Would somebody please buy these drums?

...before I have a moment of weakness and do something stupid? This set of 70s Sonor Phonics in all the right sizes has been on eBay for a couple of months now, for a pretty darned reasonable price. It's got 10, 12, 13, and 14" toms, and a 20" bass drum. The finish is not the most desirable in the world, but it's not terrible either— it seems to be pretty common, so you stand a reasonable chance of finding an orphaned 18" BD or 16" FT— the only other drums you could possibly want to add to this. The seller says the BD and FT are Centennials, and the other drums are regular Phonics, but they're all the same thing. Exact same drums.

I fell in love with Phonics several years ago when I borrowed a bop set for a jazz tour, rock recording session, and one rock gig in Belgium. It had been a long time since I had gotten really excited about a particular brand of drums. After a couple of years I found my own set, and they've been great. Very punchy with a low tuning, almost pianistic with a high tuning. The 18" bass drum is a monster, and the 20 must absolutely rock. Very early 90s Joey Baron.

If you're a player, and DGAF about a finish that's slightly dated, I'd be contacting this guy and trying to finagle free shipping on these suckers.

Two killer drum sets — UPDATED

UPDATE: Both sets have been relisted, with a significant price drop on the Sonors. Don't make me call these guys and beg them to ship the drums to Portland, and incur some debt I don't really need right now. 

I hope I'm not ruining somebody else's bargain by pointing these out, but a couple of really great drum sets turned up on eBay just in the past couple of days, and I would rather my readers got them, than some other non-CSD!-reading, undeserving, rabble...

Sonor Phonic Centennial 10/12/13/14/20
starting bid $1700, BIN $2500
RELISTED: starting bid $1500, BIN $2000

After playing and recording with some Sonor Phonics in Belgium in 2012, I had being driving myself crazy trying to get a set, and finally found some last year. These are the ones with the fat, 9-ply beech shells. Not many Phonics turn up in usable sizes, like these; you can get them in rock & roll sizes for under $1000, but non-power tom sets with 18 or 20" bass drums tend to be up in the high teen-hundreds or low 2000s. It's not an insane value, but not absolutely ridiculous, either. They are special instruments, though, and, to me, worth the money. I think I paid $1800 for my 12/14/18 bop set, and will probably be spending another $500 to add 10 and 13" toms, if I ever find them, so I think you're getting a pretty darned good deal here. Fortunately the auction doesn't include that goofy snare drum.

Eames 10/12/14/18
$900-1200, depending on options
RELISTED: $1200 OBO

I would totally be buying these if I had not just gotten my Phonics. These are right in the sweet spot for quality / size / price / not having anything goofy about them. The toms are a little deeper than standard, but that's cool— it's not some ridiculous-looking power tom set. But this is the type of deal I hold out for when buying new drums; I basically would never pay more than this... except to get my Sonors. The Eames company, custom drum shell manufacturers, have been overshadowed somewhat by Keller with the drum-building crowd, but they're great drums. I just picked up a Craviotto-built (in the 80s) snare drum with a thin Eames shell, and I love the thing. The seller is offering some purchase options— I would be getting these with the snare drum, and without the die-cast hoops (assuming they provide standard hoops instead).


Both sellers are in the US Northeast, and say they'll do pickup only, but maybe you can cajole them into doing something for you. Whatever you do, resolve that before you buy...

Sonor Phonics are something else

As I mentioned, I just picked up a Sonor Phonic bop set, which I had been coveting for a couple of years. My overwhelming impression is that this is really the Tiger tank of bop drum sets, not least because they're really, ridiculously heavy, and look it— the floor tom weighs about as much as the 12 and 14 together from the Slingerland Artist Custom set the Sonors replaced. And the Slingerlands are not light drums.

Tuned low, the drums “play” two inches bigger than they are— the bass drum, 4 inches. They feel and sound huge, like driving a very large car. Like Bonham. It's insane. God knows what playing a larger set would be like, but rock-sized Phonics in standard depths can still be gotten pretty cheaply, if anyone is curious— I've seen some pretty ridiculous bargains on those.

In a jazz tuning, they have a lot of presence and clarity, with a very round sound. Very tonal and Dejohnette-like. Like real Gretsch drums (~20+ year old ones, before they started screwing with their formula), the Phonics have a unique sound. I can't put my finger on it, but it's rather 70's, and a definite change from the more contemporary-sounding Slingerlands (still available on eBay for a few more hours!) which have been my main drums for the last five years.

The Eames snare drum sounds great, too. Very refined, different from any other snare drum I've owned. Highly recommend trying their shells if you're building a drum— used prices on complete drums sets are extremely reasonable, too.

New drum day

OK, my rig just got about 40 pounds heavier.

Mainly, my new late-80's Sonor Phonic jazz set has finally arrived. I've been coveting a set of these since I played one, loaned to me by a great drummer, Teun Verbruggen, in Belgium in 2012. I did a tour with my own jazz quartet, and made a rock record with my girlfriend Casey Scott, and also did a loudish gig with her, unmiked, and they performed exceptionally well in all those settings. I haven't been that excited about a set of drums in a long time. This one has the black wrap, as opposed to the more coveted rosewood finish, but that's fine— no need to get greedy. And these are totally mint.

The Phonic line were Sonor's standard pro drums through the 70s and 80s, with very fat 9-ply beech shells. Their ad campaign at the time featured a large German man squatting on a Phonic shell to illustrate their strength, stoutness, heavy-duty-ness. And they are heavy— clearly they didn't go out of their way to compensate for the very robust shells by slimming down the hardware. At that time way-too-heavy hardware was all the rage, and I suspect they actually wanted to communicate their seriousness on this point in a visceral way, by making their drums way too damn heavy.





But then around the late 80s suddenly everyone decided that thin shells were really what it was all about, and the line fell out of favor... I don't think it helped that many of the Phonics floating around were sized-up; lots of 24" bass drums, 13/14" mounted toms, lots of drums with the absurd super-power-tom depth— with the depth greater than the diameter. And a lot of their hardware was kind of goofy. Suddenly Sonor Phonics were to drums what the 70s Buick Riviera was to cars— big, outlandish, and in rather poor taste:

Happily, they also made a fair number of bop sets— with 12/14/18" drums in standard depths— the drums I played in Belgium. A few of those made it to the US, which brings us back around to where we are today, to me unpacking MY NEW SONOR PHONICS...

...sorry, I've been using a lot of all-caps lately, and I'm excited...

...and testing them out. They're absolutely ridiculous. I have them tuned down, and the sound is just gigantic— the bass drum, and everything... stay tuned...

The other new item is a custom snare drum built by Johnny Craviotto back in the late 80's. It's a 7x14", with a thin birch Eames shell (1/4", 6-ply, “Finetone”), finished with that classic Eames finish you see on a lot of these drums— a light brown stain— with triple-flanged hoop on top (which I like for rim shots), and die cast on the bottom (not sure why that choice, but it's fine with me). The lug casings are from a 1930's Slingerland Radio King bass drum, and it's got a Radio King badge, which is just atmospheric; Slingerland never made a drum like this, and they're obviously not meaning to pass it off as one. I already own one early Craviotto drum, from his company Select (also briefly called Solid, or vice-versa), so I kind of had to have this one.

If you don't know about the Eames company, they've been making high-end custom drum shells for many decades. For some reason they never broke through with the little custom drum builders in the same way as Keller did, but they've hung around, and have maybe preserved their brand mystique a little better. Keller makes great shells, and always have, but maybe with success has come a little bit of overexposure, and their name doesn't inspire people that they are getting a unique, custom product, the way it used to.

Anyway, I needed a drum for a session in Los Angeles next month, and guessed correctly that this would be the right one for it. Right out of the box it sounds great. I don't think I'll even take off the moleskin the previous owner installed on the batter side. Just a perfect, refined, moderate-volume backbeat drum. Also a great concert snare drum, which I'll be using in lessons.

By the way, to pay for these suckers, I am selling a number of items, including an excellent Keller-shell(!) Slingerland bop set. Checkum out.