DRUMS AND PERCUSSION ISSUE DRUMS AND PERCUSSION ISSUE DRUMS AND PERCUSSION ISSUE THE NEWS MAGAZINE FOR MUSIC PRODUC TS RETAILERS
October 16, 2017 Volume 34, No. 10 BE SURE TO WATCH
MANUFACTURERS EXPLAIN WHAT IT MEANS TO MAKE PRODUCTS IN THE HOMELAND By Brian Berk
STATUS ‘CYMBAL’ The Drum and Percussion Industr y Continues to Hold Its Steady Beat
By Brian Berk
There’s nothing like having our annual drum update just prior to International Drum Month. This year, we drew a panel of four standouts in the field to tell us about the state of the drum and percussion industry: Steven Fisher, marketing manager for Yamaha Drums; Drew Armentrout, product and artist relations manager, drums and percussion, for Roland Corp. U.S.; Kevin Packard, combo marketing manager for Pearl Corp.; and Luis Cardoso, marketing manager for Sabian and brand manager for Gon Bops. We asked this quartet these four questions: 1. What’s the hottest recent trends you’ve seen in the drums and percussion industry? 2. There’s been a lot of talk for years about an alleged lack of guitar heroes in MI. Does the same hold true for the drum industry, regarding a lack of heroes? If it is true, is it a concern at all? (continued on page 50)
PROUD TO BE
October may be a time when people think about fall, pumpkins, Halloween and candy. But we here at the Music & Sound Retailer choose to think about drums, and this feature, which shines a bright light on those who continue to manufacture products in the United States. Clearly, keeping manufacturing at home — as well as jobs that go with it — was a key component of last year’s presidential election. But when it comes to MI manufacturers, how important are the four words “Made in the USA”? We asked them, as we have done for the past several years. Below is the exact question we asked manufacturers to answers, followed by what they said, presented in the order in which we received the answers. Q: How important is the phrase “Made in the USA” compared to a few years ago? How proud are you to say your products are made in the USA, and do you believe the end user seeks these products as much as in the past? “This is very, very important to me, our family and our company. We effectively manufacture 95 percent of our 7,000 SKU line in the USA. It is something we are very, very proud of. A little over 1,000 D’Addario employees make our music strings, drumheads, drumsticks, reeds and mouthpieces in our U.S. facilities. We have a total of eight factories located in New York, California, Tennessee, Texas and Connecticut. D’Addario is also a very vertically integrated company, so our manufacturing includes not just the finished products that our dealers know us for, but the raw materials used to make those products. In New York, we manufacture high-carbon steel wire and phosphor bronze wire, as well as print 90 percent of our packaging materials. In Connecticut, we manufacture coated wires for our EXP string line. In Tennessee, our saw mill cuts massive hickory and maple logs into dowels for Promark drumsticks. In New York and California, our engineers and technicians (continued on page 26)
AMERICAN
MADE