Hardware Curiosity

Do they? Or do they contract out the work to a vendor who builds the stands and then applies the appropriate logo? Do we know for sure that most stands aren't made by the same company anyhow?
 
Do they? Or do they contract out the work to a vendor who builds the stands and then applies the appropriate logo? Do we know for sure that most stands aren't made by the same company anyhow?

Examples:
DW/PDP makes the drums, lugs, pedals, and stands
Yamaha makes the drums, lugs, pedals, and stands
Gretsch makes the shells, but uses (used?) Gibraltar-made lugs, pedals, and stands with Gretsch branding, as they were both owned by the same parent company.

There are likely counter examples, but these are the ones that come to mind. I assume that many companies farm out their hardware to someone like Worldmax.
 
Because drum manufacturers already make hardware for the drums so it's not as big a leap to make the rest of the hardware as well, whereas it's a far greater leap to do that from cymbal manufacturing. Think about it, with the notable exception of Remo, drum head companies don't make drums either.
 
drum head companies don't make drums either.

Really? I see tons of Evans drums for sale all the time on Craigslist. ?

While we are talking about manufacturing, I read somewhere that pretty much every steel string you see out there is manufactured by only 2 (maybe 3, but more than likely just 2) steel string factories. From guitars, to dulcimers, to banjos, to pianos, the strings are only made by a couple of different companies. What these brands do is simply order certain sets at certain specs and features, repackage them, and then send them on.
 
Almost all drum hardware is made by outside contract manufacturers. Yamaha does have their own metal manufacturing [think motorcycles] and DW does machine a few high end items in house. Gibraltar doesn’t manufacture any hardware as far as I know. They used to contract it all out to KHS. Sonor made there own everything back in the day but now they farm it out. They probably get better quality at a lower price than they could do in house. Specialized machinery is very expensive so if it is not operating 3 shifts a day it is losing money. So most companies design what they want then have it built to their specs by CMs.

I remember when I used to own a couple of music stores opening a new Remo kit and when opening the cymbal stands (in factory labeled Remo boxes) the wing nuts were Pearl logo’d.
 
The origins go back to the early days of a drum set.

Cymbal manufacturers have been around for a long time, but their primary (or only) purpose was to make cymbals for marching, so they only needed to be concerned with putting a hole in the middle for straps. Even early orchestral drummers, and some early drum set players, simply hung marching cymbals (hence the term suspended cymbal).

When drum sets first became a thing, around 1890 or so, they were hobbled together of different drums and sound effects. There were no drum sets made per se. Drum companies made bass drums, snare drums, etc, which drummers would then bring together to make a set. Cymbals weren't the main focus yet, and instead were just another of several sound effects a drummer might have.
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It wasn't until around 1920 (give or take), that cymbals became more of an important thing to a drum set player. But to a cymbal maker, it was no different to them. Their primary customer was in marching/parade bands, not set players. And outside of A Zildjian, most cymbals were made overseas, far away from any actual drum sets (notice how many early, early drummers had Chinese made cymbals on their sets).

But to sell a drum set, the early drum manufacturers had to have some way for their customers to hang sound effects, including cymbals.. on their drums to make the set appealing over the establish way of buying a bass drum, snare drum and any toms separately. And early cymbals stands were often just arms attached to the bass drum. So the onus to was on drum makers to come up with early cymbal stands to sell drum sets. Cymbal makers did not have any real motivation to make stands, as drum sets were barely even on their radar as a thing at the time.
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By the time cymbal makers caught on that drum sets were their future, drum set makers had already established themselves as manufactures/suppliers of stands.
 
The origins go back to the early days of a drum set.
This is exactly what I was after, I knew that drum makers made hardware so they had the machine shop for stands. But cymbals being a different entity to drums entirely, and then meeting in the recent past is something I hadn't considered. Even after watching a documentary about the origins of the modern drum kit. Thank you so much for this! And stunningly presented :love:
 
I can't imagine that anyone except Yamaha actually forges their own metalwork, and the only reason that Yamaha do it is because they produce metalwork for many parts of their business (car parts, motorcycles, golf products, factory machinery, jet skis, instruments, electronics etc). I would be very surprised if any other manufacturer actually forged their own hardware.

Mark
 
I can't imagine that anyone except Yamaha actually forges their own metalwork, and the only reason that Yamaha do it is because they produce metalwork for many parts of their business (car parts, motorcycles, golf products, factory machinery, jet skis, instruments, electronics etc). I would be very surprised if any other manufacturer actually forged their own hardware.

Mark

You would be surprised. I build PA speakers, Yamaha being one of the companies. Hardly anything in any of their cabinets, including metalwork (pole stands for example), is made by Yamaha. The companies that produce the parts also build for other manufacturers. Your finished product might say Yamaha, but that's it.
 
You would be surprised. I build PA speakers, Yamaha being one of the companies. Hardly anything in any of their cabinets, including metalwork (pole stands for example), is made by Yamaha. The companies that produce the parts also build for other manufacturers. Your finished product might say Yamaha, but that's it.

You might be right actually, after I wrote that I found an article on the factory where they make their drums in China, it did say that they outsource the hardware. In which case I can't imagine that any drum manufacturers actually forge their own hardware.

Mark
 
In which case I can't imagine that any drum manufacturers actually forge their own hardware.

Doesn't DW manufacture their MDD/MCD pedals & hi-hat stands in house? I thought I read that somewhere...:unsure:
 
Cymbal companies probably wouldn't have any interest in producing a product they coudn't fit a massive logo on.
 
Drum companies like Sonor stopped making their own hardware and chroming their own lugs when it became too environmentally costly to do it themselves.
Now imagine a cymbal company in Turkey taking to chroming hardware.
 
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