I think I may have a problem...

Philip LaDue

Philip LaDue

Junior
Jan 10, 2011
350
2
18
36
Lakewood, NJ
With vintage instruments....
Bought this kit in sad shape and restored it last week.
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Now waiting on word of a Fender Rhodes 88 Mark I.
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

All the better for playing In A Gadda Da Vida or Phil Collins on. : )

Dig the trim, where the bottom rims (unfortunately) do not reside. Hopefully the price was low, though, and besides, these one headers are easy enough to tune to a note.
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

It's a great starter, Slingerland is the red headed step child of the vintage drum world.
Could easily turn a profit today if I wanted, but would rather see it used a bit first.

Eventually I hope to find a Ludwig Vistalite and a Rogers Holiday (Cleveland or Dayton) to fix up.
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

Philip LaDue said:
The people I have consulted believe it's either a custom Pop Outfit or part of a larger Jupiter outfit.
Vintage Slingerland Snare Drums - Vintage Slingerland Drums - Slingerland Drums
Click to expand...

"Concert tom" is the name for one headed drums. These drums have a different (more similar) pattern of drum resonances because the two heads are not interacting which can shift resonance series wrt each other.

So these represent a vintage or legacy sound, that is not widely popular for general use in modern kits. If the sound was desirable you could just remove the resonant head from modern drums.

I am not sure if this was done for the sound, or just to save the cost of hardware and extra heads.

JR
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

I grew up listening to the music of late 60's and 70's.
Concert toms were very much the sound of the 70's and they are making a slow but steady comeback.

I knew what I was doing buying this kit, something unique and vintage in a backline catalog to draw attention.
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

John Roberts said:
"Concert tom" is the name for one headed drums. These drums have a different (more similar) pattern of drum resonances because the two heads are not interacting which can shift resonance series wrt each other.

So these represent a vintage or legacy sound, that is not widely popular for general use in modern kits. If the sound was desirable you could just remove the resonant head from modern drums.

I am not sure if this was done for the sound, or just to save the cost of hardware and extra heads.

JR
Click to expand...

I would imagine that using concert toms in a kit was done to fit the the musical fashion of the times (I'm guessing this kit is mid-1970s), which would also save money for the manufacturer, since there would be no bottom shell hardware or precision cut bearing edges involved.

But the Slingerland brand itself has good cachet in the vintage drum market, especially the old Radio King solid 1 ply maple shell snare drums, which command the highest price for vintage wood shell snare drums - up there with the Ludwig metal ones, other than the holy grail Black Beauties. In Phil's case, it's just that the concert tom sound - a percussive note with little overtone resonance, has been out of favor for decades - and unlike the kick drum shown, which has lugs so that one could put a resonant head back on easily enough, the concert toms don't give that option. This would be reflected in its discounted value in the vintage drum market.
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

Serial number dating put it somewhere in the 76-79 range.
(though Slingerland dating is not an exact science)

I do have both heads on the kick currently.

Eventually I will have two sets of toms for the kit.
The concert toms and some double sided ones.

Unfortunately the lacquered finishes didn't stand up all that well.
That combined the mounting hardware getting harder to find makes it a waiting game.
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

Nice link... I didn't know all that.

I do know more than a little about how one head and two head toms behave. It's an understatement to say they sound different, they are different. Not better/worse but different. The two headed drum will be far more variable in voicing possibilities since you can detune the two heads apart, shifting the fundamental (lowest thud pitch) note that is determined by both heads moving together, relative to the higher overtones local to just the batter head. Tuning a one head drum, shifts the fixed set of overtone resonances up/down together. Tuning two heads differently alters the ratio between some overtones.

All things equal, they aren't. Two similar weight heads, have two times the mass of one, plus the captured air column between the two heads, adds even more mass to the vibrating system. While logically you would expect a lower fundamental note pitch, perhaps paradoxically adding a second identical mass and tension resonant head shifts the fundamental note pitch up not down as you might expect (I would expect). Of course the higher mass vibrating system can hold and release more energy so decay tails are longer.

Besides this added variability from tuning, there will also be a difference is relative loudness of some of the lower overtones affecting the sound signature. At some point I need to write up a comparison with more details. The objective literature on the subject has not documented this very well.

JR
 
Re: I think I may have a problem...

For what it's worth I live in Covington, Ohio more or less across the river from where Rogers drums were made through the 1960's. For the past several years there has been a heating & air conditioning operating in the same building. When I was in grade school we took a couple of field trips through the plant. Somewhere I still have a couple of laminate samples they gave us kids as we went through, a red sparkle and gray & black pattern if I remember. A friend of mines mom and dad were friends with Joe Thompson who was a designer / engineer at the plant. At some point he gave them a complete Rodgers drum set, I remember it having various kinds of hardware on it like it was a demo or prototype type of set. Just a couple of years ago they sold it to a collector.
Joe Thompson was also the inventor of the flutophone!
 
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