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What Has Happened to Premier Drums?


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i believe yamaha has owned premiere since the late 80's.

Yamaha did own Premier starting in the late 80's but they no longer own them.

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Word has it that they're coming out with some new gear this summer, at least the announcement i thought I saw at WGI.

I love the way premiers sound in the ensemble, but I agree that they may have had some quality issues in the past. My opinion: simply too many moving parts. While the snares are infinitely adjustable that means there's just that many more pieces to lose, have fall off, or just break all together.

yeah, word is their new drums are coming out sometime this summer. no official date yet. i think the drums sound great, but the design holds them back. the new designs are supposed to be top notch. and yes the quads are heavier than any others on the market. trust me.

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It could be due to the fact the Premier almost went belly up in 2001/2002. The corps I used to march in uses Premier marimbas and xylophones and those things are terrible. Also the availability of replacement parts if something should go wrong is another issue. Premier parts aren't easy to find, especially for the marching percussion.

And for tenors...there is no better than a set of Dynasty. Snares it's gotta Yamaha and for basses, well Pearl just owns that catagory.

Dynasty sucks, dude. The tenors don't even stayed tuned for a whole show. Pearl/Adams owns everyone in everything. Their snares have a nice tone to them, the basses speak out, and the tenors' tone is unmatched. Their keyboards are also amazing.

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an even better question, what happened to Ludwig? Magic used them last year, but does anyone else? I remember a few using them back when I started marching.

and I'm a fan of the Dynasty Tenors. The only thing Dynasty makes that I like, cause their horns are crap.

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Dynasty sucks, dude. The tenors don't even stayed tuned for a whole show. Pearl/Adams owns everyone in everything. Their snares have a nice tone to them, the basses speak out, and the tenors' tone is unmatched. Their keyboards are also amazing.

you sound like a kid....be objective, but then again, you probably have never played on anything other than pearls...and to that, im sorry for your inexperience.

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Dynasty sucks, dude. The tenors don't even stayed tuned for a whole show. Pearl/Adams owns everyone in everything. Their snares have a nice tone to them, the basses speak out, and the tenors' tone is unmatched. Their keyboards are also amazing.

Having used Yamaha, Pearl, Dynasty, and *some* Ludwig/Musser stuff...

There is nothing terribly wrong with Dynasty. The tenor mount is by far the most solid I've seen, and the keyboard frames are very solid.

I'm guessing your experience with the tenors was due to new heads that hadn't stretched out yet--there is no conceivable reason any decently-designed drum would do what you describe with a well-stretched head.

The Adams keyboard frames bother me--I am not a fan of the height adjustment design, as I think it adds too much weight overall and makes the gear teeth the weak point. My *favorite* keyboard frame is the new yamaha field frame.

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Ludwig is trying to get back to DCI competition status by having Southwind and Magic use them. I've heard from people who marched in the corps that they were decent, but since they were still prototypes, they were a little on the shotty side. But, with the imput of those two very recognized organizations, Ludwig should be back in DCI before too long.

Now, back to the whole Premier thing. I've used them and I own a mid 1990's model Snare drum. The thing I really hate about premier is the rediculous amount of care you need to give them for the drums to sound in any way, shape, or form decent.

Now for the whole Premier, Yamaha, Pearl, Dynasty, Ludwig, Andante' stuff: I have worked with and played Yamaha, Pearl, and Premier. I have not used Dynasty, Ludwig new stuff nor Andante drums. So, in my inexperienced opinion based off of what I've played and how I've tuned, Yamaha is my pick for one of the best drum companies. Pearl and Premier have a good sound and are semi-durable (when cared for correctly), but Yamaha just seems to have that tight focused sound that I prefer while being very durable. It's only my opinion based on what I've played and have worked with when I taught High School Drumlines. For me, it's Yamaha. For heads, I love Remo because they have a better feel while keeping a good tone while evans just seems too Table-top like. For Sticks, I like Vic Firth, they have a good feel and get great response for how I play and how I teach people to play.

Whoop! my bad I went off topic. But yeah, for me... Yamaha Drums, Remo Heads and Vic Firth Sticks

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you sound like a kid....be objective, but then again, you probably have never played on anything other than pearls...and to that, im sorry for your inexperience.

He does sound like a kid... but then again, he's actually right. I think Dynasty percussion products cannot hold a candle to Pearl, or even Yamaha for that matter

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Dynasty sucks, dude. The tenors don't even stayed tuned for a whole show. Pearl/Adams owns everyone in everything. Their snares have a nice tone to them, the basses speak out, and the tenors' tone is unmatched. Their keyboards are also amazing.

Not that I think anything is ever that cut and dry, but I tend to agree. Although I would blame the tuning issue more on the heads and probably the weather. Summer heat can play real mind games with you. I have a Dynasty shirt for every day of the week, but I really dislike them. Personally, I think that Pearl's just sound awesome. Listen to Phantom's snare line in 2003. I think that has to be one of the best kevlar snare sounds ever. I think the quads have a much fuller sound than even Yamaha's and basses are liking taking a bath in chocolate, ($1 to M. Cesario) As far as pit eqiuptment, Yamaha is tops in my book. They are sturdy and the synthetics hold their pitch much longer than other brands. (esp. the xylos) The only brand that I havn't used is Adams and I've heard mostly good things about their boards (musically, anyway)

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I covered this in a topic a couple of years ago, but I talked to the guys at the Premier booth at the NAMM show in Nashville a couple of summers ago, and they told me that they had lost their distributor in the US which made it incredibly difficult to goet parts to people. Through an exclusive partnership with MBT they had once again partnered with a North American distributor that would allow them to not only sell product but also parts in the US. And at last check, that was what was happening.

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