I have a 1968 Luddy Sky Blue Pearl 12-13-16-22-14 in imaculate condition. No extra holes and no noticable scratches. All completly original. This kit belonged to a very dear friend of mine. He was a guitar player, but had this drum kit in his living room for rehearsing. I played them in his living room many times. He passed away several years ago and his son sold them to me. It is my most treasured kit. He use to brag that it had actually belonged to ringo! lol. He was kidding obviously. Every time I have tried to clean them up I just get all teared up and cant see, like I am right now....

Maybe some day...

playing a dirty cymbal is like playing it with a blanket on it it muffles it down a bit

The dirt and wear on a cymbal (and drumheads, i might add) can add up to the perfect amount of dampening and harmonic control. When I bought my Gretsch drums they had some beat ass original Permatone heads on the bottoms. But man they sound good. I've never taken them off the drums.

I remember someone telling me that back in the day, guys would literally bury their new cymbals in their mother's garden for a year before playing them, just to get the right amount of nastiness.

Burying cymbals is a laughable myth. Let's bury that instead of our cymbals !

You either play a clean cymbal with a sweet patina or play a sparkly one sans the patina. You select the best heads for the kit and tension them up to where the drum sings.

If you play a filthy cymbal and a filthy drum ... you lack respect for the instrument and the art.

Some greats fell into that category, so you would have some interesting company.

Just cutting to the chase and stepping on the toes along the way.

Bottom line, you justify what you play for just one person ... you.

If you like it, play it. But don't get ruffled when someone frowns at your filth ... or your shine.

It's just a contrary and incorrect opinion(!). Ha!

Agreed.

Guess I need to be more careful what I ask for!!!

Sorry fellas.

Well said RogerSling! In the movie "Bull Durham", veteran baseball catcher Catcher Crash Davis is pressed with grooming an up and coming hot shot minor league pitcher. This quote is what he says to the pitcher...seems appropriate:

"Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob."

Take some pride in your craft. If you bought patina'd cymbals, leave them that way. If you bought new cymbals, then keep them clean. And what exactly is the allure of a filthy drum kit? I thought we were all here because we liked drums. What is the point in restoration if we are just going to let them get dirty again which leads to pitting, rust, scratches and all those things we were trying to restore in the first place.

Just helping you step on some additional toes RogerSling.

I,ve been playing drums a very long time and I feel that RogerSling and some others expressed my feelings well. I learned my rudiments but developed my chops by watching other drummers from behind them ( if they didn,t mind) and have seen a fair amount of good/excellant drummers in all my years. My son and myself watched a Rush concert from behind and they were great.

The reason I say good and excellant drummers is because, if I saw a drummer set up with scroungy cymbals and dirty drums with strings tied around the throne to keep them from walking away, I did not pay much attention to his drumming. Sure I may have missed out on some good drummers but I think not too many, I drank a lot in those days.

The old patina theory is BS. I found that nice,shiney, new looking cymbals

always were crisp sounding.

Tom

Oh, by the way you would probably hate me if I told you how I cleaned my cymbals.

Another aspect of this topic is, of course, how some guitar and bass players show off their road worn instruments (think Stevie Ray Vaughn, Rory Gallagher, etc). In those circles a worn and abused instrument is often seen as a badge of honor to the point where manufacturers copy their axes down to minute scratches.

A old worn vintage drum kit, can look very old, worn, and vintage, clean