News from the UK premier fans FB page

. I have a Signia snare but would love a whole kit one day. They are kinda heavy though, definitely not for gigging!

I don't think the Signia are any heavier than the average drum set.
The shells are thin maple.
I've done countless gigs over the years with my Signia's.

I'd say the only reason my Signia weighs more than my DW kit is the Signia bass drum has that large mounting bracket, while my DW bass drum is virgin.
The toms are pretty identical in weight.




mpthomson
The most recent innovation, The Beast snare drum was a solution in search of a problem and a competent and engaged marketing team would have seen that it should have remained a technical exercise rather than a production item.

The recent offerings of APK haven't been worthy of the name and reintroducing the Genista was a huge mistake. Good drums they may be but if marketed at a lower price point and made in a different location from differently sourced wood they were always going to be seen as inferior. They should have had a different lug and have been called something else.

The marketing was incoherent with no advertising of the more sensibly priced ranges and little to no development of those offerings in five years.
I completely agree. In fact, it goes back even further IMHO.

There was a time when the Signia was offering essentially what DW was: A thin maple shell with re-rings. Only at the time, DW productions was still small time and struggling. Premier was in perfect position to take a huge market share and perhaps even steal some of DW's thunder. Instead they discontinued the original Signia and introduced the Signia Marquis with a slightly thicker shell and no re-rings, essentially killing their own market advantage.

And there was a time when no one else was making a kit with the quality level and at the price point as the XPK. Then Yamaha and Pearl came out with their versions, and for whatever reason, Premier just sat back and watched them push the XPK aside. And then over time, everyone had their version of the XPK.

StaggerLee
i will note however, natal do make some damn nice stuff.
Natal stuff isn't bad, but they haven't done much to distinguish themselves from the pack. They're not doing anything different than anyone else. Their cymbal stands and such are identical to other brands. Most of (all?) their shells are identical to other brands. So much of their stuff is clearly made by someone else with their name slapped on it.
 
I don't think the Signia are any heavier than the average drum set.
The shells are thin maple.
I've done countless gigs over the years with my Signia's.

I'd say the only reason my Signia weighs more than my DW kit is the Signia bass drum has that large mounting bracket, while my DW bass drum is virgin.
The toms are pretty identical in weight.

I guess its all relative. My Signia snare is definately heavier than the Sonor snare, mind you my Sonor kit seem light compared to my XPK kit. They sound very different too.

I think it was all the metal work on the Signia that made it (to me) seem heavy.

One way or another, one day I'll have one :) Preferably in rosewood..
 
Sad news indeed.
My made in England Genista's are one of my favorite kits and are not going anywhere!
 

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As a total outsider looking in, but as a long time Premier fan and previous owner (but a member of the FB group too) I think Premier became a bit schizophrenic, with the Taiwanese/Chinese mass produced bread and butter kits and the home produced Modern Classics and One series kits and snares at the other. I don't doubt the quality of either to be honest and I can only presume that the hand-built UK stuff, which I have touched and smelled and lusted over at the Scottish Drum Fair for a number of years was the mechanism in their business plan to rejuvinate the sales of the more bread and butter ranges and perhaps the perception is that that has either failed or been achieved to the point where it is no longer warranted. For me there was too much distance between top and bottom of the range and it didn't look consistent between the mass produced and the boutique ranges (if that's the right way to assess the situation). I loved the look and feel of the high end drums but could never have justified a purchase, and I would not have gone for the mass produced drums because there are, in my opinion, other manufacturers that do it better at a better price point. There was a lack of a bridge between the high end and the mass produced which became more of a yawning gap over time.

That said, I really feel for Keith and his team- they make some sumptuous instruments, and I hope they can move on from this setback and continue to produce instruments of the quality that they have rightly become known for.
 
As a total outsider looking in, but as a long time Premier fan and previous owner (but a member of the FB group too) I think Premier became a bit schizophrenic, with the Taiwanese/Chinese mass produced bread and butter kits and the home produced Modern Classics and One series kits and snares at the other. I don't doubt the quality of either to be honest and I can only presume that the hand-built UK stuff, which I have touched and smelled and lusted over at the Scottish Drum Fair for a number of years was the mechanism in their business plan to rejuvinate the sales of the more bread and butter ranges and perhaps the perception is that that has either failed or been achieved to the point where it is no longer warranted. For me there was too much distance between top and bottom of the range and it didn't look consistent between the mass produced and the boutique ranges (if that's the right way to assess the situation). I loved the look and feel of the high end drums but could never have justified a purchase, and I would not have gone for the mass produced drums because there are, in my opinion, other manufacturers that do it better at a better price point. There was a lack of a bridge between the high end and the mass produced which became more of a yawning gap over time.

That said, I really feel for Keith and his team- they make some sumptuous instruments, and I hope they can move on from this setback and continue to produce instruments of the quality that they have rightly become known for.

I thought that one of Premier's many issues was that there were basically two separate companies with, as you say, no link at all and no clear, cohesive vision for the brand. As an example, priding yourself on being British, and all the Spitfire nosecone lugs etc starts to look a bit thin when you see that everything a normal person can afford is made elsewhere for cost reasons. When your biggest news at NAMM is a snare drum with a list price of £2295 and a street price of £1995, you've really got problems.

It has to be the bread and butter ranges that generate sales for the more exotic as players move up the skill and experience tree, it just doesn't work the other way round unfortunately.

Another big issue was that much of the Asian product wasn't competitive in the quality/price point stakes. The new Genista was basically the Artist with some new (or old in this case) lugs and there were far funkier options from competitors like Mapex at the price points Premier were at.
 
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