Tamburo Opera snare drum

It was quite a long time since I had noticed that black, half-wrecked snare drum on the floor of the reharsal room, but it was just few months ago when the owner announced he was going to live in Australia that I asked him if I could take the thing home and try to restore it.

I knew before starting that it was going to be a desperate try becouse the snare, a Tamburo stave shell, had been treated so badly the paint had fallen down to pieces, a lug was broken an the hardware was rusted.
Anyway, I decided to try the impossible and begun disassembling it. After opening it and starting to clean the shell I noticed things were actually worse than I expected: the staves had been bent by the high tension of the rods.

Still being very upset and everything I went on with the job, I removed the old paint and prepared a smooth surface for the new finish to be applied.
All the hardware was cleaned with extra fine steel wool and was soon ready for assembly but I still missed one lug, so I started looking for a spare piece over the internet.
In few days, thanks to the very kind guys at statatra music shop (italy) I was shipped the missing lug (in chrome finish instead of gold which was unavailable anywhere).

While waiting to receive the spare part I was busy applying the new finish, a dark satin oil (walnut like) and getting new hardware parts to replace the old and rusted ones.
In the end I was able to re-assemble the thing and I tried to lessen the effects of the bending of the staves by applying some sleeves between lugs and shell.
I'm now testing this snare drum and it's revealing to be almost palayable even if not perfectly tuneable.
Specs are:

Tamburo Opera
Birch Stave shell
14" x 6.5"
November 2000

It's always a pleasure to save a musical instrument from "death" and I always end up developing a special affection for these objects when I have such a hard time taking them to a new life.

Weird drums from the past (02)

Welcome to the second part of my "Weird drums from the past" section.
In the previous part I've been talking about North Drums and here I'll take care of another great brand of the past:

TRIXON DRUMS

Karl Weimer, founder of Trixon, started his own business in 1956 in Hamburg, Germany.
His company lived through the next two decades and achieved good popularity both in europe and the USA.
Trixon Drumsets, sold also under the "VOX" brand, had incredible endorsers such as Buddy Rich himself.
I think this brand deserves to be put in my "Weird drums from the past" section becouse of some incredible concepts Mr. Weimer developed, such as:

Telstar Conical shaped drums.
These drums were Weimer’s idea of compression and decompression. As opposed to cylindrical shaped shells of standard drum design, the Telstar Bass Drum with conical bore pushed the sound to the back of the room (similar to the subwoofers of today). While the reverse conical of the toms pushed sound out, which made for handsomely deep, rich sounding toms – especially from such a small drumset.

Speedfire Ellipsoid Bass Drum.
The premise behind the Speedfire was the idea of the “Two Different Bass Sounds from One Bass Shell.” Using two pedals (essence behind today’s double bass pedals), a player was able to get 2 sound pitches from the same drum. This idea further followed Weimer’s practical sense of getting a lot of sound out of a compact package.

Disappearing tom mount.
The disappearing tom mount, which had tubes penetrating both bass drum and tom toms, is the basis of Pearl mounting systems from the 80’s. The bass drum mounted disappearing cymbal stand with a rod passing through a clamped ball was resurrected by Sonor in the 90’s.

To gather more info about Trixon, please visit:
www.trixondrums.de

If interested in conical shaped drums:
www.daldossdrums.it

My favourite educational drum videos (01)

PART ONE (Hand Technique)

For guys like me, who don't have the time or money or what else to take regular drum lessons with a teacher, educational videos are a great tool to get some vital information about how to play the instrument.

Many great drummers have made one or more educationals, focusing on different issues, but of course being a great drummer doesn't necessarily mean being a great teacher too, so I'm going to list my favourite videos for each "category" choosing the ones that I feel are the best from a teaching (and learning) point of view.
I'm starting from "Hand Technique".

For this category I've chosen 4 videos that I'll rate as "outstanding".
The first 2 videos are my absolute favourites:
Dave Weckl - A Natural Evolution - How to develop Technique
Jojo Mayer - Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer
Both of them present clearly the main concepts in hand technique, such as the Gladstone and Moeller techniques, French and Greman grip, differences between traditional and matched and so on.
I like the Weckl's video becouse it really gives you a focus on how to naturally grip the sticks and move them in relation to your body and the drums.
He is crystal clear and sticks to the simple things, showing you how to play single strokes, doubles, triplets and paradiddles using the natural movements of your body and the rebound of the stick. Dave Weckl is a great drummer and wonderful teacher.
On the other hand Mayer really goes further, giving you exercises that may take you to a level you didn't imagine to be in reach. The quality of his video is incredible and you will surely find the "troubleshooting" sections very useful.
So my advice is, start from Weckl and then go for Jojo!

There are 2 more videos I found very interesting and may give some more ideas and points of view:
Joe Morello - The Natural Approach to Technique
Steve Smith - Drumset Technique
These two legendary drummers give their personal view of how to play naturally on the snare drum and drumset, the first one focusing on hand technique and the second going on to foot, drumset, style and what not.
I suggest to watch these too even if they are not as clear as the first couple concerning grip and basic moves.

Thank you for reading and see you to the next part (Foot Technique)

Weird drums from the past

In about a century of modern drum making many skilled craftsmen have dedicated their lives to the developing of the technical aspects of the instrument we play.
Until now, only minor changes (like double pedals and tom suspension systems to name a few) have been accepted by the drummers community and the drumsets have retained their usual basic structure.
During the past fifty years, some people and companies have tried to start a personal revolution in the concept of crafting their instruments.
In this section (Weird drums from the past) I'll try to dig out some information about these people and companies.

NORTH DRUMS

In the late 60's, Roger North was a professional drummer and graduate in structural engineering at MIT.
While he was playing his traditional drumsets he started thinking that the sound produced from his drums wasn't directing towards the audience, and the sound he heared from his stool simply wasn't the same sound heared by the audience. So, he started to feel the need of having a drum that could project it's sound towards the listener.
One of his first attempts was a lucky one, he built a fiberglass 12" tom tom shaped like a horn (see picture) that had an incredible volume and sounded lower and deeper than a regular 12" drum.
It was 1971 when he got his idea patented and started producing the first sets by hand from fiberglass, but it was in 1976 when the production moved to Music Technology incorporated, that could grant full-scale production with a high-pressure injection mold process.
Unfortunately, in the middle 80's, the advent of mass produced drums from the east set the end for this peculiar brand.
North drumsets where usually equipped with small diameter tom toms and had outstanding powerful and deep sound, so that they where weapon of choice for the hard rock drummers.

For more information and a wonderful image gallery check out: North Drums

Sonor Swinger snare drum

It often happens to drummers who play with a band to have the need of a secondary drumset that they can leave in the reharsal room to avoid taking all the stuff back and forth from home every time.
When it happened to me, I bought an old used set with a front bassdrum head saying: "Broadway", that in the end revealed to be an old Sonor Action drumset.
It didn't sound so good, the ply finish was a mess, it had only one tom holder for the 2 tom toms, but for the price paid (80€ all in) it was a bargain.

So, I took the whole thing home, I put apart everything and I gave a serious look at the snare drum.
I was sure it was a Sonor steel drum and an old one.
I tried it and it sounded quite good, with a fat, low pitched sound. A few days later I got more precise information on it.
It was a Sonor Swinger series 14"X5" snare, chrome over steel, with the (in)famous swinger plastic lugs and traditional sonor screws, probably from the early '70s.
It took me some time to restore it, polishing the chrome with fine steelwool, but now it is a good instrument and it looks as new.

I use an Evans coated G1 as batter and the original Remo Sound Master as resonant, keeping the tension low to avoid breaking the plastic lugs.
The drum has an internal muffling device that is quite well constructed even if it's not at the level of the more expensive swinger series snares. The same is for the throw off; a simple lever that goes up and down, nothing less, nothing more. The butt end has a screw movement that allows some adjustment, but in time it's got loose, so it isn't very effective any more.

At this time I use it with my acoustic project, muffling it with a mylar ring and keeping the tuning low. It would be impossible to use it for high volume settings becouse it would loose the tuning if hit too hard.

Despite for it's fragility I like this old drum and I think I am not going to give it away.