Anyone ever regret wrapping a drum set?

I love this Pork Pie drum set.





I've had it for about a year. It sounds fantastic!

I bought it used from a guy who had custom ordered it in that finish. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with the finish, it looks more like the cheaper Hip Pig kit. I have always dreamed of owning the drum set in the attached image below. If I remember correctly, it is white sparkle (not silver) with red sparkle diamond inlays. This was a one-off kit where the finish has haunted me for about 15 years or so when I saw it in person at Indoor Storm in Raleigh back in the day. I have been sneaking around online to see if I could find who owns it to see if he/she would want to unload it, but I really don't care about owning another 6-piece (I also have a 6-piece set of Pork Pie USA's in turquoise sparkle). I don't know what it is about this finish that gets to me, but it does.

I'd thought about seeing how much it would cost to get this done. This would add absolutely NO value to the drums, and it would probably cost quite a bit. In addition, the installers probably would probably glue the wrap all the way around, so this would be a "no going back" scenario unlike BumWrap where the glue is only at the seam (I guess I could request them gluing at the seam only). Also, this finish is actually a lacqer, so I don't even know if a wrap job is possible! And, on top of all of that, I don't think white sparkle is even an option anymore on wraps.

So here's my question: Has anyone every regretted re-wrapping your drums?

Yes. I had a kit that was spray painted black over the original white. It was ugly. I mean like tornado in a blizzard ugly. I covered it with a dark marble finish. It was still ugly. So I wasted time and money for basically the same result. It turned out well, but I still didn't like it.

This is just my opinion, but what you have is far prettier than what you want. If it's just the finish you are after, put it on something else. Please don't cover that beautiful wood finish.

Yup. My first Stewart kit came with a black agate wrap. I rewrapped it in jet black prior to receiving my new Yamaha 9000 kit in black wrap.
The plan was to blend the two kits together into one large kit. Instantly regretted it when I set the two kits side by side. They looked fine
but the Stewart could not hold its own sonically side by side with the Yamaha kit. Wish I had left well enough alone.

I have a set of 1963 Slingerland Drums.
I've had them since they were new. They were wrapped in Silver Sparkle for 50 years. I removed the wrap.
They are now in stained naked wood. They sound better with more tone. And they have more sustain than when they were wrapped.

I'm just sayin'. Take a tom and bang on it. Wrap it. Bang on it again. If you like the wrapped tone then wrap the rest of the drums.


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I also re-painted a kit and regretted it. Not right away, but long term a year or so. This then led to selling drums I otherwise once loved.
I think you would de-value the drums, but that seems not your concern, so go for it if its your dream kit appearance. Personally I would regret wrapping them in the wrap of the 2nd kit.

PorkPieGuy said:

...I have always dreamed of owning the drum set in the attached image below....

....the finish has haunted me for about 15 years or so ....

Click to expand...

https://giphy.com/explore/do-it



But to answer your question - yes. I wasn't happy wrapping the Brown Bear.
It wasn't your typical wrap though. It was leather look-alike naugahyde type stuff.

I was going for the Ludwig Black Panther look. https://www.notsomoderndrummer.com/not-so-modern-drummer/2016/10/11/ydlj7ff5ouahgo0400gjm66me3sw6r
It looked good, but completely muffled the sound.

I also painted a kit I wasn't happy with.

One last thing - I really like the way your kit looks now.
I wouldn't be able to live with the wrap you're considering for very long.
If that's what really floats your boat though, of course you've got to scratch that itch.

PorkPieGuy:
I like the look of the white sparkle with red sparkle diamond inlays. Especially for certain kinds of gigs. ie. Rockabilly, Dixieland, Disco, Arena Rock, etc.
But I CAN'T believe it. They put those badges right on top of the diamonds. OMG !!!!


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In a past life, I had a frankenkit that I wanted to gig with. The bass drum was a sweet Tama Superstar from the '80s, and a rack and a floor tom that were pretty crappy stencil drums.

So I got them all wrapped the same color and they looked nice that way.

The toms were no big deal, but that bass drum ... it sounded really nice pre-wrap, but it was dead as a doornail afterward.

I was disappointed enough to sell the whole kit, and have never owned a wrapped drum since. That was 25-ish years ago.

I did a re-wrap on my first kit when I was a kid.
The original wrap was starting to bubble, so I stripped it and recovered it in a different color. It was a HUGE pain in the butt, and I didn't do the best job. I should have stripped it and painted the shells. Would have been easier, and sounded better.

Haven't owned a wrapped kit since, lol.

Living Dead Drummer said:

I did a re-wrap on my first kit when I was a kid.
The original wrap was starting to bubble, so I stripped it and recovered it in a different color. It was a HUGE pain in the butt, and I didn't do the best job. I should have stripped it and painted the shells. Would have been easier, and sounded better.

Haven't owned a wrapped kit since, lol.

Click to expand...

I've done a re-wrap and a strip/stain/finish both. Honestly the re-wrap that I just did with BumWrap stuff was 10 times easier than the strip/stain/finish. Of course I didn't attempt to try and clue the whole thing down either, so that might have made things a lot more difficult.

I have wrapped a few and had one snare that I wrapped and after looking at it for about 2 weeks knew that it had to come off and be replaced. But after taking off the wrap I decided to just sand it down well, stain it, and wax it. so out of 7 drums only 1 I regretted covering.

Thanks for your replies!

I think I'm going to keep it as-is.

With that said, I'm going to be keeping my eyes open for that kit online to see if it pops up anywhere.

I don't know...that kit always reminded me of our local bowling alley that probably hadn't been updated since the 70s.

PorkPieGuy said:

Thanks for your replies!

I think I'm going to keep it as-is.

With that said, I'm going to be keeping my eyes open for that kit online to see if it pops up anywhere.

I don't know...that kit always reminded me of our local bowling alley that probably hadn't been updated since the 70s.

Click to expand...

Buy a cheap kit and re-wrap it in your favorite diamond wrap.

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Big sacrilege here. About 35 years ago, I had a '50s Gretsch kit (kick & 2 toms) in WMP. I don't even recall how or why I got the kit, I wasn't a Gretsch or vintage fanatic then. But I decided that it would look better in champagne sparkle. So I got a sheet or 2 or wrap from Allen Blaemire in Eagle Rock (he advertised in every MD) and rewrapped the drums, somewhat inexperiencedly; I cut the wrap to the shell circumference and ended up with a seam, rather than overlapping the wrap. Actually, they looked okay and sounded pretty good, but had become a player's kit and I never intended to use it anyway. I later sold them to a friend for $100.

STUPID STUPID STUPID!

Can't provide any input on the rewrap-or-not decision, but Ludwig seems to like the idea that you're going for (not exactly the same, but similar):



(Sorry for the huge pic, it's a hotlink to here: https://www.ludwig-drums.com/en-us/ludwig/blog/110th-anniversary-new-releases, the Ludwig 110th Anniversary Releases. Searched for info on resizing here on DW, but none of the usual vBulletin tags seem to work.)

This thread is interesting - it's the first time I've heard folks talking about a wrap detrimentally affecting the tone of a drum.

I've been tossing the idea around to wrap my drums, mainly because my 16x14 floor tom is a DIY thing, and although it sounds great, it doesn't quite look like the rest of my drums, and wrapping them would rectify that because even though the finish is different, the hardware matches.

However, if there's a chance that they aren't going to sound as good, I'm not going to do it. I'd rather have them look a bit different than to kill the sound with a wrap.

Wallopus could do a custom thing for you at no extra charge. Only trouble is that he can't do really deep sparkles like a vintage drum.

trickg said:

This thread is interesting - it's the first time I've heard folks talking about a wrap detrimentally affecting the tone of a drum.

I've been tossing the idea around to wrap my drums, mainly because my 16x14 floor tom is a DIY thing, and although it sounds great, it doesn't quite look like the rest of my drums, and wrapping them would rectify that because even though the finish is different, the hardware matches.

However, if there's a chance that they aren't going to sound as good, I'm not going to do it. I'd rather have them look a bit different than to kill the sound with a wrap.

Click to expand...

Though that "detrimentally affecting" might be a subjective term. This was kind of interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8yTjlW-es
Josh at INDe drums explaining their new coating system vs bare shell vs traditional wraps, complete with DW style hit the shell tone tests.

My current Gretsch Catalina Club has a black tribal wrap that I just loathe. It's starting to come up in places due to the heat I sometimes play in here in southern AZ.
I want to peel it SO BAD and oil the mahogany underneath. The black hardware it currently has will work, but I'm on the fence about it.

I might do it on the snare just to see how it'll look. As 85% of that original snare is now upgraded with new hardware. Peeling the wrap won't hurt it at this point.

I'm about to find out. My new Slingerland Concert King kit is finished in a beautiful shade of dark red mahogany. The finish is impeccable. But, since I was a kid, I've wanted a Buddy Rich-styled Slingerland kit in White Marine Pearl. And, thanks to John Ollis, I have a Nashville era 18" floor tom to go with the kit, and enough Delmar WMP wrap to do the entire six-piece kit. (And yes, Buddy used two identical 16" floor toms while I'll have 16/18. But, that's the way I want it. The look is what I'm after.)

Will I regret it? Who knows? If this was a collector kit with significant value and a sound original finish, I wouldn't even consider it.

Soundwise, I'm convinced that wraps have an effect on resonance. Whether that effect is good or bad, I suppose, is in the ear of the beholder. But, the Concert King series has very thin, five-ply maple shells (no rings), and sharp 45 degree bearing edges. So, I should end up with a consistent attack from the heads (coated Ambassadors) and a decent resonance from the shells.

At least, that's what I'm hoping. In a few months time, I'll know for sure.

GeeDeeEmm

*If they end up looking like these, I'll be as pleased as punch: