Why is “White Marine Pearl” so popular?

I just think these finishes are lazy. Guitars get to look fancy, with all kinds of designs and art and inlays. Why are drums usually just one finish? Of course, I prefer just to see the wood (or other material) instead, but I think drums CAN be artistically finished and look really good. But a single-color, single-pattern finish seems a little uninteresting.
 
Push pull stroke said:
I just think these finishes are lazy. Guitars get to look fancy, with all kinds of designs and art and inlays. Why are drums usually just one finish? Of course, I prefer just to see the wood (or other material) instead, but I think drums CAN be artistically finished and look really good. But a single-color, single-pattern finish seems a little uninteresting.
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Do you like sparkles? Glass glitters? What about swirls, fades, or duco? I agree some finishes are boring. We do get lots of choices though.
 
Push pull stroke said:
The Gretsch ‘57 Chevy Duco was awesome.
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Totally. As a car guy it's one of my favorites. I saw a 60s/70s purple psychedelic swirl the other day that was just gorgeous.

I can see the issue, if you want to call it that. Guitars have shapes. You can absolutely use color and lines to accentuate curves and shapes. We get a tube. Hard to do anything with a tube that makes it look anything like, well, a tube.
 
I think WMP is cool as an accent. I don’t really like it on drums though. It looks okay but for some reason it reminds me of old vinyl flooring or laminate counter tops. I think for the same reason I’m not a wrap guy either. Even if the wrap looks good, in my head it bugs me knowing it’s a wrap. Pretty superficial I know. To be fair I have Tama’s Molten Brown Burst finish on my set and more often than not people don’t like it. To top it off it has black nickel hardware which I also hear jeers instead of cheers over. Glad we have lots of options.
 
"Vintage" started getting popular about 10 years ago. In an effort to capitalize on it the major drum companies started making "modern vintage" drums. Brand new kit's that look like they are 60 years old. I'm not one to fall into trends, but I did have a Snare made for me by a company I was endorsing prior to Yamaha. It's a 7" x 14" maple shell, with a White Marine Pearl wrap. Kind of like the old Slingerland Krupa model. Slingerland has a soft place in my heart, as that was my first kit when I was a kid, and I, like others on here, love the look of white drums.
 
MrInsanePolack said:
Do you like sparkles? Glass glitters? What about swirls, fades, or duco? I agree some finishes are boring. We do get lots of choices though.
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I like blue/silver duco. Also silver sparkle ever since since seeing how Alan White's Ludwig kit looked under great stage lighting with that finish.
 
I mean... apart from natural finishes it's clearly the best one ;)
 
Jbravo said:
Buddy Rich , Gene Krupa, Ed Schaunessy, Louis Bellson....
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Nailed it.

And white or black kits in general pretty much go with any situation. Jazz, rock, metal, etc, no one's going to bat an eye in any situation with a white or black kit.
 
To everybody talking about Rich and Krupa—

1. they didn’t invent the use of pearl or faux pearl in drum wraps or as decorative accents in general

2. They may not even have especially liked that finish. I’m just saying.
 
Push pull stroke said:
To everybody talking about Rich and Krupa—

1. they didn’t invent the use of pearl or faux pearl in drum wraps or as decorative accents in general

2. They may not even have especially liked that finish. I’m just saying.
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Krupa was particularly involved in the early days of establishing the standards of what Slingerland offered as drum sets.
Belson was very involved in drum configuration design.
Rich was so popular for a time he briefly has his own TV show.

If any of them wanted a different color, drum companies would have rolled over backward for them and asked what shade..

Rich, in particular, switched his endorsements numerous times from different drum companies, and played vintage kit at the end of his career without an endorsement, and yet, you rarely see a photo of him playing anything but some variation of white or white marine pearl.
 
DrumEatDrum said:
Krupa was particularly involved in the early days of establishing the standards of what Slingerland offered as drum sets.
Belson was very involved in drum configuration design.
Rich was so popular for a time he briefly has his own TV show.

If any of them wanted a different color, drum companies would have rolled over backward for them and asked what shade..

Rich, in particular, switched his endorsements numerous times from different drum companies, and played vintage kit at the end of his career without an endorsement, and yet, you rarely see a photo of him playing anything but some variation of white or white marine pearl.
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Super. What makes drummers especially gifted at visual stuff? I mean, leisure suits were big in the 70s. I even had a tiny one, there’s a pic of me at age 2 with one on. Why aren’t we all wearing them now?
 
Push pull stroke said:
Super. What makes drummers especially gifted at visual stuff? I mean, leisure suits were big in the 70s. I even had a tiny one, there’s a pic of me at age 2 with one on. Why aren’t we all wearing them now?
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So does that mean WMP is the leisure suit of drum finishes?
 
I like white pearl so much that I've been trying to talk myself into wrapping my lacquered red glitter Reference Pures because I really don't like red drums.
 
Prior to the birth of this thread, I had a neutral opinion of the white marine pearl wrap on my Session Studio Select kit. My impartiality has disintegrated, however. I now have a perfect mania for white marine pearl. I want white marine pearl wallpaper, white marine pearl flooring, white marine pearl doors, and a white marine pearl roof. I even intend to wrap my black truck in white marine pearl. A glistening world of white marine pearl -- I can't be happy anywhere else.
 
White Marine Pearl is just a classic look. Some company's version of WMP are better than others. I have a set of Slingerland Stage Bands in WMP and love how they look. Even better, I love how they sound. If I were to get another kit I would probably go for a dark wood. Maybe a dark mahogany. Then I could switch off based on my mood.
 
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