Chunky
Silver Member
I'm run down right now, really run down. Just slept for 6 hours after 72 hours straight without sleep. I'm gigging tonight, & I'll be screwed over for that too. So why the tiredness Andy?
I've spent the last week designing a floor tom leg & bass drum spur bracket system. Why the hell would someone in their right mind, spend probably 80 hours of their own time, & $10,000 of their own money, prototyping a freakin' bracket to hold a piece of bar? It ain't rocket science, right? I mean, it's not as if there aren't already some pretty good brackets I could go & buy, so why reinvent the wheel?
I can tell you all, that the motivation for this apparent insanity has bugger all to do with some surface hype feature opportunity, it has everything to do with designing something that makes a worthwhile difference to the instrument sound. A floor tom leg bracket? A bass drum spur bracket? Really, are you nuts mate? No, not nuts, I've done the testing, I mean, I'VE REALLY DONE THE TESTING. I may be many things, but I'm not a deluded idiot who spends time & money reworking something just to get a leg up in the hype game.
As a small & fairly unknown maker, unlike the big guys, if we claim something offers an improvement, we'd better damn well be prepared to prove it. These new drums will be released for press scrutiny over the next few months, & at our price point, if we can't deliver on our promises, we're screwed. More accurately, I'm screwed.
So, to conclude, I get the distain for benign advertising stereotype promo claims, but to even start to suggest that there's no value in making something better, as you can imagine, REALLY winds me up. Before I started all this development crap, I had to prove the value in developing something to myself, before I even started to think in terms of proving it to others. The one person you can't lie to, is yourself.
I do get the catalyst for this premise though. Multiple industry claims of "this is better" or "that is better", without truly delivering on the hype, has instilled, quite rightly, a scepticism amongst drummers. For my sake, I only hope I can convey the worthwhile differences I know exist, to an audience that's sick & tired of being fed the same old claims.
Sorry for the mini rant, but there's so many devaluing & sweeping comments in this thread, It makes me question wether my efforts are all for nothing, & that's a pretty crap feeling when you know you can make a difference.
Hey, I'm not devaluing what your doing. It's just the crappy quotes most big firms use that riles people up.
I like companies to show you their new features in step by step pics, how it works etc. not just some famous guy standing there saying 'they sound good'. It kind of devalues the artist I think.
I thought your post/rant was great actually and the only one on this thread from that particular view-point. Bigger companies often change a feature give it a ridiculous name and that's as far as it goes but, like you said as a smaller company if you don't prove you're new feature is not just as good as but better than others then reviewers are going to come down hars on it like you've spat in their dinner or something.
Interesting stuff and you've got me curious about these floot tom and bass drum leg/support things. How about doing a thread on them, showing us pics and stuff?
I wanna see!