DW sold to Roland?

BobC said:
I emailed my artist relations guy at DW last night, and was told that DW is not changing at all. No one is leaving, and the day-to-day operation will remain the same. He also said the acquisition will have no bearing on DW rolling out Slingerland product at some point.

His exact words were, "Now we have a big brother we can work with," no doubt to develop hybrid acoustic/electronic drums.
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Knowing now what they had in store, partnering with Roland was brilliant. They foot the bill and DW gets massively paid rather than take the risk of it being a dud.
 
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BobC said:
I emailed my artist relations guy at DW last night, and was told that DW is not changing at all. No one is leaving, and the day-to-day operation will remain the same. He also said the acquisition will have no bearing on DW rolling out Slingerland product at some point.

His exact words were, "Now we have a big brother we can work with," no doubt to develop hybrid acoustic/electronic drums.
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It’s all about access to capital.
 
I’m not hating on DW, but I’m more concerned about Gretsch. Our companies can’t seem to stand on their own whereas Pearl and TAMA are still family owned.
 
RK1 said:
I’m not hating on DW, but I’m more concerned about Gretsch. Our companies can’t seem to stand on their own whereas Pearl and TAMA are still family owned.
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It’s entirely possible they will spin off Gretsch and Slingerland, but that won’t likely go well for the brands. Hope not, but it will depend on what their development plans are and how they will fit into three acoustic brands. Gretsch and change haven’t exactly fit in the same sentence historically.
 
dboomer said:
He missed a bigger point …

From the press release : "A trailblazer in acoustic drums for the past 50 years, we’ve been equally blown away by the breakthrough innovation and new technology that Drum Workshop has been developing."

Electronic Cymbal Instruments And Systems Patent Application

U.S. Patent Application 20210225346 for Electronic Cymbal Instruments And Systems
uspto.report uspto.report

Electronic Musical Instruments And Systems Patent Application

U.S. Patent Application 20210225338 for Electronic Musical Instruments And Systems
uspto.report uspto.report
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The cymbal discription sounds like the Zildjian Gen 16 from recent year, and Zildjian/Barcus Berry ZMC series from past years.


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I wonder if Terry Bozzio will join the development teams.

He was quite the inventor with some hybrid ideas.

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Inventions & Prototypes | Terry Bozzio - Official Site

terrybozzio.com terrybozzio.com
 
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RK1 said:
Ludwig stands alone as American-owned among the bigs. I don’t mind DW selling, but I do mind the Gretsch heritage going to Asia. Time to start saving for that N&C…
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Interestingly enough (and only because I recently did a bit of research on this), most people know that Ludwig is owned by Conn-Selmer. Conn-Selmer is owned by Steinway. Steinway is owned by investment management firm Paulson & Co. It would make for a fun music business class exercise to research the ownership of privately held major brands within the industry. If there's one thing that's likely as time goes by, it's that we'll see more consolidation.
 
BobC said:
I emailed my artist relations guy at DW last night, and was told that DW is not changing at all. No one is leaving, and the day-to-day operation will remain the same. He also said the acquisition will have no bearing on DW rolling out Slingerland product at some point.
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I'd like to believe it, but this kind of story is commonly given to the rank and file employees on both sides of corporate mergers. It's true until it isn't. Roland is traded on the Tokyo stock exchange.
 
Chris Whitten said:
I don't think there is any way Roland - with a smallish v-drum division, and only enough employees to run that at the moment, could jump in, replace or fire half the people at DW and run it.
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I dont see why they would want to. The folks at DW already know how to build the drums people love (or hate). Replacing them would be like shooting themselves in the foot.

When I was building speaker cabinets, the introduction of a new company (or product) always meant a learning period, which initially put said product behind in production for a bit. Doing that just because would be downright silly.
 
Chris Whitten said:
I don't think there is any way Roland - with a smallish v-drum division, and only enough employees to run that at the moment, could jump in, replace or fire half the people at DW and run it.
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Me neither. There is clearly a lot of manufacturing and product development that Roland is going to have to keep on as is. There are still going to be redundancies or overlapping roles in plenty of places... think logistics, IT, in house art/design. I will trust any corporation to save even 5% on labor costs if they can.

I wasn't insinuating that Roland was going to come in and slash and burn. It takes a while to identify redundancies.

Manufacturing is certainly needed to keep going as is, but future consolidation and streamlining almost seems like a given, especially if we expect to see some from hybrid drums produced en masse.
 
C. Dave Run said:
I dont see why they would want to. The folks at DW already know how to build the drums people love (or hate). Replacing them would be like shooting themselves in the foot.

When I was building speaker cabinets, the introduction of a new company (or product) always meant a learning period, which initially put said product behind in production for a bit. Doing that just because would be downright silly.
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Two words…money.
 
JimmyM said:
Two words…money.
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Drums arent built by machines. Shells, sure. Sanding, finishing, and assembly are all done by hand. Stopping production to train new employees loses money. Startup production with new employees will be slower and have more errors, which loses money. It's not a financially viable move.
 
Chris Whitten said:
I don't think there is any way Roland - with a smallish v-drum division, and only enough employees to run that at the moment, could jump in, replace or fire half the people at DW and run it.
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Not today. Happened at LOUD when they bought Ampeg from St Louis Music. LOUD Head idiot said nobody is getting fired and the US factory is staying, 6 months later they move to China and Vietnam, HQ goes to Seattle, only 3 guys carried over and one went the distance and is still with them at Yamaha. 2 years later the head idiot gets canned when the bad publicity over non working SVTs cut into sales.

So I’d say never say never, but it’s a big risk and you can shoot yourself in the foot easily, and at this point, Roland can’t afford to do that. So I do think they’ll run with the original crew for the time being.
 
C. Dave Run said:
Drums arent built by machines. Shells, sure. Sanding, finishing, and assembly are all done by hand. Stopping production to train new employees loses money. Startup production with new employees will be slower and have more errors, which loses money. It's not a financially viable move.
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Do I agree 100%? Yes. Never stopped anyone from doing it anyway.
 
Peddling hybrid acoustic/electronic drums and choosing DW for that abomination.

I feel sick.
 
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