I recently picked up a couple of 60's-early 70's era stencil sets for about $60 bucks each. My plan was to just experiment with them to see how good I can get them to sound by using modern heads and little else. I thought it would be fun to share some of my results here.
I chose these drums because of their age. I know that back in the 60's the stencil kits were generally made of luan (Phillipine) mahogony. This is a soft and relatively porous wood with a lot of oils when new. But I also know that with time the oils dry out and the wood becomes harder and more resonant, at least in theory. So I figured after 4 decades these drums should have a different character than they did when new. I also figured that with modern head technology, they could probably be made to sound much better than they would have with those old plain coated heads they all came with from the factory.
I like to experiment and an experiment I did a few years ago on a Slingerland Jam Session kit I have yielded some interesting results. I really like the responsiveness of very thin heads on the top (as well as the bottom) of the drums. On that kit I use Remo Diplomats on both. It sounds terrific, so I figured I would try something similar with the stencil drums.
I put Evans Genera Resonants on both the top and bottoms, yes I know that these are specificaly designed as bottom heads, but I wanted to try it. Well all I can say is wow!. The 12 inch tom sounds very much like the toms on my friends $6000 Drum Workshop set. It has a sharp attack and a long rich and surprisingly even sustain.
So far I've put a Genera Resonant on the top of the 14 inch floor tom and tuned it kind of low. I haven't even put the bottom head on it yet but it already resonates for at least a full 5-7 seconds before it decays out.
I also used a Genera Resonant on the top of the snare drum (14x6 wood). The sound is crisp, even, and well balanced, a little ring but not too much. The built in damper removes every trace of ring, but I prefer a wetter sound so I play it without the damper. I would not compare it to the sound of a $500 modern wood snare, but I would definitely compare it to snares I've played in the $250-300 range.
I only have the set partially restored but now that I know what to expect I plan to completely restore the kit and use it as my main gigging set. It really sounds much better than my Slingerlands.
