Stupidest/Most Embarrassing thing you've ever done to your drums

The essence of 80's cool....

If you wait patiently that trend is sure to come back within ten years tops ! Ok, maybe 15.

Maybe we'll all be having a good laugh at stackers, hyperdrive-type short toms and ginormous crashes that look as though somebody puked on and set them out in the sun to dry. Hell, i have a whole set of those !
 
The most stupid thing?... buying a shellset with an 22x20 bassdrum. And to make it even worse, I tried to make it sound good with coated Ambassador heads on both sides. Overtone-Overkill. It sounded just awful.

The other stupid thing I made: Mounting some bongos on a bassdrum in order to replace the toms that I forgot to bring with me to a practice-session. It looked horrible and sounded even worse for rock-music. The other musicians couldn't stop laughing. But hey... I was a teenager back then.
 
I once desperately needed a small pit-sized xylophone for upcoming gigs. A guy in Dallas had a cheap one. I believe it was a 'Kosth' brand. Anyway he wanted 200 for it, but I didn't have 20 bucks to my name.

I stupidly traded him a 30's Slingerland 6.5" black lacquer, single-ply tone flange snare for it. I did it because it was one of the few percussion items I had that I wasn't using a lot. It needed a bit of work and I had no money to get it up and running

I still kick myself. Every day. When I think of his evil smile when I made the trade.

Maybe the worst drum trade ever.
 
When I was playing around with my set-up, for several months I mounted my ride cymbal almost sideways really, really high. I thought that being able to see the underside of it from the front of the kit would be really cool and it would it also get it out of the way of my toms (3 up, 1 down at the time). It was actually pretty easy to reach, but it was quite overwhelming if you stood in front of the kit because 100% of the sound went forward. After a few months, I put it back down.


In my defense, check out the ride cymbal here. Looks like I wasn't the only one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTjKWq9Gges
 
After reading this thread I consider myself lucky that these are the most embarassing things I've ever done...

When I was about 8 years old and playing my dad's Crestars I completely detuned his snare trying to get the fattest sound I could out of the drum. That thing was probably barely above wrinkling. I also loosened the snare wires a good deal. I'm not even sure what music I was listening to at the time that made me wanna do that. My dad wasn't happy.

When I was 15 I let the guy who built my custom kit talk me into getting a 13x8 wing instead of a 13x9, simply because he said a shallower drum would be easier to position over my 24-inch bass drum. Thanks a lot, Mike. You saved me countless headaches by not making me the most common tom size of all time. I think he also talked me out of getting bass hoop inlays because "they're just gonna get messed up."

A buddy of mine traded an outstanding 22" Constantinople ride for a 13x5.5 Spaun acrylic snare with vents. He's not even a drummer, he just had the cymbal lying around his amp workshop and someone wanted it. The snare is a piece of garbage, in my opinion.

I once busted my kick head at a show so I turned the drum around and played on my custom resonant head. That was close to ten years ago. I've never replaced it and it still looks horrible.
 
One of my biggest regrets was selling my Yamaha Oak Custom in the honey amber finish.

This was before they made gen 2 and ever since then I have longed to own it again.

it was in fusion sizes with a 15 inch ft and was over all the best kit I owned.

I traded it in for a Gretsch Renown Maple which was shortly lived when I had to sell it for attorney fees. Since then I've been hammering away on my dad's old 76 Ludwig and my OK Stage Custom.

:/
 
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