Nobody used to research all the science of how certain mounts affected the sound of a drum back then. It was more a matter of positioning.

And, actually, some kits that have the old mounts, sound great when the resonant frequencies between the mounted tom and bass drum start to match up because they are connected to each other more directly. I have experienced that phenomenon many times with "open" (unmuffled) bop kits. The whole thing starts to vibrate!

Generally, modern drums have more of the long sustaining resonance than a lot vintage drums do comparatively...but the warmer, rounder tones usually are associated with vintage drums...Again, generally-speaking. That has to do with a lot of things, though....not just the mounts.

You're not doing something wrong. The drum on its mount with an Ambassador head sounds the way the drum builders thought it should sound. Holding the tom drum while striking it is going to sound different from sitting it on a snare drum stand and hitting it. If you wear your bass drum on a sling, and play it with marching bass drum sticks in a marching band, it's going to sound different than it sounds when sitting on the floor being struck by the beater of a foot pedal. Once again, there is no right or wrong. It's all a matter of different sounds from which to choose. I know a person very well who has owned countless cars and trucks. Guess what? The car makers don't know how to build cars and trucks that perform the way he thinks they should perform.

Set the kit up in an empty room with a hard floor and you will hear a completely different sound.

I have a newly remodeled basement room that used to be my practice area....It was just an unfinished concrete floor. But, since it's been remodeled, we put a nice wool rug on the floor and now my once-lovely resonant bongos sound completely dead.

Congratulations. Although they are refinished with non-original hardware, which will likely affect the resale value and may be a non-starter for some collectors, they are still Camco shells in great condition with the original lugs. Some purists may scoff at your purchase, but I am more of a player than a collector, so in the end how they, tune, respond, and sound is most important to me.

Bowing I've been saying that for years, but most younger drummers still don't seems to get it. Clapping Happy2

I doubt your doing anything wrong, I've also had toms that had more resonance when off the mount, that's one reason I'd choose to use a snare stand to hold the tom. For whatever reason, I don't have that issue with either of my current kits.

I've noticed that if you tune the tom higher and use the mount, it will resonate more, that happened with my Leedy kit. If I tuned it low it would sound dead, but when I tuned it higher it resonated more while on the mount. Try tuning the toms a little higher.

Back in the day tom resonance just wasn't a big issue. Remember, that back then all those drums also had built-in mufflers which were used to varying degrees by a lot of drummers. Today those mufflers are generally no longer in favor. But even today, my son's favorite Ludwig bop kit, built in 2006, has a rigidly mounted 12 in tom and sounds terrific when he gigs.

I started playing as a young teen in 1959. I knew of relatively few drummers that mounted their small toms on snare stands. Most who did mount them on stands did it to open up the sound of the bass drum and to eliminate the stress on the bass drum shell of a moving and vibrating tom mounted rigidly to it. It wasn't until many years later that I became aware of specialized mounts to allow the bass drum and toms to resonate more freely and independently. Being raised on the sound of earlier drums, I often felt that the more modern mounts resulted in too much uncontrolled resonance for jazz and big band use. To make up for it today, companies now have specialized gels and rings you can put on your heads, but which are effectively just modern mufflers that are less convenient to use.

I've used snare stands for ease of setup or if the rail mount was not holding at gigs. Some kits didn't even have a rail, so I had to use a snare stand, I will not hang a vintage tom off a cymbal stand, especially a 13, I use to hang a 10" tom when I played modern kits.

The sharper bearing edges are the main reason modern kits have more resonance, I think everyone knows that.

Btw, I haven't confirmed that my Camco has been refinished.

COOL!

awesome set man!

Still need a Camco. on the list down the road for me

They're not easy to find and they're pricey, even re-wrapped kits are bringing close to 2 grand.