@@snjert8406 I really love that word too. I don't think it's a real word, but I derived it from the adjective "wonky" and removed the y to turn it into a noun.
About 20 years ago, a friend bought a Chad Smith signature crash cymbal (made by Sabian I think). I don't know how they engineered it, but that thing was comically loud. You could hit it half as hard as anything else, and it would still overpower everything
@phelancusack4805 The Sabian holy china is the best china I've ever heard. Yeah it's loud but that's what you want in a china. I play on the drummer's left side so it's all good
Drummers always asking for their cymbals to project. Looks like he got what he wanted. Like when you ask for cream in your coffee and they just give you a glass of milk.
The things Chad Smith needs a cymbal to do are very different than the things you or I need a cymbal to do. A 19 inch A medium crash will do the same thing as an Explosion crash. You use those for arenas and stadiums. You use thin crashes for bars and clubs.
@@carter9449 _"Yeah it's loud but that's what you want in a china"_ No, it's not. You want the sound, not the volume. Chinas tend to have brighter, higher-pitched sounds/overtones than other cymbals of the same size, making them cut through more. But it depends on how you use it. It's not good to have (or rather play) one part of your kit blast out in prominence.
Honestly would love to do a DIY pass on that PDP: - Chuck the tension rods in a lathe to cut them down to a manageable length - Use a large belt sander to sand down and polish the bearing edge to be perfectly flat Probably defeats the point, but if you already have it and plan not to do anything with it it’d be a fun project :)
I swear, I saw how long the tension rods were and thought, 'Welp, time to get out the dremel and the cutoff wheels!' I've had to modify so many screws over the years. 😅
lol i forgot about the tension rods by the end. i’ve hacksawed through machine bolts before-cutting them short would be easy. i half expect the drum to blow up when it hits the sander and i really want to see it happen
At that price, you shouldn't *have* to fix a drum, but if you really wanted to, or had no other choice; shortening the tension rods wouldn't really be all that much work. Likewise you could sand the bearing edge flat by adhering some sandpaper to a large flat surface and moving the drum across it in rotating patterns until flat. Wet sanding at a high grit would be recommended for the final few passes, but a decently abrasive sand would speed up the flattening.
It takes 3 flat surfaces sanded against each other in rotation, to flatten any singular surface. Otherwise you're just sanding down the bearing edge without actually making it flat. It'll still have its inherent unevenness.
I feel like there's no guarantee of quality in a lot of big names anymore. It's all about bottom lines. That's why I just buy junk and hope I get lucky.
Lego, warhammer minis, and solovair boots are pretty much the only things I'm comfortable dropping more than 100 quid on cause I know that they're both made in thier home countries.
Thats because theyre all being bought up by larger companies that dont care about the brand name. Like how Microsoft is slowly buying every gaming company, and Disney is buying every movie IP, and then driving everything into the ground to squeeze out every penny they can in the short term because nobody working for them can be bothered to think ahead.
@@matthewcampbell3146 interesting, as a bunch of mini-painting channels i've watched have complained about the declining quality of GW's output in recent years. i remember someone putting together a thunderhawk i think it was, a resin kit. damn near every panel was deformed and needed to be straightened. this kit is 800 USD.
I think throw offs are overrated. I don't care as long as I can tension the wires, and turn them on and off. As long as it works and it looks good, then I'm happy. I rarely touch the thing during an average gig.
@@alanduncan1980 I agree but at the same time I genuinely believe that it holds the snare tension better (longer) than other systems, especially on cheaper drums. Depending on how the snares are mounted you'll always have some slack due to material deformation but I definitely noticed an improvement, when I upgraded my old snare drum with one of them, although I mostly got it for the looks.
@@musiqsoundsproductions Didn't know this even existed but looking at it, it's the same price (~70€) that I paid for the big one but I haven't found it in "gold color" and also the big one has the advantage that you can use it with your knee in a pinch. I'm planning on customizing an older piccolo snare drum, for this use case it should be perfect, however. 🤔
This is why competition is soo important when it comes to industries which create entertainment, whether it be games, musical instruments or tourism. If you only have a limited amount of options it doesn't matter how much money is made they never innovate properly, start getting lazy, and/or just get greedy. Let's hope there will always be small businesses to push things forward and we don't just get the big players selling us a bunch of garbage
This problem isn't just with drum companies it's happening everywhere. Power and manufacturing are getting consolidated into one or two huge conglomerates per industry. This is bad for us and for some reason at least in the United States certain members of a certain party really don't seem to be interested in reforming antitrust legislation in such a way that it would result in breakup of these monopolies.
@@nobodynoone2500 While i also reccomend this it does end up being the same category of response as "vote with your wallet" where the end result is that the people with more money have more voting power. That indie company will be just as (or even more so thanks to patent trolling) susceptible to shutting down or being bought out as the big leagues.
Damn I wish somebody wrote a book about capital’s tendency towards monopoly and an inevitable falling rate of profit that requires cutting more and more corners
Big companies buying each other up to where they've becoming uncompetitive is perhaps the most poignant thing I've ever heard in a youtube video about a Chad Smith snare drum
You could always strip the hardware off of the pdp, run it through a band saw to square up the ends, and then rout a new bearing edge on it. It will fundamentally change the drum, but at least it will have clean bearing edges and be playable.
Why?? The chips around the lug holes will end up as running cracks. These are junk as are most PDP drums. Had a 22 " maple".. yeah not real maple..but take the heads off it and the shell would oval under the weight of the lugs. If you want decent and cheap get a Tama Superstar Classic ( not real maple either) they actually sound decent and are better made then PDP.
Kinda not the point though, it's better to be able to buy quality in the first place. It wasn't like that snare was mistreated during it's life, just built like shit. To think that Chad Smith endorsed a product that shoddy is disappointing, that being said the chilli peppers did sell out quite significantly lol
INDe drums are great! I met the owner, Josh, at this year's Chicago Drum show. Such a NICE guy! His Dad was a super nice person too! Very good people ❤️
I just got absolutely jumpscared by that INDe Kalamazoo mention. I LIVE IN KALAMAZOO I had NO IDEA there was a company hand-building drum kits right here in town. I NEED IT.
3:45 a simple way to sand the drum edge flat would be to get yourself a decent level, then using some spray on contact adhesive, glue some sand paper as good as you can where the perimeter of the drum body would contact, about 10 cm on either side (a total of 20 cm of travel when sanding). The way you want to work this is by using a known drum that's flat on the top and has the same diameter. You put the drum's touching on the edge and use bits of tape to mark where the peaks start and end on the acrylic drum body. Those, you sand by placing the level (wet) over the portion with the sandpaper and moving slowly back and forth making sure the non sand paper side of the level is sitting flush on the opposite side of the drum edge/lip. edit: with the mention that this is just to remove the peak, any shaping will be made after by hand with a block of curved wood shaped to match the drum) As for the holes that might be cracked or starting to crack, you could slowly and carefully drill them oversize (using a long Christmas tree bit, a normal drill will not behave well drilling into an existing hole and you might actually crack the acrylic), sand it smooth with wet sand paper and then glue a plug inside the hole, which will be drilled (with a normal drill) again after the glue has cured. The idea is to get rid of the crack around the hole.
Find a VERY flat surface, stick down a large piece of 220 grit abrasive paper, and lap the top and bottom until they're flat. It's a stupid thing to need to do, but if you want the snare to work...
Oof, and up until about a year ago, you could have a cast bronze shell and hoops made by Duluth Brass Manufacturing. (The company that made Ocheltree cast bronze shells.) for around the same price as an INDe snare.
I got a Yamaha Stage Custom Steel 14x6.5" (10-lug) snare drum recently for a little over AU$200 and for the money it's one of the nicest snares I've played. Even the drummer in my band (who plays a Pearl SensiTone Steel that costs more than twice as much) loves the crack he gets from it when I've brought it to gigs.
I agree that dw has in fact gone downhill. A few years ago I bought three dw 3700 boom stands. I saw one on display at the store and said I wanted a few I got home and took them out of the box and was like “woah these things are heavy. Surely they never break loose while playing like they gotta be at least 20 pounds” I have them to this day and I gotta say that they seem to break loose every single time I play them. Not to mention they are so heavy that they are a pain to carry around and they costed me way to much money in the first place. Two of them I demoted to holding my ride and my china because I don’t have to use the boom arm for those cymbals but the one that holds up my left crash no matter how much I tighten the boom arm it always comes loose. I bought one inexpensive pearl stand a few months ago and it does it’s job a lot better than the overpriced shit dw is dishing out.
I bought a DW 5000 double pedal in the early 2000s. Immediately after the warranty expired, the casting cracked on the master pedal. I'd always taken good care of it, I don't stomp on my pedals, kept it in a Humes and Berg case. That really surprised me because I love my 5000 hi hat stand. Twenty years later, still going strong. I'll never buy anything from DW again.
@@Dan-hc1ow it’s just so sad how drum content creators hesitate to say bad things about dw because they don’t want to get chewed out by everyone. I was always a pearl guy but at the same time I thought dw was a close second because the amazing things people say about them. I got those stands and my opinion changed immediately and coming to realize that their drums are over engendered just so they can make a few extra bucks with “stunning sonic features” I begin to think that dw is another money grubbing company like every other company that isn’t involved in music but music companies especially should care about what they are selling because it’s important for musicians to know they can trust their gear.
I've never understood the whole DW thing. Don't like the way they look, don't like the way they sound, don't like the hardware.... there's at least 4 or 5 other major manufacturers I'd go to before I went DW. and about a dozen boutique makers I'd go to if I wanted something really exotic and premium.
Well, unfortunately, this is how it is nowadays, big corporations buy smaller businesses, that were good and had a name in the industry, to get rid of the competition, and later on, sack those workers and send all the production to China, or other parts of Asia because labor is cheaper. Sucks. A lot. I'm glad you are doing better, take care Wade
Large companies for drums and guitars (looking at you gibson) are absolutely not competitive anymore. If you want a solid deal these days, you have to gamble on smaller brands. I got an insane deal on a full acrylic kit from Donner of all brands a few years back. Less than 1000$ for a full kit including snare, all hardware, and some crappy cymbals. I converted it to an electric kit and it's been my go to ever since.
$500?!??! I paid that for a whole pearl set about 15 years ago when I first got into playing music and wanted to learn drums, but never did. Still do. Music is such a great hobby/love. Your videos always have great vibes man, never go away please!
I didn't think it was that bad, and then you mentioned the price, and it all made sense. That's all fixable stuff that I have an idea how to do, but for $500 that's outrageous.
Years ago I bought a purple 13" PDP "Mud Flap" snare new. $130 USD. When I got it home, I could not get it in tune. I was about to return it but I decided to check the roundness and bearing edges. After removing the top head, I discovered that the cheap Remo head that came with it had an uneven collar. I soon replaced it with an Evans, which helped quite a bit. I never thought to check to see if the shell was level, so I should probably do that someday.
About a year ago I bought my PDP Concept Maple kit, the snare had a huge chunk missing from the bottom bearing edge but they replaced it and the rest of the kit is perfect. Seems like their quality control is pretty poor, but if you're patient enough to deal with returns and replacements (the store paid for everything) I think it sounds, looks and feels phenomenal
I assume like any other manufacturer the occasional flaw gets through. Part of the reason why high end drums cost more is the quality control. The majority of mid to lower priced drums they spot check batches. In this case the drum was sitting too long before he noticed all of the flaws. If they had been noticed soon after getting it, I'm sure the drum store would have replaced or reimbursed the purchase. having said that, I have had some really good cheap drums over the years. 90% of the time it works all the time...or something
You should be able to “straighten” the drum using the right tension. Same as you do with push bike wheels by adjusting the spokes. To me it looks like the edge is machined, and it would have been perfectly flat from the factory, and it’s just the drum heads pulling it out of true. Acrylic does have a memory too, so if you’ve got a bit of time, and a bit of heavy stuff to sit on top of it, and somewhere flat, you should be able to bring it back to flat that way too.
It feels like we live in an age where the companies are so big, they don't have to worry about making GOOD products anymore. Everything is crap and it all costs more than the good old stuff did.
Everything got centralized for efficiency, then transport costs went through the roof. Now it's no longer efficient to make everything in the same place, but we still do it anyway.
Just pull put the bolts and grind em all down a cm or so. Also glass repair epoxy works great for chips, but test on ugly acrylic 1st. Use a suction cup to push it into cracks, then the curing sheet to get it flat.
I saw a guy turn a treadmill into a giant sander. Something janky like that should be able to level that snare. Got a treadmill and a bunch of sand paper?
Honestly, the only import brands I completely trust for bearing edges (for budget series, at least) are Tama or Yamaha. I've seen wonky Pearls, PDPs and I actually own a wonky Mapex that I got fixed. Unfortunately, with mass produced lines like this, it's always a numbers game so lots of stuff gets through that shouldn't have passed QC. The equal issue is that no store is willing to fix it...they will just swap it out until you find a good one or you stop complaining. Regarding the tension rods, that's definitely an oversight but is easily fixable by chopping off the excess. Alternatively, use Aquarian drumheads (shorter height of the collar) or add thicker nylon washers to compensate. With most of these cheaper brands, proper thought and engineering isn't always put into it. I actually realized that my Mapex SoniClear tom mount bottoms out against the tension rod if it's too tight, so I added washers and gained a few more turns of the key if I really crank it. What can ya do...we want cheaper gear, so this is how we get it haha.
@@adamimberti6948 yes I agree. $500 is too much but all of the PDP signature snares are stupidly priced. I was looking at that piccolo signature snare...it's $1000 CAD. Absolutely ridiculous. Everything else from their normal lineup seems to follow what I wrote up there though. I play a Mapex Mars that sounds really good now that the bearing edges are fixed and I use a tune bot.
@@DoubleD_93 Yeah, I agree. The Concept Maples with the wood hoops and the big vintage sizes sound as good if not better than a lot of much more expensive kits. And Mapex make great affordable kits.... so do brands like Yamaha. I was just referring to the end of your comment where you were saying when you're looking for cheap stuff this is kinda what you get.... I don't really think this snare qualifies as cheap. It's firmly in the mid tier production drum category imo and really shouldn't have all the issues it has. People are spending this amount of money specifically to get a rock solid drum that isn't fancy but works out of the box.
@@adamimberti6948 ahhh okay I see your point. I guess by cheap I mean theoretically cheaper than an American made DW drum. What's the running cost of those nowadays? I guess it relates back to what I was saying about the signature drums...the markup is nuts just for a signature across the board of musical instruments.
@@DoubleD_93 I didn't even think of it like that. A signature Chad Smith DW snare *would* be obscenely expensive.... a nice budget option from PDP is a real missed opportunity.
as an accomplished marching snare player i’ve traveled many places. I’ve seen screws so bad they had modified screws that are supposed to be for a table that isn’t put together. i hate people who do that.
"that's why vintage drums sound better because they were made better in the first place" Cue my nugget mid-80s Pioneer amplifier. The power button is never straight, the source buttons need a scrape sometimes, absolutely overpowered for the nugget hand me down bookshelf speakers and 32ohm headphones, but it makes them sound good
The funny thing about this to me is the fact that the Pearl Steel Chad Smith model is one of the best snares you can buy still. My high school threw a diplomat + concert wires on one and used it as our concert snares. Stupid articulate. Also love the channel m8
I think alot of people that are suggesting to fix the drum have the wrong idea. Having things that are manky is part of the fun of collecting. Does it suck your out 500 bucks yeah but it allows you to show of other things that shine brighter in comparison.
If there's one thing that I've come to learn is that PDP makes products that are absolutely awesome and products that are absolutely awful. And I'm not even talking about 'all CS signatures are rubbish' because it's often within the same product line and the quality control is just abysmal sometimes. I got a Concept Maple, the works, 10-12-14-20 with 8 and 16 add-ons. It. Is. Absolutely. Perfect. I spent half a day in the store completely taking off all heads, checking the bearing edges, screws, roundness/flatness, the works. It is pristine and it's my absolute favourite thing to play on. Only thing I had to do was correcting the curve of the suspension mount because it gave some tension on the swivel nuts. Why did I spend that much time and efford before taking it home? Because I've heard more than one story about the exact same series of drums being delivered with drum heads bolted down at one side of the head and rattling across the other. With so much saw dust inside that you could make another drum from it. Dents in the bearing edge. Wood chipped away in the bearing edge and around drilled holes. Holes not being drilled all the way through. I don't have time listing the other things but you can easily triple the shortcomings of those drums. They should never ever have been shipped out that way. So yeah, it seems to be a bit of a lottery and it should never be like that. For drums they might be cheap. But it's not loose change by any stretch of the imagination. They really need to be more consistent. Still, I would very much recommend PDP to anyone because two stories among hundreds of satisfied customers isn't so bad, and as long as you are able to inspect and return a product to get a new one, you're still getting huge bang for your buck. Just wished it wasn't such a downer to the people who are stoked for getting drums of this kind.
I have a PDP 'Limited Edition' 7 1/2 x 14" maple/walnut snare drum. It is the hardest to tune snare drum I have. No matter what I do, it has the worst sympathetic snare buzz of any snare drum I've ever played. I've swapped the heads, swapped out the snare wires, even sanded down the snare beds a bit by about 1/16th inch. Still buzzes like crazy. (at all tuning range) Too bad it does have otherwise good sound and it is a beautiful drum.
@@thomasmoje5926 my opinion, sympathetic snare buzz is something I will always cherish, and anything you do to get rid of it will also get rid of wanted resonance in the drum.
Damn, I have this snare and I actually love it 😭 (could be because I’m an R&B drummer and I muted the 💩 out of it. And I also purchased it along with an entire drumset out of my cousin for a stupidly cheap price (way less than the snare’s worth)
If you replace the rubber washers on the tightening bolts with thicker ones (or just more of them), the bolts wouldn't be able to bottom out. The result would be pretty ugly but it would be a reversible modification. Although being awkward to tighten is the least of this drum's problems...
I had a 2015 odo conceot maple kit. All 13 shells had to have bearing edges re-cut. The factory edges look like they were done by a drunk, blind, and palsied bloke. None of the lugs held tension.
There are some excellent ideas to get the uneven side of the snare true again. An engine repair machine shop would be the best bet. Only issue is that you're also supposed to have a particular taper around the edge for the drum head to sit against. It's not supposed to just sit against a squarely cut edge. That would be another critical step in getting it right that would require the proper equipment for designing these. These two steps would quite literally make the design of an acrylic drum useless when not done to precision specs.
Dude, I have no musical talent at all. I know nothing about drums. I have no interest in drums! So why am I watching this? The same reason I started watching you review MP3 Nuggets when I had no interest in those either. For your personality! You always give me a lift in mood. Cheers Matey!
You know it's bad when you're being compared to the Jin Bao
so true bestie
@@genmaicha_I don’t speak starbucks
@@weezersucks2very correct, friend
@@weezersucks2 For you it would be "well, you just won the internet for today sir! le epic."
@@poolbwoy6585 mate I don’t speak reddit
I demand that you show the wonk of all snare drums you show in future videos. Seeing how wobbly they were was very fun
"The wonk" is very accurate and I love that term hahaha (not a native speaker, so I love hearing/reading words like this)
@@snjert8406 I really love that word too. I don't think it's a real word, but I derived it from the adjective "wonky" and removed the y to turn it into a noun.
@@miguelguthridge yeah that's what I thought too! :3
This.
the brady jarrah snare he has will have the least wonk
You've gotta call up Chad Smith, he owes you a snare
About 20 years ago, a friend bought a Chad Smith signature crash cymbal (made by Sabian I think). I don't know how they engineered it, but that thing was comically loud. You could hit it half as hard as anything else, and it would still overpower everything
That's kinda on brand though. The same holds true for Sabian's Holy China, also a Chad Smith cymbal. Other band members haaaaaate that thing lol.
@phelancusack4805 The Sabian holy china is the best china I've ever heard. Yeah it's loud but that's what you want in a china. I play on the drummer's left side so it's all good
Drummers always asking for their cymbals to project. Looks like he got what he wanted. Like when you ask for cream in your coffee and they just give you a glass of milk.
The things Chad Smith needs a cymbal to do are very different than the things you or I need a cymbal to do.
A 19 inch A medium crash will do the same thing as an Explosion crash. You use those for arenas and stadiums. You use thin crashes for bars and clubs.
@@carter9449 _"Yeah it's loud but that's what you want in a china"_
No, it's not. You want the sound, not the volume. Chinas tend to have brighter, higher-pitched sounds/overtones than other cymbals of the same size, making them cut through more. But it depends on how you use it. It's not good to have (or rather play) one part of your kit blast out in prominence.
mate, I was literally THIS close to buying one of these snares. Thank you so much
Honestly would love to do a DIY pass on that PDP:
- Chuck the tension rods in a lathe to cut them down to a manageable length
- Use a large belt sander to sand down and polish the bearing edge to be perfectly flat
Probably defeats the point, but if you already have it and plan not to do anything with it it’d be a fun project :)
I swear, I saw how long the tension rods were and thought, 'Welp, time to get out the dremel and the cutoff wheels!'
I've had to modify so many screws over the years. 😅
lol i forgot about the tension rods by the end. i’ve hacksawed through machine bolts before-cutting them short would be easy. i half expect the drum to blow up when it hits the sander and i really want to see it happen
with all of that - it would be a rdavidr's channel
Lathing them would be way too over excessive
My thoughts exactly
At that price, you shouldn't *have* to fix a drum, but if you really wanted to, or had no other choice; shortening the tension rods wouldn't really be all that much work. Likewise you could sand the bearing edge flat by adhering some sandpaper to a large flat surface and moving the drum across it in rotating patterns until flat. Wet sanding at a high grit would be recommended for the final few passes, but a decently abrasive sand would speed up the flattening.
The bearing edge would need to be re-bevelled then and that seems like a difficult thing without a router table
@DevinJuularValentine i’d be shocked if james doesn’t have one he can use
He certainly would like to use a particular grit on that drum
Its worth $500, I dont think you should be do that yourself if its that much haha
It takes 3 flat surfaces sanded against each other in rotation, to flatten any singular surface. Otherwise you're just sanding down the bearing edge without actually making it flat. It'll still have its inherent unevenness.
I feel like there's no guarantee of quality in a lot of big names anymore. It's all about bottom lines. That's why I just buy junk and hope I get lucky.
Lego, warhammer minis, and solovair boots are pretty much the only things I'm comfortable dropping more than 100 quid on cause I know that they're both made in thier home countries.
Thats because theyre all being bought up by larger companies that dont care about the brand name. Like how Microsoft is slowly buying every gaming company, and Disney is buying every movie IP, and then driving everything into the ground to squeeze out every penny they can in the short term because nobody working for them can be bothered to think ahead.
@@matthewcampbell3146 interesting, as a bunch of mini-painting channels i've watched have complained about the declining quality of GW's output in recent years. i remember someone putting together a thunderhawk i think it was, a resin kit. damn near every panel was deformed and needed to be straightened. this kit is 800 USD.
i feel like im in the wrong class but still sit cuz its interesting
The DW throw is one of the nicest pieces of hardware you can put on a snare drum.
Just the most satisfying mechanic and soo smooth.
I think throw offs are overrated. I don't care as long as I can tension the wires, and turn them on and off. As long as it works and it looks good, then I'm happy. I rarely touch the thing during an average gig.
@@alanduncan1980 I agree but at the same time I genuinely believe that it holds the snare tension better (longer) than other systems, especially on cheaper drums. Depending on how the snares are mounted you'll always have some slack due to material deformation but I definitely noticed an improvement, when I upgraded my old snare drum with one of them, although I mostly got it for the looks.
Try the new mini mag its even better.
@@musiqsoundsproductions Didn't know this even existed but looking at it, it's the same price (~70€) that I paid for the big one but I haven't found it in "gold color" and also the big one has the advantage that you can use it with your knee in a pinch.
I'm planning on customizing an older piccolo snare drum, for this use case it should be perfect, however. 🤔
This is why competition is soo important when it comes to industries which create entertainment, whether it be games, musical instruments or tourism. If you only have a limited amount of options it doesn't matter how much money is made they never innovate properly, start getting lazy, and/or just get greedy. Let's hope there will always be small businesses to push things forward and we don't just get the big players selling us a bunch of garbage
This problem isn't just with drum companies it's happening everywhere. Power and manufacturing are getting consolidated into one or two huge conglomerates per industry. This is bad for us and for some reason at least in the United States certain members of a certain party really don't seem to be interested in reforming antitrust legislation in such a way that it would result in breakup of these monopolies.
Buy indie stuff when you can!
@@nobodynoone2500 While i also reccomend this it does end up being the same category of response as "vote with your wallet" where the end result is that the people with more money have more voting power. That indie company will be just as (or even more so thanks to patent trolling) susceptible to shutting down or being bought out as the big leagues.
Damn I wish somebody wrote a book about capital’s tendency towards monopoly and an inevitable falling rate of profit that requires cutting more and more corners
@@quinn3334I know, right? It's almost like the purpose of a system is what it does
I like that we got a glance at the banana set at the start
I like it more that we got a glance riiiight when Wade introduces and turns to the 'worst drum he's bought'.
Big companies buying each other up to where they've becoming uncompetitive is perhaps the most poignant thing I've ever heard in a youtube video about a Chad Smith snare drum
Yeah corporate monopolies are getting to be a real problem.
I love learning things about an instrument I will likely never play 💕 This channel is a treasure.
agree!
Its never too late to try something new!
sadly the noise part of drums makes it so hard @fosforum1
You could always strip the hardware off of the pdp, run it through a band saw to square up the ends, and then rout a new bearing edge on it. It will fundamentally change the drum, but at least it will have clean bearing edges and be playable.
Just stick a large sheet of sandpaper to a table. It will be flatter than a band saw and remove minimal material.
@@SmokinjoewhiteI'd advise using either a surface plate or laying the sandpaper on top of glass in that instance.
Why?? The chips around the lug holes will end up as running cracks. These are junk as are most PDP drums. Had a 22 " maple".. yeah not real maple..but take the heads off it and the shell would oval under the weight of the lugs. If you want decent and cheap get a Tama Superstar Classic ( not real maple either) they actually sound decent and are better made then PDP.
Kinda not the point though, it's better to be able to buy quality in the first place. It wasn't like that snare was mistreated during it's life, just built like shit. To think that Chad Smith endorsed a product that shoddy is disappointing, that being said the chilli peppers did sell out quite significantly lol
@@Smokinjoewhite Acrylic gums up sandpaper so bad. I would hate that job.
Dude's sick but still making content for us on 2 channels. My man.
what a fuckin champion
To finish your museum you need an exhibit dedicated to the kitchen snare sets we all made as babies
INDe drums are great! I met the owner, Josh, at this year's Chicago Drum show. Such a NICE guy! His Dad was a super nice person too! Very good people ❤️
remember kids, Chad Smith put his name on that thing
I just got absolutely jumpscared by that INDe Kalamazoo mention.
I LIVE IN KALAMAZOO
I had NO IDEA there was a company hand-building drum kits right here in town. I NEED IT.
mention got me too… 😅
3:45 a simple way to sand the drum edge flat would be to get yourself a decent level, then using some spray on contact adhesive, glue some sand paper as good as you can where the perimeter of the drum body would contact, about 10 cm on either side (a total of 20 cm of travel when sanding). The way you want to work this is by using a known drum that's flat on the top and has the same diameter. You put the drum's touching on the edge and use bits of tape to mark where the peaks start and end on the acrylic drum body. Those, you sand by placing the level (wet) over the portion with the sandpaper and moving slowly back and forth making sure the non sand paper side of the level is sitting flush on the opposite side of the drum edge/lip. edit: with the mention that this is just to remove the peak, any shaping will be made after by hand with a block of curved wood shaped to match the drum)
As for the holes that might be cracked or starting to crack, you could slowly and carefully drill them oversize (using a long Christmas tree bit, a normal drill will not behave well drilling into an existing hole and you might actually crack the acrylic), sand it smooth with wet sand paper and then glue a plug inside the hole, which will be drilled (with a normal drill) again after the glue has cured. The idea is to get rid of the crack around the hole.
nah throw it on a belt sander with no prep so we can see it explode
This is how it's done.
Sure, you could do that, but for a $500 snare you absolutely shouldn't need to
If we ever see a steamroller on garbage time, I vote to send this junk underneath it.
it will never not be fun to listen to people rant about the thinks they are ACTUALLY passionate about
Love you Mr.pods
I'm eating out of a yogert container that probably has a better bearing edge than that snare.
Find a VERY flat surface, stick down a large piece of 220 grit abrasive paper, and lap the top and bottom until they're flat. It's a stupid thing to need to do, but if you want the snare to work...
Early bird gets the good content 😊
It's 10:07 pm right now for me
it's 15:14 or 3:14 pm right now
from india not really
It's 2pm
Oof, and up until about a year ago, you could have a cast bronze shell and hoops made by Duluth Brass Manufacturing. (The company that made Ocheltree cast bronze shells.) for around the same price as an INDe snare.
I got a Yamaha Stage Custom Steel 14x6.5" (10-lug) snare drum recently for a little over AU$200 and for the money it's one of the nicest snares I've played. Even the drummer in my band (who plays a Pearl SensiTone Steel that costs more than twice as much) loves the crack he gets from it when I've brought it to gigs.
I hope you enjoyed your travels and Feel better soon! So happy to get my favourite content back💚
I agree that dw has in fact gone downhill. A few years ago I bought three dw 3700 boom stands. I saw one on display at the store and said I wanted a few I got home and took them out of the box and was like “woah these things are heavy. Surely they never break loose while playing like they gotta be at least 20 pounds” I have them to this day and I gotta say that they seem to break loose every single time I play them. Not to mention they are so heavy that they are a pain to carry around and they costed me way to much money in the first place. Two of them I demoted to holding my ride and my china because I don’t have to use the boom arm for those cymbals but the one that holds up my left crash no matter how much I tighten the boom arm it always comes loose. I bought one inexpensive pearl stand a few months ago and it does it’s job a lot better than the overpriced shit dw is dishing out.
I bought a DW 5000 double pedal in the early 2000s. Immediately after the warranty expired, the casting cracked on the master pedal. I'd always taken good care of it, I don't stomp on my pedals, kept it in a Humes and Berg case. That really surprised me because I love my 5000 hi hat stand. Twenty years later, still going strong. I'll never buy anything from DW again.
@@Dan-hc1ow it’s just so sad how drum content creators hesitate to say bad things about dw because they don’t want to get chewed out by everyone. I was always a pearl guy but at the same time I thought dw was a close second because the amazing things people say about them. I got those stands and my opinion changed immediately and coming to realize that their drums are over engendered just so they can make a few extra bucks with “stunning sonic features” I begin to think that dw is another money grubbing company like every other company that isn’t involved in music but music companies especially should care about what they are selling because it’s important for musicians to know they can trust their gear.
I've never understood the whole DW thing. Don't like the way they look, don't like the way they sound, don't like the hardware.... there's at least 4 or 5 other major manufacturers I'd go to before I went DW. and about a dozen boutique makers I'd go to if I wanted something really exotic and premium.
Those are made by reliance for dw. Just as they do for all major brands.
Kinda makes me wonder if they cut the snare bed, then installed the strainer upside down....
Well, unfortunately, this is how it is nowadays, big corporations buy smaller businesses, that were good and had a name in the industry, to get rid of the competition, and later on, sack those workers and send all the production to China, or other parts of Asia because labor is cheaper. Sucks. A lot. I'm glad you are doing better, take care Wade
I bought one of these snaresa brand new for 200 Us dollars. It was cool. No wonk detected. It was my work horse for a loud dry sound.
Exactly I think bro got sold a lemon
Large companies for drums and guitars (looking at you gibson) are absolutely not competitive anymore. If you want a solid deal these days, you have to gamble on smaller brands. I got an insane deal on a full acrylic kit from Donner of all brands a few years back. Less than 1000$ for a full kit including snare, all hardware, and some crappy cymbals. I converted it to an electric kit and it's been my go to ever since.
Gibson was my first new guitar, will never buy another. Company is trash now. Fender not much better.
$500?!??! I paid that for a whole pearl set about 15 years ago when I first got into playing music and wanted to learn drums, but never did. Still do. Music is such a great hobby/love. Your videos always have great vibes man, never go away please!
And a new court jester is crowned, move over Jin Bowes or whatever dingus name spelling they was
Xin Baos? Maybe?
Edit: saw the sticker and they’re Jin Baos.
I didn't think it was that bad, and then you mentioned the price, and it all made sense. That's all fixable stuff that I have an idea how to do, but for $500 that's outrageous.
Glad to see ya back and sharing more special finds. Love all the content!
The long tensioning bolts is something that a hacksaw would like a word with.
Years ago I bought a purple 13" PDP "Mud Flap" snare new. $130 USD. When I got it home, I could not get it in tune. I was about to return it but I decided to check the roundness and bearing edges. After removing the top head, I discovered that the cheap Remo head that came with it had an uneven collar. I soon replaced it with an Evans, which helped quite a bit. I never thought to check to see if the shell was level, so I should probably do that someday.
So glad youre back for the history and tech lessons
Ah yes, Dick Smith's lesser-known brother, Chad.
how I missed you gushing on about drums! even the bad ones! welcome back wade
Nice video. Shame pdp quality has gone down over time they used to be great value. You should talk about Fibes drums when you get the chance.
They definitely still make great stuff, I have one of their bell bronze snares and it rules
It's almost like the biggest companies make the worst stuff!
Sounding better! Getting better. All better soon!
thank you for the awesome video regardless!
I just was looking at pdp drums. I've had good experiences with them thus far when drummers have brought them to my studio, but now I'm scared
About a year ago I bought my PDP Concept Maple kit, the snare had a huge chunk missing from the bottom bearing edge but they replaced it and the rest of the kit is perfect. Seems like their quality control is pretty poor, but if you're patient enough to deal with returns and replacements (the store paid for everything) I think it sounds, looks and feels phenomenal
I assume like any other manufacturer the occasional flaw gets through. Part of the reason why high end drums cost more is the quality control. The majority of mid to lower priced drums they spot check batches. In this case the drum was sitting too long before he noticed all of the flaws. If they had been noticed soon after getting it, I'm sure the drum store would have replaced or reimbursed the purchase.
having said that, I have had some really good cheap drums over the years. 90% of the time it works all the time...or something
When Chad said he wanted this snare to rock, this is not what he meant.
The logo also isn't printed centered. Look at how much of the asterisk is visible on each side
You should be able to “straighten” the drum using the right tension. Same as you do with push bike wheels by adjusting the spokes. To me it looks like the edge is machined, and it would have been perfectly flat from the factory, and it’s just the drum heads pulling it out of true. Acrylic does have a memory too, so if you’ve got a bit of time, and a bit of heavy stuff to sit on top of it, and somewhere flat, you should be able to bring it back to flat that way too.
The worst drum you've bought, so far
It feels like we live in an age where the companies are so big, they don't have to worry about making GOOD products anymore. Everything is crap and it all costs more than the good old stuff did.
Everything got centralized for efficiency, then transport costs went through the roof.
Now it's no longer efficient to make everything in the same place, but we still do it anyway.
if it’s already garbage, might as well head to a machine shop and take a sander to the bottom. just to see what happens 🤠
theres 3 Australian man voices and everyone takes turns
The Return of the King
"Oi! We got the worst one! :D"
Putting Chad Smith's name on this pile of rubbish is a sin.
Just pull put the bolts and grind em all down a cm or so. Also glass repair epoxy works great for chips, but test on ugly acrylic 1st. Use a suction cup to push it into cracks, then the curing sheet to get it flat.
easy to find, all acrylic is ugly!
You are a true drummer. Gets money, spends it on drums.
Loved my 1974 clear Vistalite . Amazing sounding drum. Wish I still had her.
"When you're a chad you don't need to sound good"
They said "Fuck it, put some snare beds on the top too"
It's so good to have our nugman back
The comedic timing of learning this was a Chad Smith signature was impeccable
I saw a guy turn a treadmill into a giant sander. Something janky like that should be able to level that snare.
Got a treadmill and a bunch of sand paper?
Dunno if they’ve got them in Australia but you can just buy entire reams of sandpaper at the Harbor Freight.
Those are the longest tension rods I've ever seen on a snare with triple flanged hoops.
Honestly, the only import brands I completely trust for bearing edges (for budget series, at least) are Tama or Yamaha. I've seen wonky Pearls, PDPs and I actually own a wonky Mapex that I got fixed. Unfortunately, with mass produced lines like this, it's always a numbers game so lots of stuff gets through that shouldn't have passed QC. The equal issue is that no store is willing to fix it...they will just swap it out until you find a good one or you stop complaining.
Regarding the tension rods, that's definitely an oversight but is easily fixable by chopping off the excess. Alternatively, use Aquarian drumheads (shorter height of the collar) or add thicker nylon washers to compensate.
With most of these cheaper brands, proper thought and engineering isn't always put into it. I actually realized that my Mapex SoniClear tom mount bottoms out against the tension rod if it's too tight, so I added washers and gained a few more turns of the key if I really crank it.
What can ya do...we want cheaper gear, so this is how we get it haha.
Fair but $500 isn't really a cheap snare. Those brands you mentioned all make bombproof snares for that kind of money.
@@adamimberti6948 yes I agree. $500 is too much but all of the PDP signature snares are stupidly priced. I was looking at that piccolo signature snare...it's $1000 CAD. Absolutely ridiculous.
Everything else from their normal lineup seems to follow what I wrote up there though. I play a Mapex Mars that sounds really good now that the bearing edges are fixed and I use a tune bot.
@@DoubleD_93 Yeah, I agree. The Concept Maples with the wood hoops and the big vintage sizes sound as good if not better than a lot of much more expensive kits. And Mapex make great affordable kits.... so do brands like Yamaha.
I was just referring to the end of your comment where you were saying when you're looking for cheap stuff this is kinda what you get.... I don't really think this snare qualifies as cheap. It's firmly in the mid tier production drum category imo and really shouldn't have all the issues it has. People are spending this amount of money specifically to get a rock solid drum that isn't fancy but works out of the box.
@@adamimberti6948 ahhh okay I see your point. I guess by cheap I mean theoretically cheaper than an American made DW drum. What's the running cost of those nowadays?
I guess it relates back to what I was saying about the signature drums...the markup is nuts just for a signature across the board of musical instruments.
@@DoubleD_93 I didn't even think of it like that. A signature Chad Smith DW snare *would* be obscenely expensive.... a nice budget option from PDP is a real missed opportunity.
Welcome back mate. Take your time to recover from your sickness.
so glad your back wade i hope you had a good couple of weeks
as an accomplished marching snare player i’ve traveled many places. I’ve seen screws so bad they had modified screws that are supposed to be for a table that isn’t put together. i hate people who do that.
"that's why vintage drums sound better because they were made better in the first place" Cue my nugget mid-80s Pioneer amplifier. The power button is never straight, the source buttons need a scrape sometimes, absolutely overpowered for the nugget hand me down bookshelf speakers and 32ohm headphones, but it makes them sound good
The funny thing about this to me is the fact that the Pearl Steel Chad Smith model is one of the best snares you can buy still. My high school threw a diplomat + concert wires on one and used it as our concert snares. Stupid articulate. Also love the channel m8
That Pearl Chad Smith model was a home run. Everybody had one back in the day.
I would love, I mean LOVE to visit your museum!
If you need to take time to recover, please do Mr Dank. We'll still be here when you feel better.
You just *know* that snare was made by tiny yellow hands.
GMorning from the states! Glad ur back. Have a great day!
bruh i thought there was a comically large razor blade in the snare
I think alot of people that are suggesting to fix the drum have the wrong idea. Having things that are manky is part of the fun of collecting. Does it suck your out 500 bucks yeah but it allows you to show of other things that shine brighter in comparison.
exactly. if it was his only drum that's one thing, but he's literally building a museum and preserving the good and the bad
If I was Chad Smith I'd be throwing an absolute FIT!! Like how DARE you put my name on THAT!
I once listed mine on Reverb as “Un-tunable Snare” lol. Yeah, never ended up selling it
My worst drunk purchase....
If there's one thing that I've come to learn is that PDP makes products that are absolutely awesome and products that are absolutely awful. And I'm not even talking about 'all CS signatures are rubbish' because it's often within the same product line and the quality control is just abysmal sometimes.
I got a Concept Maple, the works, 10-12-14-20 with 8 and 16 add-ons. It. Is. Absolutely. Perfect. I spent half a day in the store completely taking off all heads, checking the bearing edges, screws, roundness/flatness, the works. It is pristine and it's my absolute favourite thing to play on. Only thing I had to do was correcting the curve of the suspension mount because it gave some tension on the swivel nuts.
Why did I spend that much time and efford before taking it home? Because I've heard more than one story about the exact same series of drums being delivered with drum heads bolted down at one side of the head and rattling across the other. With so much saw dust inside that you could make another drum from it. Dents in the bearing edge. Wood chipped away in the bearing edge and around drilled holes. Holes not being drilled all the way through. I don't have time listing the other things but you can easily triple the shortcomings of those drums. They should never ever have been shipped out that way.
So yeah, it seems to be a bit of a lottery and it should never be like that. For drums they might be cheap. But it's not loose change by any stretch of the imagination. They really need to be more consistent. Still, I would very much recommend PDP to anyone because two stories among hundreds of satisfied customers isn't so bad, and as long as you are able to inspect and return a product to get a new one, you're still getting huge bang for your buck. Just wished it wasn't such a downer to the people who are stoked for getting drums of this kind.
I have a PDP 'Limited Edition' 7 1/2 x 14" maple/walnut snare drum. It is the hardest to tune snare drum I have. No matter what I do, it has the worst sympathetic snare buzz of any snare drum I've ever played. I've swapped the heads, swapped out the snare wires, even sanded down the snare beds a bit by about 1/16th inch. Still buzzes like crazy. (at all tuning range) Too bad it does have otherwise good sound and it is a beautiful drum.
@@thomasmoje5926 my opinion, sympathetic snare buzz is something I will always cherish, and anything you do to get rid of it will also get rid of wanted resonance in the drum.
Damn, I have this snare and I actually love it 😭 (could be because I’m an R&B drummer and I muted the 💩 out of it. And I also purchased it along with an entire drumset out of my cousin for a stupidly cheap price (way less than the snare’s worth)
Once Roland bought DW I lost all interest, next kit is gonna be a Sonor no question.
Welcome back mate
poor chad smith having his name on this garbage
You know a drum is bad when it can't do something that the Jin Bao's can
Dude! I dig that bronze snare!
You just don't understand the superior sound of a Pringle shaped drumhead...
It's an honor to have you back, sir.
What an absolute pile of word Wade can't use on this platform
wasn’t expecting a Kalamazoo shoutout!
If you replace the rubber washers on the tightening bolts with thicker ones (or just more of them), the bolts wouldn't be able to bottom out. The result would be pretty ugly but it would be a reversible modification. Although being awkward to tighten is the least of this drum's problems...
I had a 2015 odo conceot maple kit. All 13 shells had to have bearing edges re-cut. The factory edges look like they were done by a drunk, blind, and palsied bloke. None of the lugs held tension.
There are some excellent ideas to get the uneven side of the snare true again. An engine repair machine shop would be the best bet. Only issue is that you're also supposed to have a particular taper around the edge for the drum head to sit against. It's not supposed to just sit against a squarely cut edge. That would be another critical step in getting it right that would require the proper equipment for designing these. These two steps would quite literally make the design of an acrylic drum useless when not done to precision specs.
I think you missed your calling in comedy my friend. also legit hilarious you put Puresound wires on the jinbao 😂
Dude, I have no musical talent at all. I know nothing about drums. I have no interest in drums! So why am I watching this? The same reason I started watching you review MP3 Nuggets when I had no interest in those either. For your personality! You always give me a lift in mood. Cheers Matey!
Man, I love that purple dw kit
SURPRISE WOBBLINESS INSPECTION