Greetings,

I picked up this PTS kit on Craigslist for a trade. I traded the guy a lower end Tama Piccolo Snare and an MIJ WMP 6 lug snare straight up for these.

Amazingly, there are no missing hooks (!) and everything is original, except for the snare throw. All three toms have Coated Ambassador Mellow heads on the top and bottom. The snare has a Coated Ambassador Bright with a no stamp indicated on the snare side head. The snare also came with an extra Coated Ambassador Mellow head. I tried that and it significantly lowered the pitch of the drum. I stuck with the original Ambassador Bright. The bass drum has an Ambassador Dark batter and the Remo PTS logo front head. The white wrap is actually more like contact paper, and cleaned up amazingly. I think the shells are made of fiberglass? They are super lightweight. All the drums have a date stamped on the inside of Oct 22, 1982.

Sizes are 8” x 12”, 9” x 13” and 14” (Depth) x 16” (Head) Floor tom. Bass is 14” x 22” and the snare is 5” x 14”. The drums look deeper than that, because the heads don’t come as far down on the shell as they would on a regular drum (and there is no counter hoop over them), so more of the shell shows than on a normal drum, thus making them seem deeper than normal. Also, the snare surprisingly has good quality snare beds cut.

It’s fun to play these! The 12” tom is super high pitched, very jazzy and Art Blakey sounding. The 13” is pretty “normal” sounding for a 9” x 13”, and the floor tom is also super high pitched. It sounds like a cranked 14”! The snare actually sounds pretty good, and the bass is just ok. There is no internal muffling on the bass heads, so I put a bath towel on the bottom touching each head, so it still has tone but is more controlled now. Certainly not my dream kit or anything high end, but cool, collectible and unique.

I had remembered these kits, but I also learned a few things I didn’t know about them. First, the “latches” (aka lugs) that apply/release tension on the hooks are riveted into the shell (not screwed), so converting these to a “real drum” would be more challenging than usual (not that I want to do that). Also, by having the extra head, I can tell you that the heads really are “pre-tuned” (who woulda thought, right?). What I mean by that is, the tone, pitch and tension of the drum is literally all in the head. Placing it on the shell and applying the tension hooks doesn’t really do anything to the pitch or feel of the head. Honestly, the hooks are just there to keep the head on the shell, it does not affect the sound or feel of the pre-tuned head at all, at least in my experience.

Finally, some of the hooks have lost their tension and fall off during play because they are loose. This doesn’t affect the sound or feel as I mentioned before, but they tend to rattle around (not to mention making it look uncool). Does anyone have any tips or tricks to tighten the “Connecters” (aka the pieces that look like they have been fashioned out of paper clips) between the latch and hook to get the tension tighter?

Also, even with the tension fairly tight on all hooks, I still notice a little bit of a rattle. I was thinking about, just for experimentation, to replace the “paper clip” style connectors with thin plastic zip ties (there are two very small holes on either side of the latch that the paper clip thing feeds through, and the top of the paper clip thing sits inside the bottom of the hook). I figured I could easily adjust the tension with a zip tie that way too, and being plastic they wouldn’t rattle. I also thought about putting a small piece of adhesive felt on the “hoop” of each head where the hook rests, so that there is no metal to metal contact.

Thoughts and comments appreciated.

Thanks!

V