Sweet Spot Lo Rider Clutch

I love it when companies specialise in one thing, do it well and continue to innovate.  Personally my drum set is a collection of specialty items such as the Vector bass drum pedal, Reunion Blues cymbal bag, Bopworks Mel Lewis sticks, Tackle Waxed Canvas Compact Drumstick Bag, and most importantly Craig Lauritsen hand-made cymbals. I'll be reviewing these and other items in coming posts.

Not that buying all your bits from one manufacturer isn't a good idea. I'm sure they have their own internal R&D departments and look for new and better products to bring to market. But, I respect the entrepreneurial spirit which drives someone to do one thing better than anyone else.

This time I'd like to talk about the Sweet Spot Lo Rider Clutch. Sweet Spot has been around for a while, specialising in, as the name implies, the hi-hat clutch.  This is the bit of kit which holds the top hi-hat cymbal and secures it to the hi-hat centre rod to allow the foot to raise and lower the top hi-hat cymbal. it's been around in some form or another since the low-boy cymbal of the 1920's.  Various improvements and changes have occurred over the years.  

I was glad to see Sweet Spot enter the market with a high-quality clutch with clever features such as aluminium lock washers and plastic inner-thread protectors.  I've wrestled a small PVC tube in my clutches for 25 years to protect my cymbals, and this seemingly obvious feature had eluded clutch-makers until now.

However aesthetically, the SS clutches really weren't my thing.  They were 'flamboyant', clearly intended for the metal crowd.  Fair enough, but just not my cup of tea.  I've been using an old Ludwig hi-hat clutch from the 40's, and what I like about it is the small form factor and weight distribution, which gives the clutch speed and balance. What I don’t like about it is the rod-hole diameter of 5mm.  I've had to have my DW hi-hat rods shaved down to accomodate it. The Sweet Spot clutches were clearly well-designed, but seemed tall, which would distribute the weight along more broadly, the and make them feel top-heavy.

My old Ludwig, close to perfection even for a 70+ year-old clutch

Then, mid 2017, Sweet Spot introduced their Lo Rider clutch.  it was small, similar form-factor to my trusty old Ludwig, and looked to be machined to a high standard.  I placed my order.

When the clutch arrived I was not disappointed.  it is made of solid stainless steel, with anodised aluminium bottom locking nuts. I chose the wing-screw as opposed to their 'signature' hex-nut, both for personal aesthetic and functional reasons, as I didn't want to be reliant upon a hex-wrench to tighten my hi-hat, and I admit to being a bit of a traditionalist, and an 'if it ain't broke...' kind of guy.

Sweet Spot clutch as it arrived, beautifully machined

The balance on the clutch is perfectly centre-weighted, making it feel light, barely noticeable in fact.  It accommodates my DW Ultra-light rod as well.  I love the 'wear-sleeve' as SS calls it, the plastic inner-sleeve which protects the cymbals from wear against the centre threads.

I did make a couple of alterations:

1. I replaced the standard felt washers with vintage white felt washers. Not for aesthetic reasons, but because the felt of old seems to be softer, which allows the cymbal tone to come through cleaner. That could of course be due to wear and old-age.

2. I replaced the wing-screw with a smaller one from a DW clutch. This reduced the weight by 10g (the SS wing screw weighs 31g, the DW weighs 21g) small potatoes, but every bit counts.

This brings the total weight of the SS clutch to 104g, compared to 69g for my trusty old Ludwig.  Still not as light as I would have liked, but lighter than the DW.  The overall length of the SS clutch is 6.5cm, compared to 6cm for the Luddy.

Overall I'm impressed with the SS clutch, it is light, extremely well made and has just enough of a uniqueness to it to feel 'custom'.  Well done Sweet Spot.

Sweet Spot clutch after felt and wing-screw changeout

Personally the only improvement would be perhaps a further reduction in height and a lighter core to get the weight down even further.  But it's a masterfully made piece of kit which will serve me well for years to come.

You can order your own Sweet Spot clutch here.

Max Roach...and Roy Brooks

The Max Roach quartet was playing at the State Theatre in Detroit.  I think it's called the Fillmore now.  It was finally my chance to see the great Max Roach in person.   At the time, (early 1996) I'd been listening and transcribing whatever I could find.  I would head to Liberty Records in Ann Arbor and buy pretty much anything with Max on it. 

I was relatively early-on in my jazz studies and had only been playing the music for a couple of years, but I'd honed in on Max, Art Blakey and Philly Joe as the architects and pioneers of the music, at least as far as the drums were concerned.

I left very early to make sure any delays at the border wouldn't cause me to be late or miss the show. Everything went smoothly and I was at the theatre about an hour early.

I walked up to the theatre thinking I would spend my time at the bar until the door opened.  as I walked into the theatre I saw a red-carpeted stairway.  I couldn't see past the door at the end, but intrigued I climbed the old, seemingly vertical stairway.  When I reached the top I saw what was obviously a pre-show party.  I recognised a few people from the Detroit music scene, Ed Love the great jazz DJ, and I remember seeing Larry Nozero and Kirk Lightsey having a drink in the corner bar. Then, I looked to my immediate right and I see the great Max Roach standing with a friend, not 5 feet away.  I calmly walked up to him, mumbled something about being a huge fan, blah blah, and handed him my program and the sharpie I had stashed in my coat pocket.  He looked at his friend and smiled a gentle smile, and autographed my program complete with a semi-abstract drawing of a drum set.  

I'm pretty good at not overstaying my welcome, so I thanked Mr. Roach, shook his hand, nervously shook his friends hand (I suppose to apologise for the intrusion) and left down the same steep stairway.  

By that time the bar had opened so I adjourned myself to savour my good luck and study every stroke of my newly acquired autograph. 

It's funny how the mind works. I opened my program and looked at the artwork.  Then I thought to myself  'Shit. That was Roy Brooks standing there with Max Roach'.  I had happened upon two of the great drummers of our time, Roy Brooks being one of the most fertile creative minds of the Detroit/American scene, a great, almost unsung hero, and I had virtually ignored his presence while I fanned over Max Roach.  You idiot.  It wasn't missing a moment to bag 2 legendary autographs that made me feel so terrible.  It's the fact that Roy Brooks was/is a legend, and hasn't had an easy time of it.  Although he'd played with greats like Woody Shaw, Yousef Lateef, Horace Silver and Charles Mingus, and made some of the most adventurous music I've ever heard, he'd never rreally achieved the level of notoriety of his contemporaries, and struggled for years with mental illness, ending his life in poverty and imprisonment. I somehow felt my inadvertent snub, no matter how innocent in some way reflected, to him, the lack of wide-spread recognition that had been afforded the likes of Max Roach. It's bothered my ever since, and I've thought about that evening many times over the years. 

The next day was a Saturday, if I remember.  I drove to Ann Arbor Michigan to Borders Books and Music, which at the time had the best-curated jazz section in Detroit, and I bought 5 or 6 Roy Brooks records, including:

1. The Free Slave (on vinyl)

2. Duet in Detroit

3. The Golden Flute (Yousef Lateef)

4. M'Boom (with Max Roach, again on vinyl)

I can't  remember the others, but these 4 have stayed with me to today, and The Free Slave is one of the great records of all time, featuring a young Woody Shaw, with Cecil McBee, George Coleman and I think Hugh Lawson on piano. Damn, I wish I had been more in the moment and recognised the great Roy Brooks.

Check out this terrific interview with Roy Brooks, and an article/obituary in the Guardian.