Purdie/John / Dan / 8upwithit!

John: THANKS for the comments!, and yes indeed ... right from the Fibes SFT690/COF to the Ludwig SuperSensitive for Buddy! Those snare drums were the perfect match for him!

Dan: The RIVETS that Ludwig used back during this period were a complete, and total, failure! The issue was the wrap of course. It was unstable and shrank badly. It was the pearls that suffered by the way, but not the sparkle wraps! Anyway ... as a last ditch "fix", Ludwig decided that in addition to gluing the seams, they would drill and rivet them down too. That should hold 'em ... they thought. Well, it didn't, although it was a superb effort on their part in trying to STOP the shrinking/splitting that the pearl wraps were suffering back then. Drums that still exist from this period that were wrapped in any of the pearls, look awful. Needless to say, Ludwig abandoned the practice after they saw the end result. The only thing that stopped all this, was when the wrap manufacturers .. primarily Delmar .. figured out the problem and changed the formula and type of plastic used in making the pearls. That didn't happen 'till relatively recently though! Well, within the past 15 years anyway. I'll attach a couple pics of a 1980 Ludwig BR set I was looking at a little while ago. I kept the pics as they show the "rivet gambit" very well ... and it's ultimate failure. Also, a nice pic of the full production Modular mount too!

8upwithit: Pretty close actually! My friend took those pics on January 24th, 1980 at a Buddy Rich concert held at Chevy Chase High School/Auditorium in Bethesda, Maryland. I suspect you saw him right around this period as that would make sense with the routing and concert dates. Personally, I saw BR LIVE 5 times, but all of those were between 1972 and 1978! At the concert in 1973, Buddy was with Slingerland of course .. but .. he had the Fibes SFT690/COF that night. I remember that well! I wasn't familiar with Fibes yet, but I knew that his snare drum was NOT a Slingerland. On the break between sets I went up to the stage and checked out his drums, and that snare. There was the Fibes badge! That was also the night that I met with Buddy one on one in his dressing room ... yes, memories indeed! :)

Tommyp

At least they are using Maxwell's rail rather than the one Ludwig offers. That matches the set offered in the catalog even if Buddy didn't actually have it on most of his sets.

When it comes to tribute sets, whether for Buddy or Ringo or whomever the only thing that is 100% guaranteed is that Ludwig will get some of the details wrong :)

Yes indeed! Check post #7 on page one of this thread as I discuss that custom mount in detail!, and ... Ludwig should have gone with that over the rail consolette on the tribute set!

Tommyp

K.O.!

Gotta agree with you completely! WHY do they never get these things right?, or at least closer than they do?! It boggles the mind it does. What with ALL the history/pics/documentation to draw on at that! A for effort ... but C for execution!

Tommyp

The "Buddy" tom mount is a nice modification to the Ludwig Modular hardware. The plate looks so much cleaner than the modular flange block... heck I even like the larger modular post as long as it's with that flat plate.

And the pics of the rivet wrap... oh so sad... Almost brings a tear to my eye!!!

I agree with KO and Tommyp, I wish they would just go the extra mile to make these tribute kits "really" authentic.

As I recall Buddy's Modular-ish set-up preceded the introduction of the actual Modular hardware line. If so that might be why Buddy's sets lacked the heavy castings. Could Buddy's desire for a mount more akin to the Slingerland set-o-matic he was used to have been something that got Ludwig started towards designing the modular hardware? Probably not, more likely it was a response to Rogers Memri-Loc system. The trend at the time was for bigger, heavier, and thicker hardware and Ludwig responded admirably to those misguided (in retrospect) goals.

I don't ever recall seeing Buddy on a set with the heavy castings (which doesn't mean it never happened by any means) so I wonder if he specifically asked that they not be used. Surely he acquired at least a few new sets from Ludwig during the modular/riveted early 80's before he burned that bridge once and for all and moved on to his restored set of Radio Kings.

Given Ludwig's penchant for using what they had it's almost odd that they developed those monster castings when their existing base plates would work but those castings probably better answer the aforementioned "bigger is better" motif.

As a "Ludwig guy" at the time I remember being thrilled when Buddy moved back to Ludwig in the late 70's but in my mind's eye I aways see him as a Slingerland drummer. That's what I saw him playing on the two occasions that I was fortunate enough to see him live (Nov. 1975 and Nov. 1985 exactly one decade apart to the day, and at the same venue). Of course Slingerland (Gibson) isn't making a whole lot of drums these days but it would have been cool if Maxwell could have swung a deal with Gibson to do a set like this. If they repro'ed the set-o-matic it probably could have been nearly 100% accurate. Get the name rights for a limited edition from Gibson, get the shells from Stone, the correct wrap from Delmar, and finish them off in house. If anyone could have pulled it off Steve could have.

8upwithit!

The "Big Swing Face" recording at "The Chez" were Buddy's Rogers drums with the wood/WMP Dynasonic snare drum! Drums sound GREAT on that album too! :)

Tommyp