1. Acrylic kits are louder and brighter than wood kits. Your head selection can control the sound. John Bonham used clear black dots (now called remo control sound) to give the clear kits more definition. Some people (I have done this, too) will use coated heads to warm up the sound. The sound of acrylic kits cut, so, if you are playing in a loud band, the drums are sweet. I love my Ludwig vistalites, and I have total confidence in them in any musical situation.

2. In my opinion, the 70's Ludwig vistalites do well on ebay. I like Fibes, too, but, their auctions seem to be hit or miss. I believe some members of this board, have done very well in getting good deals on the Fibes snare drums. The newer companies (RBI?) do not seem to do as well.

3. The 70's Ludwigs did crack at the seam, now, Ludwig puts a plastic strip on the seam to prevent cracking. I believe Fibes and Zickos did not have this problem.

4. I have never reglued an acrylic drum, but, I will wager that someone on this board has!

5. Acrylic kits look cool, you get compliments from every type of person in the audience. You will never have someone complain that they can't hear you on an acrylic kit! Head selection, for the type of music you play, is the most important thing to consider, when, you play an acrylic drumset.

My Ludwig Vistalite..(John Bonham)

[IMG]http://a337.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/33/l_c5caf0882839c252e0b72cb90088ec18.jpg[/IMG]

Super B:

Thanks for all the information you provided, as well as the great pic of your kit. Very nice!D' Drummer

Rarity value is an issue. I believe green Vistalites go for a premium as well as Tivoli (red, amber, yellow stripes). The blues seem to show up very frequently. I bought a set of blues on eBay (12, 13, 16, 22) for my son (picture posted in the gallery) and it was under $1K minus the snare. I paid dearly for the snare to go with it though because I put myself in an unnessesary "have to have it" state of mind to complete the kit so my boy got the full package at one time.

The toms sound great as does the kick. I don't like the snare sound. It's funny but I have a 5x13 Spaun acrylic with the big vents cut in it and that drum sounds fabulous so it might have to do with the lack of sound absorbancy in the shell and the need for additional venting. I find the Vistalite snare to be mushy sounding as in not capable of producing a crack while the Spaun cracks and rings and really articulates.

Although not the case with the other shells, my 13 seems to be flawed at the seam in terms of not being perfectly round there. This makes it tricky to tune but the sound is still quite nice. Very big sounding drums. Awsome for rock. I can't see them being used for jazz. You need to lay in to them to get them to sound optimal. Also I don't like the array of sizes. A perfect set of toms for me is 10, 12, 14. They are not packaged that way. I don't like only 1" diameter difference between toms, it's not different enough. The 16 is almost like having an aerial mounted bass drum it is so low at the sweet spot in its tuning range. We get some pretty cool effects doing the "Tony rolls" (quick alternating strokes between the bass drum and floor tom) because of how deep the pitch is as compared to any wood 16 I've ever played.

You need to clean them more frequently than wrapped shells. You don't want to see dust and finger prints on transparent shells. I also would not take them on a gig. Things fall when you least expect it and I can just imagine what a fall off the stage onto an uncarpeted surface would do to one of these. Then you are f-ed. Try finding a single in the color you need!

Regards,

Gary

Gary,

Appreciate all the great information!