[SIZE="3"][FONT="Arial Narrow"]I am with you there Wayne, and it is not your age! At 35 I am not quite a senior yet, but as a younger cat have spent my fair share of dough on DW, Brady, Orange County, and whatever newfangled custom drum "putter-together" company has blown smoke up my rear on sound/look/whatever.

I have had several vintage Ludwig kits, and have always tried to make my new kits sound like those while enjoying the playability of sharp edges, easy hardware, etc... Not any more! I have sold my last newer kit, and am straight up vintage Ludwig. To my ears... 3 plies are where it's at! Crazy shaped vent holes cut into shells, and check plate anodyzed aluminum wraps are just not going to cut it...especially for $4K on a 5 piece kit!

Now... my vintage gear addiction spills into the keyboard/synth/guitar effect world too. There is something amazing about listening to a record that was produced when I was a baby or before I was even born, and pointing to the piece in my collection that made it sound that way!! I'll take a Mutron pedal over a Line 6 anyday, a Fender Rhodes over a sim, and a good old Supra over a 40 Ply snare with Marijuana Leaf vent holes cut into it any day of the week!

Stay Gold!![/FONT][/SIZE]

Nothing made today can compare to the sound of my vintage 64 Rogers. Yes Sir

Jack

:)

Absolutely, wayne! I love the vintage "thing"....I don't know what it is. To me, and due to the way that business is done these days, I feel that vintage gear is actually more "custom" than custom. I mean because all the new stuff is made overseas and, generally speaking, there really isn't much that separates one company from another these days -outside of the name.

On the RARE occasions that I ever see a real vintage kit on television or in a movie, they grab my attention more than anything new. Again, I don't really know why that is.

As far as the sound? I pretty much like the sound of any drums as long as they are played appropriately to the music.

I am with you. I have one newer ?1990s? kit and it was expensive. It is put away. I have a nice ?60s Rogers drum set and a good enough 1959 Ludwig set up in the garage so two drummers can jam together. Why?? They are more inspiring! While my newer kit sounds great the older kits just seem to have that something extra!

I believe,and it is my opinion only,that the older kits have a heart and soul,and a legacy.I think this way for a couple of reasons.First for me part of it is the memories,not so much the hundreds of gigs I played on the first two Rogers kits I had,but more how much I learned in terms of technique just from playing 4 ti 6 nights every week.Let`s face it when you are playing a Sunday night or Monday,or Tuesday in Omaha,Ne.the crowds were never that good.So we did what I considered alott of paid practices.I would try new things to see if I could pull it off live or not,then turn around and use it on the weekend.Also I came to appreciate the quality of the hardware,being torn down and set up litterally thousands of times.I never had to relace any thing beyound the leather strap,and tension spring on my swivo bass pedal.That was it never anything else.I think the vintage kits have a warmer sound and project as good if not better than any of the lets just say non-USA stuff out there today.I just went and listened to a good friend who was all excited about a 6 piece of new Pearls e had bought and how they really punched through.Before they started he mentioned how hard he always played.Not only did the drums not have much punch my 11 year old daughter plays harder than he did.I also have a 15 year old nephew that is getting fairly good and his folks just bought a set of Tayes,he was over for a birthday party and I had my XP8`s set up and told him to go give them a try,I left him alone to mess around.I could tell by the look on his face he wished he could set his Tayes on fire.This is all a matter of opinion but I`m soon to be 52,been playing since I was 8,so while I may not be an expert I am not attending my first rodeo either.I currently own the better part of 3 vintage Rogers kits and there are lots of things to like about each of them.So that is my point of view on the matter.Keep on rockin vintage rocks,Gary

I've been playing for over 30 years and I never owned a new set of drums. I've had Gretsch RB, Leedy, now Camco and Rogers. I have a wide variety of American brand snares from the 1930s to the present. I can only compare what I play to what I've tried in the stores in comparsion to new kits out there. DW makes some pretty good sounding drums. I like the Noble & Cooley, Ayotte and Craviotto snares, even the Trick aluminum sounds pretty darn good. My only knock on vintage is they didn't use a lot of toms back then and I really like three or four as opposed to two. At 46 I am starting to appreciate humping less gear though so 4 piece is OK. In the home studio I still keep the monster set to scratch my creative itch. This Camco I've been playing sounds better than the Gretsch and a Rogers is being cleaned up for me and I should have that in a week or two. Then I can do my comparisons. I think the bottom line on sounding good is good edges, new heads, careful tuning and at least halfway decent shells. That combination and I can't see being disappointed with the sound of what you play. In terms of hardware. The lighter the better and the more continuous the range of motion the better. I hate using anything with fixed point or ratched style settings. I like my angles just so.

I love my vintage sets and snares. And I have an Ayotte Custom. But ......given any choice, ...........the 64 or 66 Rogers gets played.

At 27 years old, I consider myself lucky to have already seen the light. In my early teens, I wanted whatever was being pushed by the Modern Drummer type magazine ads. I got a pearl export for a for my 14th christmas, then saved up for an upper end Pearl later. I thought I loved the kit because how long and badly I longed for it but when it came time to record, my tone didn't come across like I thought it was. I hadn't quite learned to listen at that age. I had an idea in my mind how I thought me and my drums sounded but didn't really know. I found that, in order to get closer to the sound I wanted I had to spend alot of time tuning those things. One lug gets knocked and the tone goes. AAGGHH!! Luckily, my band got signed at age 19 and I bought a DW!! Yes!! This is what I should want right?!! Matt Cameron plays these on the Soundgarden videos!! I hated it. Hundreds of great albums with great drum sounds have been recorded on DWs but they were not for me. I felt so cheesy playing these light weight, vibe-less drums.

Meanwhile, while I was playing new drums through my teens, my older brother Jason had an ad in the local paper "I BUY OLD DRUMS." Through our high school years he picked up a couple of great kits (WFL & big R Rogers among others). He knew better than to let me get my hands on these drums. I would have taken them and returned them to him when I broke something. He was right... I broke alot of his stuff.. I don't know why, as a younger brother it seemed like my job. Anyway!!! At that point I had taped on some vintage drum kits and always thought they were cool. My mom had a little 1960's pearl that had a quirky sound that I liked. However, I never thought it was an option to get big rock sounds out of a vintage set.

Finally, with a bass drum spur broken on my Pearl Prestige, my brother let me borrow his a big R Natural Rogers kit (24, 16, 13) for an important recording session that couldn't be rescheduled. Near light bulb moment. These drums were bursting with tone! They had a big but focused sound that didn't nearly take as much tuning as my old sets! The low end was there! the mid-range was cracking through the guitars! You didn't have to muffle much and the were tight!!! The sound that the Alesis ADAT's relayed reinforced what I thought I was hearing. What in the hell happens to this wood as it ages? Or were they just made better in the first place? Or both?

I have been hooked on vintage drums ever since. I am not trying to relive anything, I am not even 30 yet. The drums of the 60's speak for themselves (I definitely also love drums from earlier and later). I do love Keplinger snare drums. I do take a pearl snare on tour (not to ware on my rogers SuperTen).

Someone above noted that vintage drums are the only things that catch their eye and I am the same way. Comparing a new sparkle wrap with the glass glitter of a Rogers holiday drum. No comparision! The color in these new drumsets that I see in Guitar Center actually make me feel sick and sleepy. I bet there are great new colors out there but I am just not drawn to them.

Anyways, I could ramble on forever about this. This is only my ever changing/learning/discovering humble opinion. At the present, I am inspired by the look, sound, functionality of the 1960's beavertail Rogers drums. Most of Swivo-matic hardware is sturdy and beautiful. Holiday drum kits are round, musical, powerful and easy to tune. PowerTone snare drums are like little snipers! When you hit the thing, you swore you never saw it coming! Such a big BANG out of this little modest drum. I need to find a 6.5" wood PowerTone before I get too old to rock. I imagine that to be an unbeatable rock drum (or actually for may styles). Thanks for listening fellas. Much respect to the elder vintage guys.

Isaac

If you do find a 6.5 wood P/T you will have one of the nicest snare drums ever built,however you may be waiting a long time to find one...good luck.