DRUMMER CAFE

The Buddy Rich Drum Company has a booth here at PASIC. We'll get some shots and report on our findings. From what we've seen and heard thus far ... opinions are not very positive. I personally haven't had time to check them out yet.

I don't know why people should even impressed with the idea, buddy isn't even alive his wife is managing it and while im sure shes a great lady, shes not the one being hailed as the best jazz drummer of all time...buddy is. So I don't know why her name as a managerial position should make anyone assume that these kits will be good, unless im mistaken her biggest contribution could maybe be that they don't mispell his name...maybe im out of line...I don't know.

If that's true, then you should grab a set as a collector set....It will be one of the 1st made. I'm not going to knock the family for taking the risk. I think Buddy would be honored that his family is trying to stay involved in the music industry. For me, I'd love to play them and see if they are worthy drums. I'm not a fan of his grandsons' style of music. But that has nothing to do with how well a drum is made. I know from my own personal experience how easily a startup business can fail. I started my own business with nothing but $20 in my pocket and a desire to be self employed. I didn't make it rich, but was in business for over 25 years. Craviotto was a musician before he made drums and now he is one of the premier snare builders around. I would love to see and play a set before I made a decision. But hats off to the family and company for the effort amongst stiff competition. The jury is out in my book.   

I always seem to get it wrong when "drum tuning shorthand" is used, but I'm interpreting "tubby" to mean "low."  If so, that would seem very strange way to present a set of drums meant to be affiliated with Buddy.

I won't speculate on the intentions of the family, but speaking purely about the matter of the drums themselves, I'd be far more interested in them if there was something unique about the drums - if they harkened back to methods and materials of drummaking that haven't been in vogue in years.  Something along the lines of trying to recapture the magic of the old Slingerland Radio Kings.  (In his final years, if I understand correctly, Buddy was using a set of Radio Kings that had been restored by the folks at Eames.)  I'd be more interested if the mission statement were something along the lines of, "In his later years, Buddy never quite found a kit to match his old (fill in brand name and model here), and with these new drums, we have endeavored to recapture the magic of those old designs" - using three-ply shells, etc., etc., etc.  (FWIW, I'm pretty sure that Keller will make just about anything you want, within reason, if you order enough product).

(Note:  just for the sake of clarification, the "quote" in that last paragraph is hypothetical, demonstrating what I hoped to find from the company's mission statement - my words entirely.)

However, based on the "My Space" page, that doesn't seem to be the case:


Well, they got the sizes right, that's for sure.

Between the MySpace text, and Felix's description of the tuning (if I am indeed interpreting Felix's description of the tuning correctly), then in my opinion they aren't going full-bore in trying to re-create the classic drums that Buddy's name evokes in the minds of most drummers.  I know that I have my own ideas what a "Buddy Rich Drum Company" should produce, but obviously, that's not my call to make.

(In terms of the snare drum...are they going to source Fibes fibreglass shells, camouflaged with the company's matching hardware and wrap so the snare drum will look like the rest of the kit?  If we're invoking Buddy, then let's take our cue from the master himself.)   

Well, I did play the Buddy Rich kit the other day. The drums are made in China ... and DW is making the hardware for it. Aren't the DW Pacific drums made overseas as well? My guess is that DW's asian plant is making these drums for the Buddy Rich Drum Company.

I'll see how my video footage turned out and post it here IF the audio is clear.

The kit does look like Buddy's old kit. I'm not really sure about the market for this kit. Seems like only a Buddy Rich impersonator would want this exact configuration.

I was originally thinking that the Buddy Rich Drum Company was going to be mass producing various kinds of drums and kit configurations. If it's only going to be the Buddy Rich set-up, then I think I understand ... but why make a company? Why not just have an existing drum manufacture produce the drumkit? DW owns Pacific, but has made it into a separate company so the quality between DW and Pacific is not compared ... at least that's my take on it.

Bart, I'd agree that this seems a little odd if all they make is a "look alike".    How'd you like the sound, quality, etc....

Just a note to clarify.  Baja, California is Mexico, not the State of California, USA

Si.  I stand corrected.  Gracias.

Fibes (another company Buddy endorsed in the 1960s, albeit briefly) mention on their site that Buddy used one of their snares while endorsing another company's drums, although they make no mention of camouflaging it with that other company's hardware:

http://www.fibes.com/shells.htm

The one picture I know of off the top of my head (the "Rich In London" album cover) shows a Fibes snare drum which Buddy doesn't seem to be all to concerned about hiding it (check out the SFT strainer):




I'm looking for documentation of Buddy using a "camouflaged" snare - I've heard anecdotal stories of Bud Slingerland becoming infuriated when he saw Buddy using a "Slingerland" snare that had the Rogers Dynasonic snare system installed on it, but I haven't been able to track down a source for that yet.  When I find a bibliographical source, I'll post it.

I did find a citation, complete with picture, of a drum built by Bob Grauso (founder of Fibes) for Gene Krupa, built to look just like a Slingerland drum (stick saver hoops, Slingerland lugs, even the two drill holes where a Slingerland tone control would go), with WMP wrap, in the late 1960s.  (Picture and text on page 167 of Gene Krupa:  The Pictorial Life of a Jazz Legend, by Dr. Bruce H. Klauber, Alfred Publishing Company, 2005.)  This same page mentions that Fibes made similar snares for "other name drummers," but does not mention Buddy (or any of those other drummers) by name.

Yeah, all of the "contrasting snare drum" examples I've seen and heard of, happened during the Slingerland years.  In all of the times I saw Buddy on a Ludwig kit, he had a Ludwig snare to match.