Istanbul 06 Rides

The Traditional range is darker and aimed more towards jazz and lighter players. They had some beautiful 24” dark, jazzy rides and some incredible versions of… (ahem) …err… older Turkish cymbals. These aren’t new copies, merely (merely?) cymbals made in the way that cymbals used to be made in Turkey. These cymbals should have had a massive price tag, but are very, very reasonable. They also had some ‘06’ rides which also sounded beautiful. If you are into your jazz cymbals, these should be on your list to check out.

HandSonic HPD 15

Roland
Roland had a couple of things that we had a look at. No new kits from them but the very clever HandSonic HPD 15 reappeared in the form of the HandSonic 10. This is slightly scaled down version of the HPD 15, with new sounds and a streamlined operation. It hadn’t been 100% finalised but we are talking 64 kits, 400 sounds, sequencer, Rhythm Coach training and pedal ins for kick and hi hat.

For those who don’t know the HandSonic, it is an electronic pad that is played with the hands and can replicate most hand drums, such as congas, tabla and bongos, without having to use the individual techniques necessary for those instruments. It has a 10” pad that is divided up into quarters with a central area and 5 mini pads around the back edge. Each area is pressure sensitive and can trigger an individual sound. It also has a D-Beam controller and sequence patterns to play along to. It doesn’t have to be a percussion controller and can also trigger drum kit sounds and melodic sounds too.

Also new are the latest Roland triggers. Rather than the metal bodied versions recently available, these have a light, plastic body, height adjustable sensor and come in kick, snare and tom varieties. Jack outputs connect to your brain (drum brain!) and are projected to be £49 for the kick and snare triggers and £39 for the tom trigger.

Gretsch Classic

Peace
Peace is another company we will be covering more of.  The latest Paragon kit comes in a double kick set up and the photos show the Rain Forest Sparkle fade finish. The 9 ply maple shells are 8x7”, 10x8”, 12x9”, 14x14”, 16x16”, 18x18”, 22x18”x2 with a 14x6” snare. All drums come with tube lugs, die cast hoops on the snare and Remo heads (Pinstripes in the photos) all for £1380. How do they do it? Peace also showed some new multi boom stands which look very similar to some other stands which were launched last year. Look at the photos for more information.

Gretsch
Gretsch were showing their first new design pro kit. The New Classic kit shares the same lugs and badge as the New Classic snares we looked at recently. They have a new bridge style mounting system instead of RIMS mounts and comes in two colours- Vintage Glass Nitron (wrap) and Deep Cherry UV Gloss (lacquer). There are three kit configurations – 12x8”, 14x14”, 18x14” / 12x9”, 16x16”, 22x18” / 10x8”, 12x9” 14x14”, 22x18” – and they look very cool. The New Classics also got a new snare – 14x5” black metal with chrome hardware – and there are also new Hammered copper- on-brass and Hammered Antique Copper. Gretsch are also getting into long bass drums with 22x20” kicks appearing in Renown and the new Catalina Club Mod kits which have mahogany shells. The new Catalina Ash has (can you guess?) ash shell and we want to go back and have a listen as it apparently sounds great. Ash was making an appearance on a few stands this year, perhaps it’s the new wood to be found in drums. The Catalina Ash gets a free 8” tom and the Catalina Maple gets a free 16” floor tom.

Gretsch have also pulled some 20 year old shells out of their stores and have made some very limited snares. Only one of each will be made in different sizes and finishes and only a few will get to the UK.

Toca Limited Edition Congas

Gibraltar
Gibraltar have a few clever new products. First off is the Workstation Stool. This is a round stool with Velcro around the edge. Onto the Velcro attaches a drum stick holder, a drink holder and a towel (not so sure about that one). It’s all totally adjustable and allows you to put things exactly where you want. There is also a hydraulic stool with a gas cylinder and, best of all, a stool backrest that will fit EVERY stool known to man. It grips to the post below the seat and is such a simple idea; I am amazed that no one has thought of it before. Also, for all the vintage train-spotters, Gibraltar have bought out a vintage style rail mounting tom holder. It is designed to fit most two hole patterns on existing shells or can be retro fitted to new drums.  Rack wise, there is a new completely curved rack, with curved uprights and cross bar, and a few new clamps for mounting smaller tube diameters onto existing racks.  Gibraltar’s Intruder pedal has had a total redesign and now looks much better, feels much better and is available with chain, strap and direct drive linkages.

Toca
Amazing news from Toca in that 50% of their sales in the UK last year were made up of plastic Djembes! They can’t get enough of them. They are light, sound good and very strong so you can sort of see why they are popular, but 50%??  They also had some new colours for the Limited Edition Congas and Elite Fibreglass and some nice Globe and Tube shakers.

Vinnie Paul Snare

Pearl
Pearls biggest releases were some new snares. The Sensitone Elite are metal shells of Steel, Aluminium, Brass and Phosphor Bronze and are thicker than the older Sensitone shells. Each comes in 14x5” (not 5.5” as before) and 14x6.5” and have a certain ‘classic’ look to them. They are certainly heavy and sounded very crisp. The Reference series has some new metal snares too – rolled brass and cast (yes, really, and really thick with it) steel. The steel shell is so thick that the bearing edge and snare bed are cut into the shell in the same way that a wood snare is, rather than folded over. Again, both come in 14x5” and 6.5”.

In the signature range, the big news is Vinnie Paul’s new 14x8” snare. This has a snakeskin finish, spiked tube lugs and a 6 ply maple shell. This finished product is very different from the ‘nearly finished’ version we saw last year, but still looks pretty granny-scaring.

As with most companies, Pearl have new colours in most ranges including a nice Eucalyptus outer ply in the Masterworks range. The new BSX range is a wrapped birch shell, but what makes it different is that the wrap is glued to the whole shell and the seam is butt jointed rather then overlapped. It looks good and feels smooth to the touch. The Reference Series also get a new finish in Crystal Rain, a multi blue sparkle lacquer.

Pearl also were showing loads of new percussion. The new products are mainly in two ranges, Folkloric and Brazilian. The Folkloric range is modern interpretations of traditional Southern American percussion with inlaid steel band around the congas (very trad looking) and Shekers, bamboo claves and musical hoes (the garden tool). I was lucky enough to be shown around by Pearl Percussion designer John Van Der Meulen. Now this guy is one of those people who is so passionate about what he does that you just can’t help but get excited too. He is the sort of person that just comes up with loads of little tweaks to existing products that you wonder why no-one had thought of it before. A true inspiration, Mr Van Der Meulen is a credit to Pearl. He showed me so many of his ideas and improvements that I will have to leave it to the big write up to tell you about them.

Yamaha Oak Custom

Remo
Remo have little in the way of new products for kit players but as always, they have got even closer to the sound of real hide with their new conga and bongo heads. We were shown the differences in sound between the ‘old’ Fibreskyn and the ‘new’ Nuskyn. To be honest, the differences were quite pronounced, and very impressive, and if I hadn’t known, I would have sworn that the Nuskyn head was real hide.

One product that will appeal to some drummers is the Drumometer. This is the device which uses a Remo practice pad to measure how fast a drummer can play single strokes and measure how many they can play in a minute. It is the basis for the Worlds Fastest Drummer competition and it is now being distributed outside the USA by Remo.

Yamaha
Rather than taking over an entire hotel like they normally do, Yamaha are this year spread between a few sites, including the main halls. Talk of the stand is the Steve Gadd kit. This is the same as the kit Steve uses for most work, with a 22x14” maple bass drum and 10x8”, 12x8”, 14x12” and 16x14” toms. All rims and tension rods are black and the lugs are chrome Maple Custom style. It certainly looks fabulously mean and moody but at $9000 for the drums with a UK price TBC, I’m not sure how many will sell. Having said that, talking to the reps, it would appear that sales have been rather good so far.

The Manu Katche kit now comes in black and silver lacquer finishes and look great and looks like being the same price in the UK as the wrapped version. The Oak Custom series has been relaunched with a different spec and some nice finishes. There are five new Absolute finishes, of which Cherry Black Fade and Hot Pink Sparkle both deserve a mention, if for different reasons. Cherry Black Fade is subtle and understated and classy… Hot Pink Sparkle makes you want to grab some eye protection. Wow!

New snares are the Peter Erskine 10x5” and the John ‘J R’ Robinson 14x6.5” nail drum. Now, you might be saying that both of these are old, but they are totally different models. Then Erskine snare has an oak shell but is otherwise identical to the old model, and the JR snare has a Birdseye Maple outer ply with an Amber Sunburst finish which looks beautiful. The Steve Gadd snares get a new aluminium hoop, which means that in three years, these snares have had three different hoops models (steel, wood and aluminium die cast) and two redesigns.

Updated Photo Gallery here.  More to follow......

Words: Simon Edgoose
Photos: Gerry McDonnell