Ugly Ducklings

[permanent hearing damage]

I can't be the only one with a bunch of gear that looks like shit that still does a good job, no? What have you got that looks like hell but you still use all the time?

recently scored an Oktavamod MK319 with a dented to hell headbasket for $225 that sounds great!

I have a DW brass snare (pre-collectors lines, people don't tend to love em) that looks like it came from the Titanic (I took it on an awful lot of tours), but it sounds awesome - even beats my black beauty and noble and cooley solid shells for some projects.

My Soundelux U195 has a smashed headbasket - my doing, dropped it!, but still sounds great

[alexdingley]

Yeah... I have two 1980's dbx 160X's — one looks like a regular black-face... the other looks like it was lightly sandblasted year over year over year... it's a faded great with white-ish spots. But both of them sound nearly identical to each other & they work great.

[drumsound]

My Gretsch 10" has a couple of big gouges from when I was the house drummer at a blues jam. There are other nicks and dings on the set. There are a couple small tears and two elbow indents on the console arm rest. Various mics have various dents, mostly from being dropped.

[kslight]

One of my Tascam 388’s looks a bit like hell, and has burnt out half the meter lights, etc... but otherwise a really strong running machine. When i bought it it had come from a storage locker foreclosure and i almost regretted the purchase....it looked really bad. But after cleaning it up didn’t have any problems. A few years later I had the heads relapped and aligned it. This is the one i travel with.

I’ve got a couple pawn shop special keyboards...an Ensoniq ESQ1 which someone must have dropped because the top octave of keys were broken and the hinges were broken. I bought for $100 and took it apart, took all the broken key pieces out...rebuilt the PS, replaced the battery...velco-d the top on...

And an Akai AX60 which has a pretty rough paint job. But it was $33.


Ugly ducklings don’t bother me too much when priced right. There’s one somewhat rare guitar I’ve been watching where the seller doesn’t seem to want to adjust their price even though it looks like hell. I think i could accept the condition of it but I also feel like I could come across a much better looking one for the same price or only slightly higher. I’ve seen better ones come and go for the past several months (didn’t have money at the time) while this one just sits there.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I have so many. I've built my studio and livelihood on these kind of pieces.
I have an amazing hand made classical from spain that the previous owner had covered in goopy, drippy shellac and black paint (they painted the fingerboard black, frets and all). Somewhere under all that crap is a beautiful guitar. I stripped it and it sound amazing. Still looks like shit though.
My re15 looks like it's been through a war and a bunch of my 421s are held together with zip ties and tape. They sound great though.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

that bottom dbx what the hell? what'd they do to that poor thing.

my tele has a gnarly gouge in it, but it's still a beauty.

i had a 'blackrolite' ludwig snare for awhile, the previous owner had wrapped the whole thing in duct tape, or something equally stupid. i was scrubbing the gunk off that thing forever. alas that drum was like the one bad sounding acrolite in existence. i could never get a good sound out of it, so away it went.

otherwise i got nuthin'. my shit's all tip top.

i DID just have to have extensive work done on the land around my new studio building, so the lawn really looks like hell now. does that count?

[winky dinglehoffer]

When I got this M201 it looked like someone had hacksawed it around the base of the capsule area. It still worked, so I put a little JB Weld on to secure everything. The capsule rattles in the body a bit, which is probably why it got hacksawed in the first place, but it sounds pretty good as long as it doesn't get moved while in use.

[losthighway]

The drummer of my band in college had a DW set with a shiny blue wrap. He got tired of the wrap and removed it to reveal three different colored drums. A mismatched (but all DW, all maple) kit had been rewrapped to be sold as a package.

Later he was working in a local drum shop and got an urgent need to move to NYC. The guys in the shop said they didn't want to give him cash outright for an ugly, mismatched kit, but they'd send him $300 if they ever managed to sell it.

To which I said, "So you're telling me that if I gave you $350 for this DW kit today I'd be doing you a favor?"

He said, "Yes, you would."

I said, "I'll be right back." And went to an ATM.

That was the day I became a drummer.

[Scodiddly]

I've got a half-dozen original CAD E100 mics. Some of them are a bit on the ugly side... especially the one I bought from a Music-Go-Round with a melted battery.

[vvv]

AKG D310_Grottie by mike lake, on Flickr

[Recycled_Brains]

My 441 shows several signs of "uhhh, I accidentally whacked the snare mic during that take. Sorry."

[markjazzbassist]

I have so many. I've built my studio and livelihood on these kind of pieces

same here, being frugal like i am i actually seek out this gear to purchase and either clean up and flip or keep for myself if its cool. some favorites below:

1969 fender jazz bass - all original but body was refinished, so i got it for a steal. sounds/plays amazing and i toured the us/can/eu with it back when i did that stuff.
1981 realistic/moog mg-1 synth - previous owner had it sitting in garage so there's white goop dripped all over it. smells like cat piss. i got it for dirt cheap, i simply cleaned it up and then modded the filter path to be the same as a minimoog, sounds amazing and i just took sharpie over the white paint stuff so you can't even tell now.
1981 tascam 22-4 reel recorder - was at a planetarium for years and they wanted rid, they said "no idea if it works", i bought it and cleaned it up, works great and has great head cnodition. sure it has "PROPERTY OF PLANETARIUM XYZ" written all over it in sharpie but for 100 bucks i have a 4 track reel
1995 ibanez tl-5 tremolo pedal - these are super cheap, but i found one with the label missing and battery cover missing, it's gonna live in the studio, who cares? got it for 15 bucks, sounds better than any other trem pedal i've owned
1978 electro harmonix small stone - someone sanded the finish off the pedal (WTF?) so it's literally a sheet metal box with a rough sanded top with a knob and switch. who gives a shit, circuit is untouched, these go for 100 bucks regularly online, got it for 50, sounds the same as other vintage ones i've owned.

i love the beat looking gear, saves me money

[vvv]

I use that criterion for cars, guitars and girlfriends.

You know, "Rode hard and left out overnight to get rained on."

[drumsound]

i love the beat looking gear, saves me money

I always tell people looking for used instruments to ALWAYS play the beat up and dinged up ones. Those are the ones that someone chose to play. A used, old instrument in perfect shape, generally, wasn't inspiring.

[kslight]

i love the beat looking gear, saves me money

I always tell people looking for used instruments to ALWAYS play the beat up and dinged up ones. Those are the ones that someone chose to play. A used, old instrument in perfect shape, generally, wasn't inspiring.

I’m okay with ones that have some play in them, but then I come across some that look like they’ve been dropped repeatedly/willfully destroyed...which I don’t get...at least when I look at equipment that was expensive when it was new. But a few dings and scuffs don’t bother me. Those instruments hurt less when I accidentally add my own dings to it.