heh....MY story is that back in 1974, I ordered a set of Rogers drums from the catalog that listed Swivomatic stuff. BUT when the kit arrived several months later (and now 1975), the kit was a Big R Memriloc kit. Now, at that time, when I saw the kit, I LOVED it! I thought it was the coolest drum set I'd ever seen. It looked bigger and more powerful than the Swivo drums. So, I accepted them 100%. Subsequently, I toured all over the upper midwest states with them. The only things that ever let me down were one of the Memriloc pedals and the hi hat pedal....easily fixed. The kit was black cortex wrapped and the configuration was an 8 X 12, 9 X 13, 11 X 14, 16 X 16, and TWO (count 'em) 14 X 22 bass drums...Oh and a COB Dynasonic. I got the full hardware set (people didn't use to buy shell packs back then) and some Humes and Berg fibre cases.

I rarely used the second bass drum (got it because I thought I was cool), so it basically got retired early and to this day, sits in my attic in MINT condition...not a scratch or blemish!

I also still have the 12 and the 14. I sold off the other half of the drums and all the hardware back in the early 90's because I was broke and needed to pay rent. As far as missing them...nope. I don't. They DID serve the purpose extremely well for me, though, as a working man's kit.

They'll probablyly come back into vogue one day...like everything does. But, even though they weren't what I would call Rogers' best drums, the Memriloc designs DID answer a lot of the complaints that drummers were having in regards to stable hardware and ease-of-use. The Memriloc hardware changed EVERY drum company's designs after. SO Rogers was still heading up design evolutions at that time...but after that, everything went downhill pretty much.

*sigh*

In 1974 I bought a swivo set used and had it for 35 years. I never could warm up to the memoriloc hardware. It always looked to me like a mad-as-a-hatter plumber got ahold of the drums and memoriloc was the result. Bloody drain pipes attached to the drums. I had been hoping the new Rogers sets would have something akin to the swivo hardware, but alas, it now just looks awful...and too expensive to boot. Still, I dream of getting a swivo set again some day.

Pretty all the Fullerton shells, Swivomatic and Memriloc, are the same. 5 ply with rerings. Only the XP8 (8 ply, no rerings) were changed. Some changes in the beavertail lugs over time. From springs / inserts to clips/inserts. Lightening of the lug hardware slightly over time as well, but basically most difference is from Cleveland and early Dayton lugs to Fullerton era. Obvious tom and spur hardware changes.

All of you may remember the 1975-76 Big R kit I restored a few years ago. Sound-wise, there was absolutely nothing to complain about! But, as many others note, you either loved or hated the LOOK of Memriloc hardware! Personally, I never cared for it. But, there is no denying that it changed the industry as much as the prior Swivo-Matic hardware did in the 60's!

-Mark

Both of the Rogers (Joe Thompson) hardware innovations are still being copied by many drum manufacturers. My favorite tom holder hardware has always been Swivomatic at number one with the rail consolette at number two and Set-o-matic at number three. Rogers (Thompson) followed their industry-changing Swivomatic with the Memriloc that has been appropriated and copied by countless drum and drum hardware makers. I never warmed up to plumbing pipes sprouting from my drums even though the hardware worked well.

I appreciate all the comments on this thread, but the one above got me laughing because I have had so much trouble getting a decent plumber in rural ME that I've been forced to do a lot on my own. I know how to do it, but at my age moving around in crawl spaces is not fun. In any event, one guy sells himself as Bill the Plumber. He ran a kitchen sink with disposal, shower drain and bath sink drain all at 1-1/2" and all into a 1-1/2 lateral until it arrived at the existing 3" stack waste/vent and provided zero re-venting for any of the fixtures. Thus, in a very short period of time we had repeated blockages. I was away at the time and the carpenter handling the overall work didn't recognize that the work would not meet code.

So when Bill the Drummer is referring to the Memri-loc hardware in the plumbing sphere, I cracked up. I hadn't thought of it, but there is some accuracy in that comment. Thanks for a good laugh Bill!

For me, the bass drum spurs are the least handsome of the various pieces. They do look like lunar landing gear. Probably would have looked good behind David Bowie.

Good info from all above. I did notice subsequently that the shells are the same, and thanks for the clarification that the shells changed at XP-8. I had lost track of that.

My first kit that I bought with a little help from my parents was a Swivo "Starlighter IV" in New England White because that was the only Rogers kit in the store at the time. It was in 1976, but the kit was made a bit earlier.

I also remember disliking the Memriloc look at the time. It looked big and clumsy to me.

But here's the thing....Has anybody thought that moving from solid steel stock (Swivo) to Tubing (Memriloc) might have been a cost saving measure by rogers?

The manufacturing cost differential might have been a factor. Another factor was the lighter weight of the tubing vs solid steel rods. Set it and forget it was a factor of both the Swivo and Memriloc hardware. To me, the big CRIME was the elimination of internal tone controls under the bull**** notion that drummers didn't like them because they rattled Yet, the Squeak King remained the popular bass drum pedal. The reason for eliminating the tone controls was to save on manufacturing costs without reducing the wholesale and retail prices of the drums...It's that simple. For a while, Rogers included a clip-on muffler with each tom or snare drum. There was no labor cost to do anything but rivet two assemblies together.