DW sold to Roland?

I haven't seen anyone using a contemporary Slingerland drum since the 1990's.
Gretsch? Well they have become very popular again - with a couple of well known younger UK drummers endorsing them.


That’s understandable as Slingerland hasn’t been around for nearly two decades. Apparently Gibson stopped production in 2003.

I have my contemporary Radio King Nashville era (1990’s) snare showing on my avatar pic but of course I’m a nobody/not a name drummer.
 
I have my contemporary Radio King Nashville era (1990’s) snare showing on my avatar pic but of course I’m a nobody/not a name drummer.
The 90's drums were pretty nice. The snares were especially nice. I'm just saying, they don't seem to be an important entity in the modern drum scene, like DW or Gretsch.
 
20% of this deal kind of tugs on a nationalistic heart string for me. The other 80% says good gear is good gear wherever it comes from. Heck, I've played Yamaha stuff since the mid 80's. When they moved a lot of their drum manufacturing to Malaysia - then to China - my impression was.... I can trust that Yamaha would be smart enough to not jeopardize their reputation and mess this up. I believe the same is true with DW / Roland. Are they going to make changes to DW? Undoubtedly. Will I like those changes? Who knows? Having been involved in merges and buyouts in other businesses I can tell you, when a founder (s) of a company sells, they usually agonize over finding someone that will preserve their legacy. This seems like a good fit!
 
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Whatever - the actual point is the controlling shareholder is a US equity company:
They have 34%. Owning shares of a public company wouldn't really make it "owned by x country" anyway. Nor would it make it belong less to where it is traded, was founded and headquartered, not to mention any cultural aspects of its operation. From all I've seen of Roland products and marketing, they're just as quintessentially Japanese as Yamaha and the others mentioned, and that is a definite plus.
 
The 90's drums were pretty nice. The snares were especially nice. I'm just saying, they don't seem to be an important entity in the modern drum scene, like DW or Gretsch.


I agree, a factor in why they ceased producing drums I think.

Lots of contributing factors. Badly run business (at times) not as famous a brand as others. The quality also dipped from moving their operations from Nashville to Conway, endorsers jumped ship…etc

Quite similar to what happened to Premier Drums, maybe.

I still do think that if/when Roland/DW relaunch the name it’ll be a niche product for the older players/‘legacy’players who love and can afford the brand - unless they move some of their popular endorsers from DW to Slingerland to grab some attention from the younger generations, maybe.

Makes sense why they were previously rumoured to be initially launching with Radio King snares only, as opposed to full kits, to see the reaction / interest.

Would ultimately be an arm of DW solely producing solid shell snares to begin with, if the rumours are correct.

I’m still patiently waiting for news some near 3 years later! 😂
 
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They have 34%. Owning shares of a public company wouldn't really make it "owned by x country" anyway. Nor would it make it belong less to where it is traded, was founded and headquartered, not to mention any cultural aspects of its operation. From all I've seen of Roland products and marketing, they're just as quintessentially Japanese as Yamaha and the others mentioned, and that is a definite plus.
You make a good point about that. The heritage is firmly Japanese, no question. It’s also chock full of badass gear that is considered tops in its field. And that’s why I wouldn’t worry about DW going south.
 
Are these electronic drums made to look like real ones? I think Pearl had those.
 
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The heritage is firmly Japanese, no question.
We recorded the TM-6 Pro library in the UK, with an experienced studio drummer (me), a well known record producer and at two iconic UK studios. I think ALL previous products were made in house (Japan), with no named drummer, no named studio engineer, no named studio.
All the Aira (electronic music) gear, seems to have a large dollop of American and European input, with a Dutch guy as it's main public face.
things are changing and the acquisition of DW is very much along those Internationally broadening lines.
 
BTW, does DW still own Gibraltar? The press releases aren't listing all companies, just "including x y z"... What about Ovation or Kat?
 
BTW, does DW still own Gibraltar? The press releases aren't listing all companies, just "including x y z"... What about Ovation or Kat?
Reliance is the parent company of Gibraltar. Ovation is owned by the company that owns Long and McQuade in Canada since Fender sold KMC.
 
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