I'm 60...started playing drums 51 yrs. ago...started teaching drumset 47 yrs. ago ...started collecting vintage snare drum 15 yrs. ago...

Mike Curotto

That's cool. Were they drummers? I bet there are some good stories.

Was it a Yankees/Mets (so to speak) thing at Holidays?

Thanks Bobby! can I send you some cake?

I'm 18, my first real kit was a vintage silver sparkle Ludwig Super Classic set with a Supraphonic. Since then I have acquired a few Slingerland and Ludwig snares. But with college ahead I'm not going to be making big purchases anytime soon.

I'm 57. Never even thought about the vintage world until I realised I grew up in it. As was previously stated, I kept my drums and they just became vintage (maybe). In all honesty, I feel that what we consider a good sound is too subjective to be indicative of age. My Gretsch is from the DeQueen plant and sounds better than anything I've ever heard, including everything old and DWs best; yet the Great Gretsch Sound came out of Brooklyn, didn't it? That was what I grew up with; along with Ludwig 400 COB snaredrums which still sound unique to my ears. Is that what you call a vintage sound?

I turned 70 in january. I've been playing for 58 years, still play every day. Tuesday evenings I jam with three other guys, great musicians. Interesting thing is, other than the bass player, I am the youngest in the band.

Bought my first new kit in 1960, Gretsch RB. They were stolen out of my car at the Kowloon Restaurant in Saugus, MA (anyone seen them :) Bought another set of the same. In 1966 I bought a set of Luddies, just sold them this year to a recording studio. Great drums. Playing now on a set of Gretsch Catalina Club and Yamaha Tour Customs. They don't sound bad.

Aha! Another wise elder. Dude, you need to get some older drums! Great thing about being 70 is knowing you have made it to the home stretch. What inspires me is knowing that Roy Haynes is in his mid 80s and still playing!. P.S. You win. I didn't turn 70 until March.

41

In my experience it seems to be more about genre sometimes than age -for instance the 50 year old guy I know who wants to play Priest & Rush is heavily into giant tom modern Tama...maybe DW if he dabbled in some Grohl in the 90's - while the 24 year old kid who likes Galactic wants some 3 ply BDP Luddies....perhaps.

Maybe poor examples, but I hope you can see where I am going with that -

Style dictates taste more than age does, though age may inform someone's style to a degree.

now I am dizzy.

i just turned 36. the old stuff just sounds better, with a few possible exceptions in the custom category. but yeah, the older stuff has character which some still value in music making.

i'm not so much a collector as a player who keeps amassing old stuff. i aspire to be a collector!

Well I'm not sure I can agree with that completely, "Style dictates taste more than age does", although many of the drummers that I know who play and accumulate vintage drums are Jazz players, and I know for many Jazz drummers that vintage sound is exactly what they are trying to reproduce, particularly with cymbals, I do know several drummers who play other styles of music and love that vintage sound. My good friend, in his mid 40s loves hard rock, and plays a '70s Rogers Monster kit, 8 toms, double bass, etc. and wouldnt think of playing anything else. So yeah style may influence taste, and age influences style, and age influences, taste, and....

so now I'm dizzy.