Vox Telstar Steal!

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Probably a bit of both. I'm sure once I finish wrapping it I'll play it a bit. If I can get the bass drum to sound good it could be fun "bop" type kit. If it doesn't really work for me it becomes a display piece. Honestly, I will never have a chance at owning another kit with such a strange look to it at this price, so despite it's flaws I kind of feel like it's still worth keeping. It just needs to look a bit better if it's going to sit in a corner.
 
Tommy D said:
Probably a bit of both. I'm sure once I finish wrapping it I'll play it a bit. If I can get the bass drum to sound good …
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I have owned 4 Trixon Speedfire bass drums and now 2 Vox reproductions and have always had difficulties getting the heads seated to the bearing edges. Seems like the bottom on the flat never seats well. If anyone has some tips I would appreciate hearing them.

Tommy … did you run the wrap all the way to the edges or did you leave a bit to help with the hoops fitting?
 
dboomer said:
I have owned 4 Trixon Speedfire bass drums and now 2 Vox reproductions and have always had difficulties getting the heads seated to the bearing edges. Seems like the bottom on the flat never seats well. If anyone has some tips I would appreciate hearing them.

Tommy … did you run the wrap all the way to the edges or did you leave a bit to help with the hoops fitting?
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My bass drum is 12 7/8" in depth. I cut my wrap to 12 1/4" width. So, it's off the edge by a little under 3/8". I have no issues mounting the bass drum heads.
 
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I don't think I've bought new drums before. What's this?
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StewartCropeland said:
I don't think I've bought new drums before. What's this? View attachment 638481
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Actually old school felt strip for muffling. (Still a valid solution)

Felt strip on resonant, batter or both bass drum heads?

I was asked this question today and I was kinda stumped. The drummer wants to use only ONE felt strip and he likes an open tone on his 20" Gretsch bassdrum with Remo coated ambassadors. I gave it some thought and suggested he place it offset on the batter side thinking he'll get a good thump...
www.drumforum.org www.drumforum.org
20200916_084308-jpg.465758
 
- BD sounds excellent recording with a D6 less than a foot from batter head with both mufflers applied. I prefer the sound with the beater hitting the very (horizontal) middle of the head, but there's a tuner there, so just to the right for me. Again, this plays like an 18" or 20" bass, but the one broad 26" side does give it lows too. Looks a whole lot weirder than it sounds.

- For the most part, I'm ok with the parts chosen, although I did swap out the BD claws. With these BD heads you're kind of locked into a 60s sound and that approach suits this set throughout. This hardware is quite robust by those standards, although I'm not messing with the stands or pedals - those will be giveaways.

- Yasso, the build quality isn't great here. The bottom rows of lug holes have all been enlarged, presumably to tweak the spacing for these lugs. One of the 13" bearing edges had some missing wood and needed quite a bit of TLC. The shells are only maple on the inner and outer plies. The supplied tom and snare heads are too narrow-collared to fit the supplied counter hoops, but regular heads fit fine. I found some damage on mine that suggests it could be a return.

- So the toms are very good-sounding, if a bit generic. The snare is a dud and the bass drum is a gas. The vinyl is cheap and easy to apply, though not very durable or (I'm assuming) UV-resistant. In the sun it's bright orange, sorta coral pinkish in lower light.
 

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Nice. I'm still waiting for the replacement air vents to arrive before I wrap the toms and snare. Did you get your wrap at the fabric store or was it from some place online?
 
After seeing the great jobs you guys did I'm thinking about wrapping. But when I do I’m gonna move up the cymbal mount up closer to the tom mount which is where it is on Trixon units.
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FloydZKing said:
- BD sounds excellent recording with a D6 less than a foot from batter head with both mufflers applied. I prefer the sound with the beater hitting the very (horizontal) middle of the head, but there's a tuner there, so just to the right for me. Again, this plays like an 18" or 20" bass, but the one broad 26" side does give it lows too. Looks a whole lot weirder than it sounds.

- For the most part, I'm ok with the parts chosen, although I did swap out the BD claws. With these BD heads you're kind of locked into a 60s sound and that approach suits this set throughout. This hardware is quite robust by those standards, although I'm not messing with the stands or pedals - those will be giveaways.

- Yasso, the build quality isn't great here. The bottom rows of lug holes have all been enlarged, presumably to tweak the spacing for these lugs. One of the 13" bearing edges had some missing wood and needed quite a bit of TLC. The shells are only maple on the inner and outer plies. The supplied tom and snare heads are too narrow-collared to fit the supplied counter hoops, but regular heads fit fine. I found some damage on mine that suggests it could be a return.

- So the toms are very good-sounding, if a bit generic. The snare is a dud and the bass drum is a gas. The vinyl is cheap and easy to apply, though not very durable or (I'm assuming) UV-resistant. In the sun it's bright orange, sorta coral pinkish in lower light.
Click to expand...

What did you replace the cymbal arm with? I see the Pearl logo and that looks a lot more useful.
 
Rob G. said:
What did you replace the cymbal arm with? I see the Pearl logo and that looks a lot more useful.
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It's just the top stage of a Pearl stand with some threaded extensions above the tilter, Gibraltar I think. Yes, the stock arm placement is too far off-center.
 
Tommy D said:
Nice. I'm still waiting for the replacement air vents to arrive before I wrap the toms and snare. Did you get your wrap at the fabric store or was it from some place online?
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I got this on Amazon, but when I scouted the Joann Fabric store, I did nearly buy the same stuff that you used. Lots of it on Ebay too, as cheap as $15 a yard, 52" width.
 
dboomer said:
H


How much fabric does it take?
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2 yards is probably enough. I got 3 and have tons left over. I never did measure the BD's circumference, I just dry-fitted it and cut it to size. Check to be sure the BD piece isn't bigger than 72" or just get 3 yards.
 
It's larger than 72" but if you are okay having 2 seams, which pretty much every Delmar wrapped bass drum has, then you really only need 62-64" to get to the lugs right under the legs. Of course you need another ~24" to go under the bass drum which takes away from the rest of your material, but you could probably use the scraps to make the 13" and 14" drum in the same space as you did the bottom of the BD. I haven't really run the math on that though. If you have 52" in width you should have plenty, even if you can't make the 14" with the scraps. The floor tom is only going to need ~15" in width so you should be fine with 2 yards if you are okay with 2 seams on the bass drum.
 
The air vents came in today. They look to be direct replacements for the originals and their build quality is right on par for the kit. I also have memory locks for the floor tom legs. They are genuine Pearl memory locks used on most of their kits. Far better quality than any of the other hardware on the kit.

So I have some extras of all this that I can sell to anyone who is looking to wrap their kit. I have 1 set of 3 air vents and 3 memory locks and 2 sets of 2 air vents and 3 memory locks. Thats just how the math worked. If you don't want to use the original snare, don't bother wrapping it. Just wrap to 2 toms and only use 2 vents. I'm not looking to make any money off this, so the pack of 3 and 3 is $15+shipping and the pack of 2 and 3 if $14+shipping. Shipping will likely be USPS in a bubble envelope so it shouldn't cost too much.

20230914_210659.jpg
 
lamartee said:
Actually old school felt strip for muffling. (Still a valid solution)

Felt strip on resonant, batter or both bass drum heads?

I was asked this question today and I was kinda stumped. The drummer wants to use only ONE felt strip and he likes an open tone on his 20" Gretsch bassdrum with Remo coated ambassadors. I gave it some thought and suggested he place it offset on the batter side thinking he'll get a good thump...
www.drumforum.org www.drumforum.org
20200916_084308-jpg.465758
Click to expand...
I use 100% pure wool..from Slug Percussion……and..only ONE strip ….on batter head…..Almost always sounds great!
 
dboomer said:
When I ordered a second tom (both 13”) it came with a tom arm. I just moved the cymbal mount (exactly the same as the tom mount) to the spot I needed for a second tom.

The shells on these kits are from Sakae and are top quality. But the hardware basically sucks. I modified the clamps in the tom mounts because they wouldn’t hold a tom steady. I faked some memory locks, but if anyone has found some that actually fit to where the key will fit in the tom mount please let me know.

You either like the bass drum or not, but these kits sound great in my opinion. The snare drum was surprisingly good.
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How you do know these shells are from Sakae ?
 
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