What is old is new again: My NAMM report

DrumEatDrum

Platinum Member
This year I was only able to attend NAMM for one day. Due to limited time, I didn't take many pictures, or look at everything, but I did notice one trend:

Manufactures are trying to put pawn shops out of business.

Nearly every "new" product was an old product.

Zilldjian's big thing was their new "A Avedis collection" (which is a bit silly given the "A" stands for Avedis") which are re-creations of vintage A cymbals that would be found in a pawn shop. Other than the lack of green patina, they look like older, used A's. And sound like them too. Also noted for no labels. There are no size marking, no indicating what is crash or ride. Just like the really old days. Along with the previously released Kerope line, Zildjian has made it fully possible to buy new cymbals that look and sound like you bought them used.

Paiste couldn't be outdone with their new black label 2002 line, which look like old black label 2002's. From a few feet away, I actually though they had a bunch of used cymbals on display.

Sabian even gets in on the vintage with the remastered HH line. They don't like they were found in a pawn shop, but they sounded like they were.

Ludwig took the new is old to a whole new level with the new American made Club Dates. Unlike the previously line of over-seas made Club Dates that had vintage inspired finishes, the American made Club Dates have finishes that are re-creations of vintage finishes.

I swear, put a layer of dust on them, throw them in a dark corner of a pawn shop, and it would be tough to tell a new kit from a vintage kit without looking up close.

And if the 50's/60's aren't your thing, Ludwig also had a Vistalite in the 70's era Tequila Sunrise color scheme for your Eagles/Led Zeppelin combo tribute band.

Yamaha had their new re-launch of the classic Recording Custom line. And they featured RC's in the natural wood finish which they haven't offered since the early 80's.

Gretsch, well, they always have new-vintage looking kits on display.
DW had a "Mick Fleetwood" snare with graphics from the mega hit 70's album "Rumors".

Pearl wasn't all in on the vintage, but they did have a Fiber-wood shell kit that looked like a used/vintage kit at first glance.

Sonar had their new-vintage looking drum kit on display, as well as celebrating Nicko McBrain returning as an endorser.

Tama wasn't promoting vintage gear, but they were promoting Billy Cobham and Dave Lombardo back as Tama artists, proving what is old is new again.


As I drove home, I wondered, is this it? Have we seen all we can ever see from drums and cymbals? I mean, I get there is only so much one can do with a round cylinder of wood or a round piece of bronze, but the manufacturers used to at least pretend they were innovating.

Have rock and jazz reached the end of all they can do, and that is why their is such a focus on going back to the old days?

Should we celebrate that we have seen everything there is see?
Or do we mourn the end of an era?

I'm not sure of the answers.

But I do know if you want to have a full brand new drum kit with cymbals that looks like you bought it all used from a pawn shop, you have a large selection of choices! lol
 
Good stuff Bud...I have seen many photos and what you are saying seems true. Mick Fleetwood I think owns DW. He loves there drums for some reason.
 
As I drove home, I wondered, is this it? Have we seen all we can ever see from drums and cymbals? I mean, I get there is only so much one can do with a round cylinder of wood or a round piece of bronze, but the manufacturers used to at least pretend they were innovating.

The entire concept of NAMM is weird to me. It seems predicated on the idea that you can feasibly create whole ranges of new things in some musical fields on a regular basis. I just don't know how that would even work.

But violinists still play the same basic violin they played hundreds of years ago. In fact, the whole appeal for most violinists, cellists, etc. is to get an old model or a new model that imitates an old model.

So perhaps drums - which are not that old - are finally entering that stage?
 
...great post...venturing a guess, the buying universe for new drums seems to have evolved to the low end (beginners/struggling gigging pros), upper medium end (hobbyists with sufficient discretionary disposable income), and the premium end (superstar pros and seriously well heeled hobbyists), and it would seem that the majors are directing their vintage products at the upper medium end of the market...

...i would also venture to guess that the upper medium end hobbyists are boomers who pine for the music of their youth, and who would otherwise explore/pursue "real" vintage gear in order to duplicate the sounds of their youth...

...one added bonus of the new vintage stuff coming out from the majors is that it seems like the new vintage stuff has somewhat depressed the price of the otherwise stratospherically priced old vintage kits (like a gretsch 60s round badge bop/prog. jazz kit)...
 
...great post...venturing a guess, the buying universe for new drums seems to have evolved to the low end (beginners/struggling gigging pros), upper medium end (hobbyists with sufficient discretionary disposable income), and the premium end (superstar pros and seriously well heeled hobbyists), and it would seem that the majors are directing their vintage products at the upper medium end of the market...

...i would also venture to guess that the upper medium end hobbyists are boomers who pine for the music of their youth, and who would otherwise explore/pursue "real" vintage gear in order to duplicate the sounds of their youth...

...one added bonus of the new vintage stuff coming out from the majors is that it seems like the new vintage stuff has somewhat depressed the price of the otherwise stratospherically priced old vintage kits (like a gretsch 60s round badge bop/prog. jazz kit)...

I might also add that the emergence of this "hipster" movement may have something to do with it. "Old" is the new "in thing".
 
My entire retail experience and goal, for everything not just drums, is to buy the newest, best product I can buy and stay within my budget. I have no desire for vintage drums, cymbals, pedals, any of that. As for the violin analogy, I remember being in southern Germany and seeing a violin shop where the builder didn't even begin until the wood he was going to be used was aged for 100 years. I don't know any drum builders with that commitment. I also don't think for drums, that is necessary. Different woods, plies, thickness of plies, etc are always being tested and tried for "new" ideas. The only reason we don't have drums that were made and loved 60 years ago is because someone decided we needed "different" things. Enter MyDenity. (sp) How much money has been spent to improve on what we seem to be going back to, or search Ebay, Craigslist, or Maxwells looking for. While yearly NAMM brings out the newest and the newest best. Vintage gear costs as much or more than new stuff and when all is said and done do they really sound "better"?
 
Ironically, the phrase "what's old is new again" has become rather old and creaky from overuse. Nostalgia is the trend everywhere right now. It's not the apocalypse by any means.

Sabian HH is new (despite "sounding vintage"... really?). Meinl has new models. Paiste has new models. There are plenty of things at the show that aren't vintage-inspired, let alone the vast majority of drums on the market right now that aren't being presented at NAMM. In summation... who cares?
 
I'm a little surprised that y'all haven't realized this has been going on for a long time.

In some cases, some of these companies have been targeting classic sounds and looks for nearly ten years. It was a slow but long-lasting response to decades of drum fads that had left many players feeling like a lot of new gear was gimmicky. from the massive kits outfitted with concert and power toms of the 70s and 80s, to the flamboyant and over-the-top custom jobs of the late 90s and early 00s, a lot of drummers wanted to stick with a drum kit that was immune to fluctuations in style and fads in the drumming world. Players flocked to old 60s and 70s kits with standard tom depths and put many of these wonderful drums sets back on the stage.

For those who didn't like used drums, american custom companies and classic major manufacturers were ready to welcome players back with hand made american drums made in the tradition of yesteryear. DW created classic and jazz shell types, c&c began making its own shells (all of which are modeled off of classic shell designs from other american manufactureres), and Gretsch and Ludwig found all number of ways to repackage vintage looks and sounds as well as offering the same drums they made in their hay days.

personally i've been playing on a drum set that was 14 years older than me for the past 13. I had a custom set and opportunities to sell my vistalite off for twice what i paid for it, but there is something special about being part of an american tradition. I'm looking for a more modern kit soon, but it will likely be inspired by my love of older drums.
 
It was a slow but long-lasting response to decades of drum fads that had left many players feeling like a lot of new gear was gimmicky.

Players flocked to old 60s and 70s kits with standard tom depths and put many of these wonderful drums sets back on the stage.

This is very true !!

.
 
I'm a little surprised that y'all haven't realized this has been going on for a long time.

Oh, I've realized, just this show took it to a whole new level.

I
It was a slow but long-lasting response to decades of drum fads that had left many players feeling like a lot of new gear was gimmicky. from the massive kits outfitted with concert and power toms of the 70s and 80s, to the flamboyant and over-the-top custom jobs of the late 90s and early 00s, a lot of drummers wanted to stick with a drum kit that was immune to fluctuations in style and fads in the drumming world. Players flocked to old 60s and 70s kits with standard tom depths and put many of these wonderful drums sets back on the stage.

But some of these throw backs are gimmicks from the past.

Tequila Sunrise Visalite, Ludwig Club Date in Pink Oyster, Pearl Fiber-Wood were all pretty gimmicky at the time.
 
some of these throw backs are gimmicks from the past.

Tequila Sunrise Visalite, Ludwig Club Date in Pink Oyster, Pearl Fiber-Wood were all pretty gimmicky at the time.

Sure. But the TS Vista has become somewhat of a cult icon and the Pearl Fiber-Wood is completely in offensive. It's not like any of those gimmicks make a kit undesirable down the line which is my bigger point. There is a timelessness about that era in drum building and instead of seeing vintage kits continue to skyrocket in price, drum companies would rather just give their customers what they're trying to recreate.
 
I'm with ya DED! I felt the same way as I roamed the floor.

And it is true it's not because we've never noticed this trend, but maybe everyone is just beginning to realize that there's only so far you can go before everyone rails against it. People railed against Ludwig's poor Signet line, saying that it didn't have this, or it didn't have that, musicians are just conservative in their taste and they want what they want. I don't blame the companies for trying to satisfy that.

There was nothing so new that it blew your socks off. About the only thing that I think is cool in the manufacturing world is the production of plastic horns - allowing parents to be able to get their kid into a trombone, baritone, or a tuba for not as big of an investment ($1200 for a plastic full-size tuba vs. $10,000+ for a real brass tuba). Instruments for beginners are very cool these days. I remember how cheap things were back in the 80s, now you can get good quality for not-alot-of-$$$ due to manufacturing progress. That's where the new stuff is - the company that provided DW with their CNC machines to make their hardware was there, actually building stuff - selling the machines!

Even electronics was very much "sounds like tubes" and "analog synthesis at its best". Maybe all genres go through this - they keep pushing the envelope on to a crowd that just desperately wants to remain in jeans and t-shirts, and at a certain point they realize that and just give people what they want. You still can't go wrong if you showed up at a gig with a Gibson Les Paul plugged into a Marshall amp. Or an old beat-up Ludwig kit with old Zildjians, for that matter.

But yeah, lots of old-looking gear. Fender isn't the only one making distressed-looking guitars now. But the ukulele crowd hasn't gone that way yet, they still display new instruments, and there seemed to be MORE ukulele vendors than last year. Although I felt quite sad when I could no longer find the kazoo vendor - whoever that was, they weren't on the floor this year. I guess kazoos are just too passe' these days.
 
I think the answer is obvious. In the world of acoustic drums there is really nowhere left to go. Even brands like Guru who are at the cutting edge of drum tech are making such minute changes they would only be obvious to the guys playing them. Placing a mylar head over a round wooden tub only yields so many options. I think the only real advancements that can be made are in the world of electronic drums. At some point drum samples will reach the levels they have in the guitar world, with emulators like the Kemper and Axe-Fx, and professional players will start using them.
 
I think the answer is obvious. In the world of acoustic drums there is really nowhere left to go.
This is true. You can change the instrument more, but then it becomes something else. How much different do saxophones, pianos and violins sound today compared with 100 years ago? The acoustic drum set has been around about 100 years and its sound has already been established. You can argue about "improving" what is old, but after a few million musical performances, people have expectations for what a drum is supposed to be, for better or worse.

The truth is that acoustic instruments are inherently nostalgic, so trying to fight it just seems pointless to me. If we were starting over today, would anyone build musical instruments by stretching wires and animal skins over wood?
 
This is true. You can change the instrument more, but then it becomes something else. How much different do saxophones, pianos and violins sound today compared with 100 years ago? The acoustic drum set has been around about 100 years and its sound has already been established. You can argue about "improving" what is old, but after a few million musical performances, people have expectations for what a drum is supposed to be, for better or worse.

The truth is that acoustic instruments are inherently nostalgic, so trying to fight it just seems pointless to me. If we were starting over today, would anyone build musical instruments by stretching wires and animal skins over wood?

Absolutely.

In regards to the Pearl fiber/wood drums, that's more a response to fiberglass having been a kind of disregarded drummaking material for a while now. The pendulum is just swinging the other way, what with those kits and Jenkins-Martins. Maybe we'll see other takes on it.
 
The trend is even more pronounced with synthesizers, I think.

It all started out analog, then digital came along and people couldn't dump their analog synths quick enough - practically giving them away.

Now, those same analog synths go for ridiculously outrageous amounts.
That pricing trend might soon be changing though, because analog is all the rage again and manufacturers are starting to crank out products.

Drums - ya, what are you going to do with them? The innovations will be in the digital stuff, to the point where it might take over.
Then it will swing back to acoustic drums - "Wow, they're really cool. How come we didn't know about them while using all this digital junk." - ha ha.

And so it goes - circular.
 
Have rock and jazz reached the end of all they can do, and that is why their is such a focus on going back to the old days?

I don't know if that's fari to say. I think most will agree that Rock is going the way of jazz, in that it is splitting into several niche groups, and falling out of mass popularity. However, I don't think Rock is going to go away, the same way that jazz hasn't gone away. It just won't be the most popular form of music anymore.

I also have seen a great deal of innovation in drums, along with the trend of going back to smaller sized kits. The cymbal market has exploded from 20 years ago! I used to only see Sabians and Zildjians, and now we have boatloads of unique small batch cymbals floating around.

I've seen this trend for most things (in the US at least), where we are shifting away from large general purpose items and smaller companies are focusing on single products, or at least one niche. We're seeing it in Alcohol/beer, we're seeing it in food, we're seeing home goods and furniture. Everything has a vintage aesthetic right now, but the focus is on small batches and quality. I think it's a good thing that we're going back to a world where handmade and specialized goods are more highly regarded than mass-produced factory items.

I don't think this has anything to do with Rock or Jazz not being able to innovate, it's the opposite. Smaller companies are innovating, and the bigger companies are trying to mimic their success with handmade/vintage lines.
 
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...i would also venture to guess that the upper medium end hobbyists are boomers who pine for the music of their youth, and who would otherwise explore/pursue "real" vintage gear in order to duplicate the sounds of their youth...

I'd suspect this is true. As I've said, in all my years of working drum retail (even though it's been a while), most drums are sold to people who have little to no interest in being in a working band. The age bracket with the most disposable income are going to (in general) be older players who, yes, are looking to recreate some of their youth.


How much different do saxophones, pianos and violins sound today compared with 100 years ago?
True, but sales of saxophone and violins are barely a blip compared to drums/guitars/etc.

Most stores don't sell them, and floor space dedicated to them on the NAMM floor is small. It's just not the same level of commerce.

And of course, even if you look at the last 25 years of going to NAMM, innovation has been pretty minor. Mostly just a new color here, a different edge there. But stuff was still presented as "new."

As opposed to this year where the focus was on selling stuff that looked old.
(save Gretsch and and some of the smaller companies who've been doing this for a while).

I mean, if I'm shelling out big bucks for a new cymbal, do I want it to look like it came from a pawn shop?

But OK, I admit, the Ludwig Club Date in Blue strata was pretty cool.
 
I also have seen a great deal of innovation in drums, along with the trend of going back to smaller sized kits. The cymbal market has exploded from 20 years ago! I used to only see Sabians and Zildjians, and now we have boatloads of unique small batch cymbals floating around.

I've seen this trend for most things (in the US at least), where we are shifting away from large general purpose items and smaller companies are focusing on single products, or at least one niche. We're seeing it in Alcohol/beer, we're seeing it in food, we're seeing home goods and furniture. Everything has a vintage aesthetic right now, but the focus is on small batches and quality. I think it's a good thing that we're going back to a world where handmade and specialized goods are more highly regarded than mass-produced factory items.

That's an interesting discussion.

We're also seeing a lot of consolidation over the last 10 years. Vic Firth is now owned by Zildjian. Evans and Promark are now owned by the same string company. Mapex and Sonar are under the same umbrella (and shared the same booth). DW now owns Gretsch, Latin Percussion, Toca and more.

And a lot of the smaller cymbal companies are just different brand names put on the same cymbals. Or at least are sourced from the same producer of cymbal blanks. Much like so many custom drum companies all buy their shells from the same place. Even among the major brands, many of their offerings all come from the same few factories, using the same wood.

Just like many small beer brands are actually owned, or partially owned by larger companies.

There are certainly way more brand choices these days, but differences between many brands are minor to nonexistent.
 
So true. As others have said concerning the guitar world, the major manufacturers have figured out the old designs "just work." A few years ago, Gibson came up with a radical (for the guitar world) new guitar design. They scheduled a hyped-up media day to reveal this revolutionary instrument (think Apple product launch for the music press). The guitar -- I believe it was named the Firebird X -- had autotuners (somewhat established in parts of guitar-dom; it allows the guitarist to change tunings on the fly without having to re-tune all six strings) and offered modeling technology. On it's face, it should have been a cover-band gigging guitarists dream. It fell flat on it's face. Look at the offerings from Gibson and Fender today, and 95%(?) of their sales are based on designs that are at least 50 years old.

Commenting on the Vistalites...I've had my set of '76 Vistalites about 6 months now. Yeah, they were somewhat gimmicky at the time. But, you know what? They look good on stage, and sound pretty damn good. For a live setting, the acrylic shells project very well. Our sound guy loves them: they sound good, project well, and, if a little more is needed, mic up very well. They've become my primary gigging kit. IMO, re-introducing them is not a mere gimmick. For one, other companies are offering acrylic drums, so it keeps Ludwig in that market segment. Second, they offer the unique acrylic sound. So, why not?
 
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