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Premier is Back


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So let's be clear here. Are the drums/horns for Premier made in the US? What's going to be the parts process? I can tell you, Regiment waited decades in the mid-late 1990s for hardware, replacement shells, etc. The company was a mess from the UK side. It won't matter if the CS is in the USA if the drums/parts and horns/parts are coming from the UK like they did in the past. What's changed in the Premier distribution model and most important...how do the horns play? How do the drums compare with the past incarnations?

Is this an attempt to take the Jupiter model to the next step...by using a name from the past instead of someone entering the marching market for the first time?

And, can a Slingerland remake be far behind if Ludwig and Premier are successful?

I see this as a limited marketplace with far to few clients...I am speaking marching arts...not just drum corps. What's the niche each of these vendors is trying to fill?

And who has the marketshare to lose? In drums it's Pearl/Adams or Yamaha.

In horns...who's going to lose marketshare? Yamaha? King? And aren't King and Ludwig at home together?

Should get interesting.

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too many past issues with Premier to blindly give them trust. I'll be a skeptic for a while.

as for Mapex, can't say enough about them. gladly ditched our old set of Yamahas....sounds worlds better.

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So let's be clear here. Are the drums/horns for Premier made in the US? What's going to be the parts process? I can tell you, Regiment waited decades in the mid-late 1990s for hardware, replacement shells, etc. The company was a mess from the UK side. It won't matter if the CS is in the USA if the drums/parts and horns/parts are coming from the UK like they did in the past. What's changed in the Premier distribution model and most important...how do the horns play? How do the drums compare with the past incarnations?

Is this an attempt to take the Jupiter model to the next step...by using a name from the past instead of someone entering the marching market for the first time?

And, can a Slingerland remake be far behind if Ludwig and Premier are successful?

I see this as a limited marketplace with far to few clients...I am speaking marching arts...not just drum corps. What's the niche each of these vendors is trying to fill?

And who has the marketshare to lose? In drums it's Pearl/Adams or Yamaha.

In horns...who's going to lose marketshare? Yamaha? King? And aren't King and Ludwig at home together?

Should get interesting.

Premier is a very different company now it seems. Their stuff is now manufactured in Asia (just like many manufacturers). As far as parts go, I would assume that the distributor would stock.

Anyway, it would seem that marching music is actually picking up... in the sense you have so many manufacturers trying to get in vs. trying to get out.

Tama is in, Premier is back, Ludwig seems to have their eyes on it.

How many manufacturers are there in the market now compared to 10 years ago? 20? 30?

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Hopefully, this time around, their stuff won't weigh enough to break the back of Arnold-the-Conan-nator at his buffed best.

The old Premier snares weighed a ton, compared to Pearls, and didn't sound anywhere near as good...Unless you were into scottish drumming.

THIS. I didn't mind the old Premier snare sound (early-90s), though it was very crisp/sharp compared to other marching snares and really only went well with drum corps (sounded horrid with marching bands). But the gear was ridiculously heavy. It felt like the snares were filled with cement.

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And, can a Slingerland remake be far behind if Ludwig and Premier are successful?

Gibson tried it, twice. No go. The brand is dead as it gets. Some nice Slingerland drums came out of Nashville in the 90s, but the latest 2000s version of Slings were nothing but Keller shells with Taiwanese replica hardware, at DW prices.

Edited by mobrien
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On terms of sound with the Premier drums, here's some video of the Revolution series. First video from 2008 and the second from 2010.

2008:

2010:

Not the most fair impression because of the audio quality on the videos.

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Hopefully this time around their tenors won't sound like wood blocks, basses sounding like cardboard boxes, and snares sounding like a stick striking a piece of paper. Yeeeesh!

I didn't really have a problem with the sound (although that is, of course, a matter of personal taste). But customer service was somewhat less than stellar; replacement parts were impossible to obtain. Hopefully they'll be able to do better in that regard this time around.

Peace,

Fred O.

Edited by drumno5
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