The problem with the Balkanization of brands is that they all have to fight for smaller and smaller groups of consumers as the number of brands increases, so they have to come up with marketing ploys. Nobody cared about wood types (and everyone was sandwiching hardwood veneers over cheap poplar anyway) until the 70s or 80s when everyone suddenly had to find a new way to convert customers to their brand religion. Precious few drum manufacturers actually make their own shells (I stand corrected on DW, they actually started to make their own shells recently and no longer use Keller shells, and Gretsch switched from Keller-made shells to DW-made shells), so you're going to find that there is significant overlap between shell builders between makes (Jasper in the old days, Keller today). Hardware? Outsourced, and probably from the same 2 or 3 OEM manufacturers, who sell the same parts without branding on the side for cheap. The difference between today and yesteryear is the suppliers are overseas now, or the locations overseas might have changed (Hoshino Gakki/Tama/Ibanez only makes high end stuff in Japan now, for example, with most lower-end manufacturing outsourced to Taiwan or other places).penningtron wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 9:43 am As far as drum stuff, I roll my eyes at all gimmicky free floating/spring mounted/isolation implements for MAXIMUM RESONANCE. No, your floor tom doesn't need to sustain for 15 seconds. You realize once an engineer puts a mic on it they're just gonna gate that out or slap some tape on it right.
I think all of these sustain devices are the same thing. It's marketing. Sure, it does add measurable extra sustain (Sounds Like a Drum did a video on this with floor tom devices recently), but it's mostly only measurable in isolated recordings, and the only people who notice are other musicians. Even then, they're mostly listening with their eyes. In the live mix, you're not going to hear any of that extra sustain; in the studio, it's getting chopped because other instruments exist.
Anyway, I've got another gear confession: I name my drum shells after unethical people. My favourite snare (a Ludwig Acrolite) is named "Rogers" after a prick of a social work professor I had in undergrad. I'm not a drum tickler, so It gets the shit beaten out of it the most. Other drums are named after people in hospital leadership who have chosen to prioritize hospital income over patient safety. The needs of the profitable patients come first, of course. Evidently, I share this tendency with Gina Schock, so I consider myself in good company.
My cymbals, on the other hand, I name after musicians I like on my main kit, or, in the case of my secondary kit, hospital peeps who didn't suck. This is because I hit my cymbals much less aggressively, one, to make mixing drums easier, and two, because I don't want to crack them. My big 24" 2002 ride, trooper he is, is named Bonzo. On the secondary kit, I've named the hi-hats Generose and Mary Brigh, the crashes Bill and Chuck, and the ride Domitilla. They look down on the shells with disdain, just like the ghosts of Bill and Chuck and the sisters are rolling in their goddamned graves.
