DRUMANDSTAGE FORUM

I have to hand one thing to DW... They are marketing geniuses and obviously run a great artist program. But, I gotta tell ya, they really don't make anything I want. In all my buying and selling and trying different things over the years, I never felt the need to own anything of theirs. Well, with ONE exception. In '93 I bought a 5000 pedal and the hinge pin came out and the footplate went through my bass drum head on a live gig. NO KIDDING.

Other than that, I just haven't really bought into the craze.

But, getting to the point of THIS video, you sandwich a ply of aluminum in between wooden plies for what I would call a marginally different sound. And I might add that the marginally different sound is discernible in a situation where the drums are isolated from anything else. This isn't a live gig or full recording of a band.

I think the guys did a great job with the video, as usual. One thing I am left curious about though, how much of a difference would there be between those and another DW series? In other words, there is no point of reference for how much different either kit would sound versus a third example (think triangulation, sort of).

The main thing that I would have serious concerns over would be bonding a metal to a wood in a vibrating body with the added stresses of different expansion rates changing climates. In my mind, it is just hard to fathom these shells not delamination over the years.

There's no sense beating a dead horse; except for the pure joy of it. -A. Whitney Brown

You touch on the reason I won't go near DW, their marketing.

I've spent years working in manufacturing engineering, and decades working in design/visual arts, as well as software engineering and the like. I've ended up with a really strong combo of knowing why something is both designed and manufactured a certain way.

And then you listen to John Good talk, and looking through the lens above, borderline nothing the guy ever says is based on anything more than smoke and mirrors. The epitome of a snake oil salesman pushing straight up hokum in a way to woo people. Out of principle, even if their stuff was AMAZING I'd be against buying anything of theirs. Makes it even easier to dislike them when a lot of it is just sh*t.

But, I respect their hardware being over-engineered industry standard stuff, I respect their veneers - I think they do that well, and I respect the idea they've tried stuff like this sonic ply idea. It wouldn't have been an easy thing to figure out how to do this I imagine, kudos to them. As to whether it's any good or not - I'll never know

I contacted DW directly many years ago. They were really building momentum and for that reason, I was curious. I was pretty young at the time, this was probably the 90's and I was a big fan of Sonor's thick shells. The lady I spoke with on the phone said that their shells were all 1/4 Maple. I am almost sure that Keller was still their shell provider at the time. I remember getting off the phone thinking that all they were doing was using pretty basic shells as canvas for a variety of finishes. Of course, the hardware does throw a different light on things, but I was a little bewildered at the time about so many people moving to DW drums when all the drums were the same.

I wish DCP would do with DW like they did with Sonor SQ2 and do a comparison of all the upper end DW shell options. I wonder ho big of a difference there really is, across the board.

FWIW: I watched (skimmed through) the 2 Part Sonor SQ2 comparison video last night and Sonor's shell do have an easily discernible difference from shell type to shell type. For me, the Heavy Birch has that little something I like. I still plan to order an SQ2 in the coming year if nothing else lands on my radar.