penningtron wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2023 3:01 pm What's new in the tension rod lock game? Surely someone solved this problem by now with a product you don't have to 'know a guy who knows a guy' to find right?

(DFTR sent me some years ago that we're great but I seem to have misplaced them. Plus I need more as I loosen bottom rods as well.. with 7A sticks FFS..)

Jake Cregger (formerly of MultiCult) swears by these things:

https://www.tightscrew.com/

I am still using the ones I got from my buddy and can send more if you need them.

Do tell about these other ones - I'm constantly re-tuning.

The ones DFTR sent basically work like these except A. they were metal and B. they have an 'arm' that wraps around the bottom of the rim. A little tricky to set at first but they really stay put once fastened.

https://tunerfishluglocks.com/shop/

That said, I'll give the Cregger ones a shot since he hits a Supralite harder than I do.

Jake hits the drums like they killed his mother.

He's been telling me to get these things forever. I will order a set for science if we think that's something we're all gonna try

I ordered a pack of 6, then right after thought "oh you know I bet those old ones are.." and sure enough they were.


That's alright, I'd like to have my Sakae Trilogy snare locked down too as I've been digging it lately. Kinda thuddy, but satisfying.

The surest way to find a tool is to buy its replacement.

Tama reissued the Mastercraft Bell Brass not long ago. Is this fucker worth 4K?

No

Yeah, I've been kind of falling back in love with Tama stuff over the last few months, and that drum is not worth $4k. Every video that I've heard of it just sounds like a normal snare, not worth $4k of mystique.

The new Superstar reissues also seem suspect. $2k for a kit built not in the Tama Japan factory, that's a reissue of something you can get for under $1400 all day? Yeah, no thanks. Those STAR Maple kits though? Oh yeah, sign me up!

It’s the unsexy (and less marketable aspects) of drums that are 90% of the sound: tuning a head to itself, note choice, tuning relationship between heads, shell geometry, bearing edge profile, shell roundness, overall rim and hardware quality.

I could probably tell the difference between a steel shell snare drum and a plywood, if all things were painstakingly equal, but it’s not always obvious. Could I differentiate rolled brass vs steel? Unlikely. Cast bronze vs cast aluminum? No. Different species of plywood? Absolutely not.

Maybe you have a golden ear for this stuff and that last 10% is the super critical key to your playing and satisfaction. But drum makers, as well as those who like to spend time talking about drums make an awfully big deal about shell construction.