No new pictures, but a few things to talk about. First off, tuning, which is an ongoing adventure. As the man says; tune a lot and tune often. I came across a U-Tube video by Rob Brown on tuning which was a breath of fresh air. Got my toms and bass drums sounding really good, with the wrinkles just go away technique. Rob distills this known technique down to it's basics and it works well for me. The snare style, with the reso head very tight and the batter what ever is pretty cool also. I'm still dialing it in with how much is too much with the reso head, but it works well with the looser batter heads , which I seem to favor these days. These tunings compliment my snare builds and the quieter playing I love with Biscuit City, my country, blues and roots band. I'm still using coated Ambassadors on the toms and snare, to which I can add rings or some plumbers putty for dampening. It's better to have the drums resonate and add dampening than to start with dampened drums, more versatile, depending on the sound of the room.
   As much as I love my old Ludwigs, with the 20 inch bass drum, I've been going with the Gretsch's and the 22 inch bass drum. Bigger sound when I need it and they sound good at low volume as well. I hope to add a rims mount to the 13 inch tom as the snare stand dampens the tone too much, no matter how I position the drum in the basket. I think rims mount are ugly but the tone is the thing. I find it's so very important to me to have my drums sound good to me, to inspire my playing, even though, this might not be the case to the listener. Some say the over ringing tone, sounds the best in the audience. Am I supposed to train my ear to accept this, for the better audience sound? I haven't had any negative feedback yet. So I'll continue using the rings on the heads.
   Playing has been generally more satisfying as time goes along but there are still plenty of areas to improve on. My confidence level is low on endings, especially rock and blues. I need to work on these but how? Some times I think a teacher might help, but who? Being so ADD and unfocused in a teaching situation doesn't help either, but I'll get there some how. Keeping it simple but sophisticated, is still the best goal, in all aspects of playing. Taste and feeling has gotten me this far. Another area to work on is brush playing. How to rock and groove with brushes, like George Recelli, who plays with Dylan on Dylan's latest, Tempest. Love it.
  A lot of drummers would agree with me that most bands tend to play too loud. It's very tricky to keep all the levels in check with dynamics and listening. Somebody turns up a bit for what ever reason, then someone else follows suit and pretty soon the drummer, who is usually unmiked, can't hear himself. When everyone is listening and keeping the lid on, it sounds wonderful. I'll keep on playing appropriately and hope for the best.
  There is so much great music being made out there on all kinds of wonderful instruments, hand made or commercial, check it out!

Pictures and blab about newest snare builds

•  Quilted Maple stave w/ oil finish, old Gretsch lugs, new trick strainer. This shell is about 1/2 inch thick, which is about as thin as I dare go. Fine and mellow sound. Currently my favorite gigging drum.

•  Southern Yellow Pine stave with clear finish, kent lugs, pearl strainer. This one surprised me with it's bright metallic sound. Love it for rim shots and lots of snare.

•  Mahogany stave with Gretsch Catalina lugs and strainer. Hoped for more but kind of boring. Probably a very narrow sweet spot that I just haven't found yet.

•  This is from last year but love these Kent conversions. Started as a 60's Kent 14 floor tom, cut down to 3 3/4 inches with either  maple or ash re-rings. Kent lugs with my usual leather gaskets. This one sports a brass air hole grommet thats really some plumbing part I found at Lowes . I installed an old muffler I had, really handy, why don't you see these anymore?

• Same as above but with a yellow stain. These drums sound good tuned anyway but love them tuned up abit. Not loud enough to cut through amped band mix without a mike. I like 8 lug snares but with the usual three arm snare stands, there's always a poor fit at one of the lugs, life's tough.

Whats been going on.

Well it's been awhile, has in it. I'm well known as a lazy (sporadic) communicator. I went crazy and bought some drums and drum stuff. Let me tell you about it.
   Finished the quilted maple shell, 5.5 x 14. Had a hard time routing the inside on my jig and managed to cut a couple of diggers into the shell. Oh well, can't sell it like that but decided to finish it and see what happens. I stained it with a mid toned maple color and sealed it with shellac. Then did the French polish thing. Looks pretty and warm with the nice figure showing thru. I'd bought some old Gretsch snare lugs on e-bay, so I installed them with some gaskets I made, put my new Trick strainer and butt on and tuned her up with new heads. Bummer, it sounds choked. Back tracking, I thought it might have been the epoxy sealer I used because of the glue starved joints. Or is it the bearing edge, or the snare beds? I'm still not sure. I'll continue fooling with it later. The Trick strainer is quite different from other strainers I've used, but I like the click stop adjustability. I thought I was buying the three position model bought no, this is the regular one. Maybe I'll try it on the next shell.
  Backing up just abit, the pitch pine shell I built was the revelation of the fall. It sounded fantastic, lots of resonance and ring, like a metal shell. It's become my favorite to gig with, tuned in a midrange. So I built another pitch pine shell, this one deeper (6.5inch) and had better luck routing the outside but had to shape the inside by hand. I'm french polishing this one too.
  Anthony at Village Drum www.thevillagedrumandmusic.com agreed to display and consign my teak shell, to see if any builders might be interested. I bought a couple of Dream cymbals from him, which I recommend to any cymbal lover. Great guy and very knowledgeable about drums, especially vintage drums.

  Which brings me to my most exciting acquisition, 79-80 Gretsch drum set. I have a 71 jazz set that I love, was my primary set for years. I found a rock set on Craigslist, called the fellow and went and bought the kit. Sizes are 22, 13 ,16. The shells were covered in contact paper, which when peeled off, revealed clear finished maple underneath. I filled all the various holes with bungs of maple, scraped,sanded and stained blue, followed with clear spray lacquer. They came with old Slingerland hoops which I'm switching out for the die-cast COB Gretsch hoops. Cleaned all the lugs and re-installed with new t-rods. The bass drum t-rods were a mess, but I was able to bend them back into shape. With new heads the bass drum sounds good. The mounted tom sings with a Emperor head sitting in a WFL snare stand. The floor tom needs the die-cast hoops to sound right. They're 75 bucks a pop on e-bay! Need to sell a snare drum. These are all six ply shells and sound like no other, very well made at this rather late date for Gretsch. Looking forward to gig with them. Here's some lame pics.

  Another fun project was turning a funky Kent snare shell with vestiges of glue and wrap, into a nice restored six lug drum. I used a yellow die stain and French polish.