I had always heard that the Ludwig Supraphonic 400 was the “Most Recorded Drum in History.” Recently, someone asserted that the Ludwig Acrolite snare held that title.
I don’t know if anyone truly knows for sure, but maybe someone does! If so, please share!
Josh
I've never heard the Acrolite described that way. Even though there's no way to really know what the most recorded snare of all time is, that person is wrong, just as a matter of expression.
If you want to figure out the most recorded snare of all time, Hal Blaine played a 400 and that gives it a real leg up. Tell your buddy that if he can find a picture of Eddie Bayers playing an Acrolite he might have a point.
Yeah, there is no way it's the Acrolite. Supra is the one with that claim, even if apocryphal.
How many 60s/70s LW catalogued kits show with acrolites? Any? I don't recall any. They're all supras in the 60's, and then Supersensitives in the 70's. Acros were marketed via school kits.
Who knows how many thousands of early recordings and recordings made up through the 1970's were made with the drummer playing a Radio King snare drum? If there were any way of finding out, I would bet on the Radio King holding that honor.
Does anyone know where it came from? Did Ludwig start marketing the drum that way or is it just something enough drummers have said for enough time that now everyone goes with it?
It's probably a conclusion based on the number of Ludwig drums that were out there at the time. I don't see how the Supraphonic couldn't be the most-recorded snare drum, since it and the recording industry were booming at the same time.
I believe the Acrolite must hold some kind of record for the most ubiquitous snare drum ever made, since it was the drum included in most practice kits for school students. The seamless, Ludalloy shell was (and still IS, in my opinion) the best metal drum shell ever made. -not too ringy, not too dead....jussssst right for what a snare drum should be!
Steve Gadd on a Supra accounted for about a zillion recordings I'd imagine. I'd assume his contemporaries in the NY studios also carried at least one around with them.
I would think that the Supra was probably a popular sample as well - would that also count as being a recorded snare?
I’m with you guys. The fact that prolific studio players used the Supra is good enough for me!
I wonder how many of the Supraphonics were brass and how many weren't?
Hal Blaine's Supra was brass, so was Charlie Watt's Supra. Any drummer using Ludwig before 1962 used brass if they had a metal drum.....
As for Radio Kings being used a lot in the 60's recordings, I've never heard of a single drummer recording with them in the sixties. I've not seen any photos of Radio Kings being used either. I'm sure they were used, as was Gretsch and Roger's drums. I just never see any in photographs.
Well, Mr. BEC has not heard of or seen pictures of Radio King snare drums being used in 1960's. I guess that settles it. I have given up long ago trying to discuss with Luddy-huggers the possibility of other brands of drums being the be all and end all of drumdom. Gene Krupa popularized Slingerlands in the late 1930's after Bill Ludwig senior turned him down as an endorsed artist. If the premise of the new movie "Yesterday" was true, and no one had ever heard of the Beatles or Ringo, Ludwig drums would be just one of several very good brands of drums.
