Drumsets that made you cry

Now there've been plenty of posts on this forum about beginning drummers setting their kits up in weird ways. But today I don't want to talk about that.

I want to talk about a kit I now play on on a regular basis when jamming at a friends place. I remember the first time I passed by and saw it. An old old..dingy..totally screwed up drum set. All white (covered in dirt), no reso heads on the toms or the kickdrum, chipped paint everywhere, dented shells and the heads were totally totally destroyed. The thing that got me most though was the make of the drums. It was an old Sonor Phonic kit (http://www.sonormuseum.com/1979/1979.html). I nearly cried. My friend (guitarist bassist) didn't really understand my emotional outburst. I then kindly explained to him that if he would take the time and effort to get new heads and fix some of the defects he would have a totally ace drum set. Sadly he doesn't have the cash and nor do I. Thus the drumset will most likely never relive its former glory.

So if anyone wants to share their stories of drum abuse. Please do.

A guy I know had a set of 1980's Slingerlands that he let sit in his garage for several years. They are all rusted and torn to crap. It was an awful sight. Then he decided to get a new drumkit and was going to throw these away, I offered him 20 bucks for the lot, and he accepted (yes, he's a drug addict). Now, I'm going to try to restore these to their former glory.

Seeing footage Keith Moon's kit after he'd "finished" with it, always bought a tear to my eye.

I'm down with the rockstar need to mindlessly smash everything.....but stick to Rolls Royces and hotel rooms Moonie......leave the bloody kit out of it.......what'd it ever do to you??

thw kick beater probably whacked him in the shins!

Recently I walked past the front window of Evans Music here in Houston and saw a Sonor Delite 7 piece kit--8,10,12,14,16, 22,& snare in Birdseye Sunburst. I immediately began to weep realizing that at $4500 those drums would never be mine.

Dunno about cry, but I was pretty upset with the cheapo e-kit I bought. Utter stupidity. It sounds better when with the module turned off.

Any vintage kit I see raped by Pearl tom mount improvements.

Shoot the drummer.

Pearl's E-Pro kit unveiling at the last Winter NAMM. Such a soulless corporate attempt to extract money from unsuspecting drummer's pockets. So sad.

Duracell said:

Now there've been plenty of posts on this forum about beginning drummers setting their kits up in weird ways. But today I don't want to talk about that.

I want to talk about a kit I now play on on a regular basis when jamming at a friends place. I remember the first time I passed by and saw it. An old old..dingy..totally screwed up drum set. All white (covered in dirt), no reso heads on the toms or the kickdrum, chipped paint everywhere, dented shells and the heads were totally totally destroyed. The thing that got me most though was the make of the drums. It was an old Sonor Phonic kit (http://www.sonormuseum.com/1979/1979.html). I nearly cried. My friend (guitarist bassist) didn't really understand my emotional outburst. I then kindly explained to him that if he would take the time and effort to get new heads and fix some of the defects he would have a totally ace drum set. Sadly he doesn't have the cash and nor do I. Thus the drumset will most likely never relive its former glory.

So if anyone wants to share their stories of drum abuse. Please do.

Click to expand...

That's my old kit (even the same colour) from when I was a kid less the 2 smallest toms !!!!!!!!!!! It's also featured on the front cover of a drumming book called Drumming In A Big Way by Eddie McNeil.

I was really lucky, my dad was the marketing director for a company called Dubreq who sold the Stylophone and was the person who signed up Rolf Harris to promote it.
They used a distributor in Ireland rather than their own sales force who also happened to distribute Sonor Drums and Paiste cymbals and he managed to swap a load of stylophones for my kit / cymbals. Still have some of my 2002's but sold the kit about 22 years ago to a friend who was starting a recording studio but stupidly included my 2002 sound edge hats in th sale as I didn't realise how valuable they were.
That old kit brings back many memories, I know my mums got some photo's of it somewhere I should get tham and scan them in.

Duracell said:

an old Sonor Phonic kit (http://www.sonormuseum.com/1979/1979.html)

Click to expand...

Go go gadget arms!

Brundlefly said:

Pearl's E-Pro kit unveiling at the last Winter NAMM. Such a soulless corporate attempt to extract money from unsuspecting drummer's pockets. So sad.

Click to expand...

I find that if a product has "pro" in the name then chances are that it's a mid-range product (if that) aimed at wannabes. Similar to how anything labelled as "adult" is aimed at the emotionally immature. Kind of Orwellian ...

And I now know that anything named Legacy will be a millstone around the customer's neck. Truth in advertising.

I used to play on an old Star kit in my church. Star's aren't exactly the cat's whiskers but they sounded fine, and I was just thirteen at the time so I LOVED them.

Then they got sold to a family and the church bought a new kit.

Well, that Star passed through about 5 families. The intention was good. It was passed on (for free) to a family who wanted but could not afford drums, with the intention that would be eventually passed again.

Five families later, the kit made its way back to me by chance. It had spent the last 2 years on a stoep (outside porch). The third owner had decided the finish wasn't cool so he had ripped the off - ripped...them...off. One of the floor tom leg mounts had struggled to unscrew, so he simply ripped it free, wood and all. It was now held together with a piece of plastic gutter from the inside of the drum. The rims were rusted, the tom mount and stands were broken, the cymbals were shot to hell...

I got the kit for nothing so I decided to rummage through the remains. The kick and toms were beyond repair, in my opinion. The snare, which had always been my favorite part of the kit, was thankfully still okay. So far I have replaced all the component parts (the only original piece left is the shell) and I am looking at options to wrap the shell in some sort of graphic. It still sounds great.

The moment I saw that kit, when I went to fetch it...I cannot explain the emotion. Who would have thought I could feel like that for a drum set? But man, it hurt.

Duracell said:

Now there've been plenty of posts on this forum about beginning drummers setting their kits up in weird ways. But today I don't want to talk about that.

I want to talk about a kit I now play on on a regular basis when jamming at a friends place. I remember the first time I passed by and saw it. An old old..dingy..totally screwed up drum set. All white (covered in dirt), no reso heads on the toms or the kickdrum, chipped paint everywhere, dented shells and the heads were totally totally destroyed. The thing that got me most though was the make of the drums. It was an old Sonor Phonic kit (http://www.sonormuseum.com/1979/1979.html). I nearly cried. My friend (guitarist bassist) didn't really understand my emotional outburst. I then kindly explained to him that if he would take the time and effort to get new heads and fix some of the defects he would have a totally ace drum set. Sadly he doesn't have the cash and nor do I. Thus the drumset will most likely never relive its former glory.

So if anyone wants to share their stories of drum abuse. Please do.

Click to expand...

A bit off topic, but how cool were Sonor in those days!!! those Bass Pedals look great fun!

onedevilsst said:

A bit off topic, but how cool were Sonor in those days!!! those Bass Pedals look great fun!

Click to expand...

The kit actually has an old banged up double bass pedal. Sadly it's inoperable as it is (in two pieces) and I have no idea how to fix it. I'm not sure if it came with the kit though(or if they even made double bass pedals back then to begin with).

Yea.... Some kits from a swedish second hand website that I saw when I sold my previous kit. First one is one sale for ~700$ and the second one för ~300$

I bet those toms really sing!

How could one play with the toms like this...?


I guess the pearl pedals are quite nice though

My "acquaintance" has a drum set that is the most beat up Pearl Export I have ever seen. The toms are like 85 degrees and crooked. Everytime I would adjust them to a semi-sane angle so I could play them he would change them back. He played with sticks that were split down the middle but not quite broken yet. He was an insanely hard hitter and had no sense of dynamic or for that matter rhythm in general. He played incredibly stiff and inconsistent. The bass drum on the kit was the best part. It sounded phenominal but one of the feet on the spurs were missing and the pedal was the worst P.O.S I have ever seen. The snare was a Ludwig Acrolite from the 80's (much like mine) and was the only thing that was taken care of on the kit because he loved that snare. The heads were Aquarian Studio X's that were tuned incredibly high yet were still dented. The marks from the hits were all over and one of the hoops on the 13" tom had a dent from one of the hits. His cymbals were in ok shape except for one. It was a TKO rock crash that was dented to hell and sounded like a damn china.