I have a diplomat snare and medium Weathermaster on mine. sounds killer! Just mess with the tuning until you get the sound you want, I always have my reso side a bit tighter than the batter. Saw Mavis Staples and another Chicago band this week and both drummers were using Acro's, Stephen Hodges, Mavis' drummer was getting the coolest sounds out of that thing!! He is a tasty player!

lucky nailed it all. ive used coated remo ambassadors up top as well and also ludwig snare side heads. the key is to crank the snare side,adjust the snares properly and then adjust the batter to the sound youre looking for. crank the batter and its real crispy much like a supra. loosen the batter and it almost sounds woody. these are the same exact high ends shells that ludwig used on the supraphonics. enjoy it.

mike

Ludwig serial numbers, right from the horses mouth. The list says 1966, not 1972.

http://www.ludwig-drums.com/features/hoamld/serialnumbers.php

Always post pix of drums, numbers don't tell the whole story.

Sometimes numbers are meaningless.

How to make an Acrolite sing?

Take it down to the river, put its feet in concrete, and threaten to throw it in the water.

can you post a pic of the drum and the badge? also as already mentioned, crank the heads tight on top and bottom, like mike m. stated I tune the bottom head higher or tighter than the top head but only slightly, I use the Tama tension watch and tune the bottom head to 82-85 and the top head to 80. If you want a little darker sound use a remo emperor on top and a ambassador bottom head or Ludwig clear snare head. also steel snare wires are better than brass wires, puresound does make steel snare wires now.

lol...I was thinking along the same lines!

:)

http://youtu.be/WhuB0Wo-noE

That's just mean... actually, I've never heard any of my Acrolite's sing. But they do yodel! I'd play some old Slim Whitman records. If he's just not the thing, play those Acro's this; yodels with a swing!

http://youtu.be/WhuB0Wo-noE

Knowing it is a Blue/Olive badge helps a lot.

Yes the serial suggests 1969, but remember that the "out of sequence -- unnumbered" time which is noted for 1970 shows things were a bit more complicated. And we know from some drums that the shell may have been made in one year and then sat on the shelves for 2 years or more before it was finally assembled. With the old ink date stamps the badge could be much later. And the badges came from bins where a run of numbers was dumped when it got too low. So again the numbered badges aren't always in perfect sequence. A particular drum might get the last (much older) badges at the bottom of the bin.

I believe 4272 does mean it that the sticker is 1972. And the sticker may have been stuck in at assembly time which was much later than the badge went on the shell. For all the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, discrepancies of two years are seen.

Also, the published serial number resources are a little out of date. Thanks to ebay (much more data flows past these days) and a few keen monitors there are new data points being added all the time from drums which have both dates in the shell and serial numbers on the badge. Stay tuned for updates.

All I can ad to this is I got a 68 Acro with a purchase from a yard sale. The rims were rusted pretty bad and the shell is pretty scrathed up. With some elbo grease I got it looking much better but it still looks like someone did not take too good of care for it over the years. Just wanted to say I love the thing its my favorite snare ( I only have 8 snares) and I too use a remo Ambassador batter and crank it down. I did not know that these have the same shell as the Supras, interesting!

Jeff C