and a keeper in my collection.

Cooperman #10: my favorite drum stick ever.

I love this model so much I have three pairs in hickory.

And thanks to some trading and a good friend, I now have a pair each in persimmon and rosewood.

More later, but enjoy the photo.

Vintage Corner: A CB700 Time Capsule

I came across this CB700 student drum kit at Goodwill, and snapped it up to add to my CB700 rabbit hole.

It includes a CB700 “Internationale” chrome snare drum with the original batter head, a Gladstone-style practice pad, a stand and a pair of oak 2B sticks, all CB700 branded, and stored in the original CB700 “clamshell” style hard case.

Though used, everything is in good condition. The head shows some wear that indicates it was likely used by a drum student, then presumably put away in a closet before being donated to Goodwill. The drum sounds fine and needs no fiddling whatsoever.

Although it’s not a top-drawer kit, it is in good enough shape to be considered a kind of time capsule.

I predict that at some point in the future, the interest in historic budget brands will only grow as the supply of top-drawer vintage drums on the market shrinks. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think ai might be a little ahead of the game here. I’ve decided to focus on CB700 items out of pure nostalgia. This is the brand I played in middle school and high school in the 1970s.

I’ve reached out to the Kaman Corporation, which owns the CB brand. They in turn are now owned by an even larger conglomerate. The fellow at Kaman told me that the CB brand was purchased from Fender, so live reached out to them as well. And, moving back in time with each previous corporate owner, I hope to acquire some additional information about the history of CB Drums, and perhaps a catalog or two along the way.

If you’re sitting on some CB700 product that you’d like to rehome, please reach out and let me know.

 

Vintage Corner: Ludwig tuneable practice pad, circa 1960s - 70s

In the late 1960s, Ludwig began producing one of the nicest practice pads ever.

It came in an 8” (P-359) and a 10” (P-750) size, with heads specifically made to fit the pad and also the Ludwig tuneable tambourine made during the same time.

The tuning was enabled by threaded bolts, inserted from the underside through holes in a wooden platform. The earlier models used a plywood platform, while later models used a fiber board made of compressed wood fibers.

The wood base was then covered with a foam layer, the head and a metal rim. Long threaded nuts screwed onto these bolts, shaped square and the same size as a lug bolt, able to be tensioned with a standard drum key. When tightened down, the bolts and nuts held the whole pad together. 

The pad had a great feel, very close to that of a real snare drum. And Ludwig sold the pad for about a decade, likely until the costs of production got too high and other pads were being developed.

Ludwig continued to make the parts for the pad for a few years after discontinuing the pad itself, and continued to offer the replacement heads for quite awhile after that (because they also fit Ludwig’s tuneable tambourines, which remained in production into the mid to late 1980s).

I have one in the 10” size, and a couple in the smaller 8” size. 

They play well and the response is unparalleled, even among more modern pads.

I use these pads often in my studio as they have a feel that is the closest to a concert or kit snare drum.

If you want to know more about these, Rick Dior has a video that features these among his favorite practice pads. Rick is a craft maker of custom drum sticks from exotic hardwoods, so he knows his way around a workshop. This is his favorite practice pad, and he buys up as many as he can find on the used market in order to replace the fiber board bottoms with new ones he makes from plywood in his workshop. I think he probably has at least a dozen of these pads, and is on the lookout for even more.

I won’t go to that extent, since I don’t have a workshop and honestly don’t need ten or twelve of the same make and model of pad. Plus, all three of my current pads have a plywood bottom, so the response is as good as it can be. 

There are a couple of cautions if you want to get into these pads:

First, no other head currently being manufactured will fit these practice pads. NONE. Period. To find these heads you have to buy another old pad and swap heads. I have spent far too much money trying possible replacements and none of them fit. I believe the reason for this is that the metal hoop used on these heads is very narrow, in order to fit under the metal rim. 

Ludwig now offers a cheaper tuneable pad (Model 379) that comes only in the 8” size. It has a lot of plastic and rubber and hardly any metal. They offer replacement heads for this newer model, but these heads will not fit the older pads. 

Second, you cannot tension these as tightly as you would a modern tuneable pad. These pads were meant to be versatile enough for concert practice and for marching drummers who played on lower-tension drums with Mylar heads. The wood is not strong enough to withstand the higher tension, and you will deform the wood base if you tension the pad too tightly. (Rick Dior removes the metal hardware from old pads with deformed wood, cuts a new round of thick plywood the same size, drills the holes, paints and finishes the wood, and then rebuilds the pad on the new wooden base. It’s more work than I can do, or even feel a need to do. I’m content to look for perhaps one more pad in each size so I can have spare parts as I need them.)

Ludwig offered a later version of the replacement heads for these as part of its Ensemble series. The Ensemble heads for these pads are meant for use on their tambourines as well. The Mylar is thicker than on the older heads and has a nice coating on it. My 10” and one of my 8” pads both have this head and it has held up beautifully over the decades in spite of the obvious wear.

At this time, Ludwig no longer makes any of the parts for these pads, including the heads. So the only way to bring these pads back to life is to buy old ones for parts and piece together a completed pad. Very occasionally, maybe once a year, someone may offer the long threaded nuts and washers online, but expect to pay a high price for them. (To date, I’ve never seen the metal rim available separately, but miracles can happen.)

Average selling price online for the 8” pad in 2024 runs between $40 and 90, depending on condition.

The 10” pad is much harder to find for sale and you should expect to pay $60 or more for one depending on condition.

If you came of age in the early days of high-tension marching drums with Kevlar heads, these pads may not appeal to you. But old farts like me still enjoy chopping on them.