Vintage Corner: Sam Ulano’s King Size Pad

Sam Ulano was a jazz drummer and drum teacher based in New York. He wrote and published many instruction books that are still in use today, and one of his quirkiest claims to fame is the one gig he played for the band PiL (Public Image, Ltd, with John Lydon before he founded the Sex Pistols).

Sam taught numerous drummers over a fifty year period and designed his own practice pads and practice sticks. His sticks were made from sections of metal conduit, and were designed for use on heavy rubber practice pads. You can find a couple of his pad designs in YouTube videos, like this one.

(Photo stills, enlarged, from the video)

Note the construction and size of the pad, with gum rubber set into a panel atop a blue wooden box.

I’d assume the handle is for ease of carrying, and that the box is hollow for resonance (though perhaps a drawer could be opened on one side to store a lesson book). I’ll need to research further to find better photos and information about this particular pad.

In other videos, Sam is shown playing on a big, flat pad. Here’s a photo still of that style of pad, taken from another video (with low production values, but you can still see the pads he and his student are using).

I acquired one of the flat styled pads this week in an online sale. This pad had previously been offered by another seller, at a price I couldn’t afford at the time. Six months later, it showed up for sale again, this time from a seller of random vintage items. I watched the listing for another six months and finally made him an offer that we could both live with. 

The pad is well used and probably dates from the 1960s or 70s. 

The top side is a panel of thick, pure gum rubber, of the kind available between the 1940s and 1960s, inset into a wood frame. It has a great feel even now, but the rubber has disintegrated with use and time. If I play on it, tiny crumbs of dried rubber flake off. I’m researching a way to preserve the rubber and make it safer to play without damage.

The bottom side of the pad has a much harder black panel of rubber that resembles the stuff found on the earliest versions of the HQ Real Feel pads. It has rebound, but is much harder in feel and tone.

The whole thing is supported by a thick wooden frame that measures around 13” x 11”, with playing surfaces measuring 12” x 10” — making for a very big practice pad.

I’m very glad to add this to my collection of vintage pads. I’m hoping to stabilize the gum rubber so I can use the pad regularly. Stay tuned.

CB700 snare drum: an underrated gem

Although I’ve pared down my drum holdings considerably, I still hold a place in my heart for CB700 drums from the late 1970s and early 1980s, the period of time when I was in high school. CB700 drums were a common fixture in many school band rooms back then, because they were solidly built and affordable by school districts. For awhile, CB700 drums and parts were made in the same factory as Pearl drums, but their manufacture jumped around a bit over several decades. The latest generation of CB drums were made in Taiwan, and then in China.

The CB700 drums came with beautiful lugs that came to be called “wristwatch” lugs for their shape. The center of the lug was finished with a shiny panel that came in silver, blue or red, with silver being the most commonly available. 

I acquired this CB700 snare drum a couple of years ago, put it in the closet and promised I’d get to work on cleaning it up. I finally pulled it out last month. I took it apart, tightened all the bolts, cleaned up the shell and the lugs and replaced the heads and snares. As I went around the lugs, I noticed that some of them were missing the polished aluminum dots. 

I reached out to a friend who’s a CB drum enthusiast and collector, and asked him where I might find some replacement dots.

He cheerfully replied that he’d be happy to send me some. He apparently knows how to cut them from aluminum sheeting, and polish them in the process so the polished side shines. He had a bunch and slipped some into an envelope. They arrived a few days ago, carefully wrapped in blue painters tape and sealed in a cardboard sleeve. He advised me to clearcoat the shiny side to protect them before installing them.

The weather here had been quite cold, so I thanked my friend and advised him I’d have to wait until it warmed up enough for the paint to dry.

Yesterday, the temperature warmed up to the high 50s, so I laid out the dots on the tape, sprayed a light clearcoat and let it dry overnight.

This morning, I applied the new dots to the bare lugs using a tiny drop of super glue for each one. They’re dry now, and the drum is complete. And beautiful.

Not bad for a drum that cost me twenty bucks.