Yamaha RC2F50J Recording Custom 5-piece Shell Pack - Solid Black

[Jules]

I was thinking about this while trying to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. Can you even imagine how pissed off hard core old school Yamaha guys must be over the Made in China Recording Custom series? You would THINK that being made in Chine, it would put it in a really good price point. Nope.

This thing is $5559 USD.

So, let's spec this out as closely as possible to the German made, flagship SQ2.

[tcbetka]

A month ago or so, I spec'd out a birch SQ2 with 10/12/14ft/16ft/22...with a 6.5" snare: Thin (5mm) floor toms, heavy rack toms. Marine pearl finish. So I'm pretty sure I have a good idea of what the cost will be.

[DaveInNZ]

As an owner of an 80's made in Japan Recording Custom, I can confirm that Yamaha owners do spew vitriol about these kits being made elsewhere in Asia (is it China or Taiwan?). Much the same way as Sonor nerds get grumpy about made in Germany versus made in Asia. I think the key difference being missed here though is in no way are Yamaha looking to make the Recording Customs a more budget line.

From what I understand, their drums being made where they are now is more about rationalising manufacturing together in logical ways. No one I've ever heard has ever really sat down with any Yamaha product and complained about them being cheap junk.

The other aspect about current Recording Customs versus the old which only seems to get talked about in hushed tones beneath the MIJ prejudice, is they seem to have fixed what few flaws the original MIJ ones had. People generally don't rate the earlier bass drums, but the new ones rock. People talk about the legendary Hokkaido birch in the early ones, but it's impossible to separate from older drums sounding great because the wood has aged nicely and the drums are played in.

I would seriously consider a new Recording Custom. I priced one up a few years back and at that point the pricing was much more closely aligned to SQ2 than SQ1. I think there's some tax in there for the 'name' and possibly even the association with Steve Gadd.

[tcbetka]

I had an 80's RC kit myself--in fact at one time I owned more than 30 RC drums. This was back in 1996 or so, in the infant days of the Internet when you pretty much had to be at a University to have access to get online. I was in a Usenet group called rec.music.makers.percussion (RMMP), and one of the guys who frequented the group (Randy Sheldon) also worked for Yamaha. One day he announced a "blow out" sale of all pre-Y.E.S.S drums, in all lines. Well since the maple custom drums were all the rage then, it was slow going on the RC drums for a while. And as many of my drumming buddies were NOT in the Internet, I was telling them about the sale. At last count I think I was responsible for nearly 100 drums being sold, lol...

I think I had pretty much one of every RC drum they made back then, except the 6" tom. They weren't all in the same color of course--you pretty much had to take what you could get. But $150 for a 22" kick, and $175 for a 24" kick...buy 'em! I have a couple of pictures from that time period, of two stacks of drums that went from the floor to within a few inches of the 8' ceiling--and they were flanking my Hot Red RC kit that I had purchased in 1989.

Those were the days...

(My wife still says I'm crazy to this day)

EDIT: By the way, you can still find Randy Sheldon's original post from August 1996 (I think it was), when he announced the sale. The group's posts are all preserved in Google Groups. I just found that post a couple of weeks ago actually.

[Jules]

As an owner of an 80's made in Japan Recording Custom, I can confirm that Yamaha owners do spew vitriol about these kits being made elsewhere in Asia (is it China or Taiwan?). Much the same way as Sonor nerds get grumpy about made in Germany versus made in Asia. I think the key difference being missed here though is in no way are Yamaha looking to make the Recording Customs a more budget line.

From what I understand, their drums being made where they are now is more about rationalising manufacturing together in logical ways. No one I've ever heard has ever really sat down with any Yamaha product and complained about them being cheap junk.

The other aspect about current Recording Customs versus the old which only seems to get talked about in hushed tones beneath the MIJ prejudice, is they seem to have fixed what few flaws the original MIJ ones had. People generally don't rate the earlier bass drums, but the new ones rock. People talk about the legendary Hokkaido birch in the early ones, but it's impossible to separate from older drums sounding great because the wood has aged nicely and the drums are played in.

I would seriously consider a new Recording Custom. I priced one up a few years back and at that point the pricing was much more closely aligned to SQ2 than SQ1. I think there's some tax in there for the 'name' and possibly even the association with Steve Gadd.

The bass drum especially seems to be better than ever. Seems like we may have mentioned that before in conversation about the video where Rick Beato was at Drum Center of Portsmouth and Shane was explaining it. I gave the Recoding Custom a hard look a couple times in the past few years when I wasn't sure what my next move would be.

[DaveInNZ]

I've mentioned somewhere before, can't remember if it was here or not, but that comment Shane made in the video about the RC bass drums, as well as a reply I got on their BDC Raven kit (which sounded excellent) when I asked about the BDC or Yamaha being the preferred choice, has ultimately answered my eternal question:

If you had to but one new birch kit, would it be the SQ1 or the RC (or the BDC)?

And ultimately the RC apparently would sound more dead, less resonant etc. Kinda obvious in relation to them being aimed at recording. So if you want a birch kit that sounds great under mics in a studio, the answer would appear obvious. If you want a birch kit for another reason, there are more options to explore.

[Jules]

You can always dampen the heads to control the sound of a resonant drum. But, you can't get a less resonant drum to sing more.

[DaveInNZ]

That's why you have Recording Customs AND other Sonors

[Jules]

As an owner of an 80's made in Japan Recording Custom, I can confirm that Yamaha owners do spew vitriol about these kits being made elsewhere in Asia (is it China or Taiwan?). Much the same way as Sonor nerds get grumpy about made in Germany versus made in Asia. I think the key difference being missed here though is in no way are Yamaha looking to make the Recording Customs a more budget line.

I get that. But, at the same time, considering that part of the allure for most companies is that Chinese labor and materials are so much less expensive than countries like Japan, it makes you winder how this is still a $5600 shell set. Where is the manufacturing expense coming from? Maybe they have decided to let it be a high profit series since margins are so thin these days.

[Jules]

It's B. Less than a $1,200 USD difference to get the Sonor flagship line made in Germany.