Roland acquires DW Drums

[Dave Bryce]

 

 

Story here.

 

Thoughts?

 

dB

 

 

[Docbop]

Didn't Fender own DW for a long time?    DW bought Ovation guitars and now Roland buys DW.    Big company roulette never know where something going to end up next. 

[Brian McConnon]

13 hours ago, Docbop said:

Didn't Fender own DW for a long time?    DW bought Ovation guitars and now Roland buys DW.    Big company roulette never know where something going to end up next. 

Fender owned Gretsch Drums, which it sold to DW in 2015 along with Ovation, LP Percussion, Toca, Gibraltar and KAT.

[Jonathan Hughes]

This is interesting, and on its surface seems like kind of an odd fit, but who knows. In the video, they mention "Roland US", so is that a separate entity from Roland (like, their US distributor)? 

A few years ago, Korg USA bought the bass amp company Aguilar, which also seemed like an odd fit, but it turns out that Korg USA is the US distributor of Kong, and a bunch of other brands, so it wasn't Korg the synth company that bought Aguilar. So, I'm wondering if it's a similar situation here.

[ElmerJFudd]

I hope it brings some cool hardware ideas to their V-Drum line.  

[Mighty Motif Max]

As I posted in the parallel thread in the drum forum, I don't see how this could be a bad thing for Roland's e-drum lines. Not sure that the same can be said for DW's acoustic lineup, but I don't have a lot of experience on that side of things, seeing as I don't play acoustic drums much due to volume limitations and also recently purchased a TD-17KVX. Nonetheless I bet Roland can get some great samples for their kits (now that they're using samples for the current lineup and now own an acoustic drum company). Maybe they can improve their acoustic snare triggers as well.

[KuruPrionz]

Just now, Mighty Motif Max said:

As I posted in the parallel thread in the drum forum, I don't see how this could be a bad thing for Roland's e-drum lines. Not sure that the same can be said for DW's acoustic lineup, but I don't have a lot of experience on that side of things, seeing as I don't play acoustic drums much due to volume limitations and also recently purchased a TD-17KVX. Nonetheless I bet Roland can get some great samples for their kits (now that they're using samples for the current lineup and now own an acoustic drum company). Maybe they can improve their acoustic snare triggers as well.

Once you own a company that makes acoustic drums, you can make acoustic drums. The real question? Is DW profitable and can it be profitable into the future?

That's the only reason to buy a company. 

Having an acoustic drum line gives Roland another step towards Yamaha status although I doubt they will ever make motorcycles. 

The E-Drums continue to improve but I like my Korg Wavedrum Global much better. 

[Mighty Motif Max]

6 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

Once you own a company that makes acoustic drums, you can make acoustic drums. The real question? Is DW profitable and can it be profitable into the future?

That's the only reason to buy a company. 

Having an acoustic drum line gives Roland another step towards Yamaha status although I doubt they will ever make motorcycles. 

The E-Drums continue to improve but I like my Korg Wavedrum Global much better. 

Sure, but DW has much better name recognition for acoustic percussion, at least for now. If they can bring some DW sets down from their 8K price point that might help. Still, I wouldn't mind DW hardware integrated into some of Roland's kits.

 

Yamaha making acoustic drums didn't make their electronic drum sets sound all that great, up until the most recent DTX-Pro module which is a step forward. Nor did it make their cymbal pads feel better than Roland's. The TCS snares vs mesh are personal preference. Hence why, despite being an overall Yamaha fan, I went with a Roland set. My hope is that Roland will take their already excellent products and go a step further now.

[Docbop]

Maybe DW owns some technology and patients that Roland wants to get their hands on.    

[KuruPrionz]

3 hours ago, Mighty Motif Max said:

Sure, but DW has much better name recognition for acoustic percussion, at least for now. If they can bring some DW sets down from their 8K price point that might help. Still, I wouldn't mind DW hardware integrated into some of Roland's kits.

 

Yamaha making acoustic drums didn't make their electronic drum sets sound all that great, up until the most recent DTX-Pro module which is a step forward. Nor did it make their cymbal pads feel better than Roland's. The TCS snares vs mesh are personal preference. Hence why, despite being an overall Yamaha fan, I went with a Roland set. My hope is that Roland will take their already excellent products and go a step further now.

DW is absolutely an acoustic drum company at this point. Roland didn't have that, it might be something that works for them, DW didn't go out of business. At a certain point maybe you realize that you could retire nicely and flip your business. If you have the reputation for quality DW has you could start another company and move forward. Options. 

Roland makes great electronic drums, I have the first Handsonic and the new one is miles ahead of it. I still prefer the expression and feel of the Korg Wavedrum. It lacks some features but it makes up for it by being amazing. 

[Dave Bryce]

7 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

I have the first Handsonic and the new one is miles ahead of it. 

 

Yeah, it is.  I have one, and love it.  Got kick and hi-hat pedals for it as well.

 

dB

[Mighty Motif Max]

8 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

DW is absolutely an acoustic drum company at this point...

Well, they did have the GEWA partnership for e-drums (DWe line). So maybe they can bring something in that area as well.

 

https://drummerszone.com/news/article/brand-news-3-13656/new-dwe-electronic-drums-by-drum-workshop-and-gewa-music/

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, David Bryce said:

 

Yeah, it is.  I have one, and love it.  Got kick and hi-hat pedals for it as well.

 

dB

I have the kick pedal for mine but not the high hat. 

The first version has 2 ribbon controllers, vertical on each side. Not sure why Roland dropped those, they could have evolved them into some fantastic variations. 

Meanwhile, a 15 minute session with a Wavedrum will cause lightbulbs to go off inside one's head. It is unique in the world of electronic drums. 

[Dave Bryce]

27 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

The first version has 2 ribbon controllers, vertical on each side. Not sure why Roland dropped those, they could have evolved them into some fantastic variations. 

 

Did the first version have the D-Beam?

 

dB

[KuruPrionz]

1 minute ago, David Bryce said:

 

Did the first version have the D-Beam?

 

dB

Yes, it does. Fun!!! 

I got mine very well used (beaten without mercy!!!!) and it all works except the left line out gets wonky. I just run it from the headphone out with no problems.

One knob was broken off but I can still turn what's left of the shaft and tweak. 

They came out of the gate strong, they've definitely improved the sound library since then but the kick and toms sound fine to me, a steal at $145.

[MAJUSCULE]

Dr Lonnie Smith made good use of the D-Beam on the original HandSonic. 😇

[Ivan May]

Roland has always been a big name in musical instruments, and I think now that Roland owns Ovation, DW Drums and Slingerland, Yamaha and Ibanez are up against some increasingly stiff competition.

[Shamanzarek]

DW collaborating with a Japanese company goes back many years. In 1977 Drum Workshop and Hoshino Gakki (Tama) jointly purchased the assets of Camco Drums. DW got Camco's inventory and manufacturing equipment while Hoshino got the Camco brand name, blueprints and engineering rights. DW adopted the Camco round lug design which they continue to use.

 

I first found out about Chesbro Music when I played in Idaho Falls, ID in 1985. Here was this huge music store out in the middle of nowhere. I found out later that they had partnered with Hoshino Gakki in 1973 to distribute Tama Drums and Ibanez guitars in the USA and were also the biggest US distributor of sheet music. Chesbro ended the association with Hoshino Gakki in 2009. Chesbro Music is now 111 years old and has been female operated since 1953.

[Mark Schmieder]

I didn't know about that 2015 transfer of ownership of some of the other lines mentioned, thinking they were part of Kaman International or whatever they're called.

 

So this is a pretty big portfolio that Roland just bought, in other words. I own a Gretsch kit and knew they weren't Fender but didn't expect them to become Roland!

[Mark Schmieder]

On 9/14/2022 at 3:15 PM, IMMusicRulz said:

Roland has always been a big name in musical instruments, and I think now that Roland owns Ovation, DW Drums and Slingerland, Yamaha and Ibanez are up against some increasingly stiff competition.

I once again tried to find evidence of Ibanez owning TAMA, as I thought for some time that they must have a common owner, but apparently their only connection is a common distributor for North America, who also distributes Bergerault (concert percussion, marimbas, etc.).

 

One of the first Ibanez factories was in Tama, Japan. They also were the producers of Roland's guitar synthesizer technology for many years. I don't think I knew that previously. All on the Ibanez Wiki page.

 

Gretsch Drums was split off from Gretsch Guitars a while back, but I don't know if it was related to Fender selling the drum company or if the split was pre-Fender.

[Mark Schmieder]

On 9/14/2022 at 1:09 PM, MAJUSCULE said:

Dr Lonnie Smith made good use of the D-Beam on the original HandSonic. 😇

The D-Beam is one of three reasons I sold my original HPD-15 HandSonic. Almost impossible to avoid accidentally triggering it! The other two reasons were the lack of sensitivity of the pads (especially compared to Korg padKontrol), and the inability to unbake the reverb from the raw samples. Oh yeah, also the difficulty of customizing patch or performance edits. Maybe later models allow more programmability than the original model did.

 

All the same, it helped me a lot in the early years, and I learned what to avoid as a result as well. I still have some recordings I made with it, and I used it live as well, but less for its percussion sounds than its excellent TB-303 bassline patch (one full octave). I used the steel drum patch a lot too.

[Stokely]

As an aside, the band leaders in my band (husband and wife, but they make it work!) were talking about possibly picking up a set of e-drums.  Not sure our regular drummer will like using them, but I know he'll probably like having them set up for him.  We also have sub drummers sometimes.

Our gigs are, more and more, becoming lower volume.  The better-paying ones are at least.  It's really hard to dial things in when you can't even bring the PA up to acoustic drum set level, at the most extreme we can't easily do it even with hot rod low volume sticks.  

Ironically, if they were to go to e-drums I might actually go back to using a wedge.  Loud cymbals (and snares) are the main reason I went to in-ears in the first place.   I had to use a wedge last night when the mixer's wifi was out (no way I'm going to use in-ears if I can't control my own mix) and I miss how live it sounds.    We'd also be able to get some good live recordings as we don't typically mic up drums other than kick.

[Outkaster]

One of the last independent drum outlets is here in town.  The owner is not happy about that acquisition at all.

[Dave Bryce]

5 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

The D-Beam is one of three reasons I sold my original HPD-15 HandSonic. Almost impossible to avoid accidentally triggering it! 

 

No Off switch for it?  The HPD 20 has one.

 

dB

[Mark Schmieder]

Not all patches were programmed to handle the D-Beam, but my recollection is that there weren't many things you could customize, at least as saved user patches vs. time-expensive on-the-fly tweaks at a gig.

 

I didn't know about the HPD-20; just the cheaper version that came out a few years after the HPD-15. It was a great concept, so if they finally got it right, that's great. I like the Wavedrum concept better, in spite of no MIDI (good reasons for that though!). But I've really moved away from electronically produced percussion sounds.

 

I thought I remembered Roland owning the revived Rogers Drum Company, but I might be getting confused with Rogers Organs. I don't dare go down the rabbit hole of looking any of this stuff up right now, as I already know it's going to be a very non-linear history regarding all the mergers and spin-offs of MI companies!