The one thing I can't live with....

Bo Eder

Platinum Member
You know, I like vintage drums. My newest kit looks vintage, but has modern engineering, but my second kit is sort of considered vintage, being built in the late 80s. But I've noticed over the years, the one thing I hate about vintage drums, and I keep thinking my attitude would change about this, are bass drum T-rods.

In my case, I'm not sure what Tama was thinking with the Granstar design in the late 80s. The stock T-rods are HUGE and probably a little dangerous. And over time, they just get bent, and every time you walk by the kit your pants get caught on them, or worse, like me, you cut your leg on them!

But every kit I've owned, Slingerland, Ludwig, Gretsch, et al.,...if they had T-rods, I'm replacing them with regular key-operated rods. It makes me wonder why manufacturers didn't just start doing this from the beginning? How many of you recall back in the day when you went to load in your bass drum into the backseat of someone's car and ended up tearing the upholstery because of the T-rods? How many of you have walked by your drumset and had the T-rod catch on your pants but you keep walking? If you're big, you probably pulled the kit with you, or if you're small like me, the kit just stops you mid-stride causing embarrassment!

You young ones are lucky today - bass drums don't come with T-rods anymore, so you'll never experience the horrors my generation did. Good for you!
 
I'm with you but I still use 'em because it is so easy to make a quick adjustment at the gig.
I have rods that use a drum key on either side of the bass drum pedal so they don't hit the floor at a weird angle.
 
Love the look of them. Nothing screams "vintage" to me like a glistening T-rod. But the practicalities certainly have a few downsides.......T-rods continually getting caught on the sides of bags/cases was a pet peeve of mine.

FWIW....late 80's.....not vintage. I refuse to accept it. Great drums, but we ain't that old yet my friend. :)
 
I TOTALLY agree about T-Rods. For me the problem was the two on the bottom on the batter head: they would often get untuned. Peace and goodwill.
 
I have "T" rods on my DW classic bass drum and also my Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute. Yamaha has their own more modern design, but the DW has more of the traditional nostalgic looking tension T rods. I like them, especially when I have to make a quick adjustment. Through the years, I sometimes had trouble with a rod or two detuning when inserting or extracting the bass drum into its case, but I never had any "snatch" or "catch" problems with clothing associated with the rods. The bottom two rods on both of those kits have the tradition key heads because of the drums close proximity to the floor.

I guess some T rods are just more prone to snatching onto a person. It's just one of those things that would not influence me either way or become a determining factor on the purchase of a drum kit, if I was attracted to its sound.

Dennis
 
FWIW....late 80's.....not vintage. I refuse to accept it. Great drums, but we ain't that old yet my friend. :)

True, not really vintage, but getting there. Hell, I look at those lipstick red Granstars and see a set that couldn't have existed at any other time. I remember when people were doing the bright neon colors on everything in the 80s. Fender did it to their Strats (probably the worst selling era for Strats ever) and we got to see bad 80s movies like "Valley Girl" and whatnot. Definitely an era to be embarrassed about ;)

I hope people get the joke when I play these things in public....

But for the life of me, I try to like the T-rods and I always go to regular tension rods after a while just because I don't want to deal with it. Bless you guys that love them, but I'm afraid I let function dictate what I like a bit more.
 
I HATE THEM!!! If you move your kit a lot, they are always snagging on something and screwing up your tuning.
 
Agree with all the downsides - snagging and detuning - but I prefer them. Getting down to the bottom lugs with a drum key is a real pain, unless you have the chance to upend the drum in a break.

I wish all drums had finger tuning capability - drums keys wear out and they're easy to lose. I keep one on my key chain just in case (tuning with a bunch of keys attached isn't fun but at least it's doable).
 
I don't mind them. All my kits have had them so I don't know any different. I think my Rockstar kit had regular tension rods for the bottom two. I try to keep them all parallel to the hoop. One thing they come in handy for is to provide a hook to wrap the seat belt around when I strap it in my front seat. I found a scratch on my floor tom's new wrap and sure enough it came from the T-rod on the bass drum. That's one thing that annoyed me.
 
I remember when people were doing the bright neon colors on everything in the 80s.
Definitely an era to be embarrassed about ;)

I hope people get the joke when I play these things in public....
That'll be a good portion of 2012 Mydentity kits then ;) (I'm joking, of course, but Sticks will still take it personally & send me "messages" via Youtube)

As for T rods, yes Bo, I'm not a fan. Never really got the "great if you need to adjust on the fly" pov either. Of all the drums on a kit, I think the bass drum is the one that's least likely to require a tuning tweak mid set, but maybe that's just me. Why not put the damn things on the tom reso head side too, as they're typically a bummer to get to in a hurry.

I'm with Pocket too, 80's = vintage, I don't think so. I may be in denial, but that was last month as far as my brain's concerned (the body, however, has a different take on that).
 
I'm with Pocket too, 80's = vintage, I don't think so. I may be in denial, but that was last month as far as my brain's concerned (the body, however, has a different take on that).

When I started out in the mid 70s, a kit from the 40s - thirty years earlier - would have been called vintage.

With the technical improvements in the last 30 years I'd call my old 1979 Rogers kit vintage - it would look pretty quaint next to the slick machines being made today.

Still, music (arguably?) changed more markedly from 1952 to 1982 than it did from '82 to 2012 so it might feel like a bigger gap to middle aged players ... although I wouldn't entirely discount your denial theory :)
 
I hate T-rods. If I buy a kit that has them, I change them out ASAP.

Quick question for y'all about the whole vintage thing... How old does a drum have to be to be considered vintage? I remember in the 90s, 70s kits were considered vintage. So by now, the 80s kits should fall in that category too, right? I remember hearing somewhere that 25 years old is the mark. If that's the case, anything from 1987 or before would be considered vintage (including the earlier Granstars). Thoughts?
 
I hate T-rods. If I buy a kit that has them, I change them out ASAP.

Quick question for y'all about the whole vintage thing... How old does a drum have to be to be considered vintage? I remember in the 90s, 70s kits were considered vintage. So by now, the 80s kits should fall in that category too, right? I remember hearing somewhere that 25 years old is the mark. If that's the case, anything from 1987 or before would be considered vintage (including the earlier Granstars). Thoughts?
If the hardware's incapable of securely holding the drums, then it's vintage, lol :)
 
T rods are all I've ever known and I've never felt the compulsion to change them. In fact, it's odd to think of them as "vintage." I have more of an issue with old bass drums spurs. Even as a kid (way back in the 1800's) it was obvious the design they used was not the best idea.
 
If the hardware's incapable of securely holding the drums, then it's vintage, lol :)

Nooo, my old Rogers had great big thick cast iron tubes holding the toms (and the bass drum legs, which was clunky to look at). The hardware was a whole lot tougher than that on my RT (and it needed to be!). It also had the tremendous advantage of T-rods on the bass :)

I think the big difference has come in middling kits. These days mid end kits are much, much better than back then.

By the same token, I'm not sure any manufacturers today produce kits as low quality as the Aria kit I started with in '75. The fittings on that kit taught me the value of gaffa tape :)

But high end gear of pretty well any era is good IMO. My old Drouyn snare, which is about my age, is still a good drum, if an individual sound.
 
They should be 3-5 inches wide and on every drum on the kit. :)
 
I am not a big fan of the t rod myself.

They came with my DW classics, but I ordered PDP bass drum rods as replacements. If I would have ordered the DW rods they would have cost a lot more for what is essentially the same rod as the PDPs.

I used to keep one t rod on the bass drum batter side lug at the two o clock position. I did this so I could hang a drum key from it for quick access.

I have a pile of Ludwig, DW, and assorted generic t rods that somebody will pick up cheap when I have my drum gear blow out.

Barry
 
How about Sonor's design?

claw.jpg
 
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