off topic

[Randy walker]

While rehearsing my new project with Tod Howarth, I was invited to visit the Fender factory and DW facility in Ensenada Mexico. What a blast this was, the DW plant is a mirro of the factory in Oxnard, although they don't make the really high drums in Mexico they do make a fair amount of Collector series shells to be sent up to Oxnard for finishing.
I played one of the PDP maple drums and man do they sound killer, maybe even better than a Yamaha or Pearl kit. All maple shells made right there in Mexico from the picking of the type of maple (short sound/long sound) to the finishing (lacquer/finish ply).
They are also getting ready to intorduce a Carbon Fiber snare, really thing shell that sounds so big and fat, was never a big fan of this material as regular tom/kick drum material when Yamaha was making them but as a snare these sound very hip and can compare if not blow a wood shell/metal away. Slap weither a diecast hoop or wood hoop and this drum could be a main stay snare.
Anyway that's about it, just thought I would share that.

[buga]

Randy, no pictures? [img]redface.gif[/img]

but visiting the DW/Sonor Factory would be like heaven for me...

glad u had a great time!

[Randy walker]

No pics, sorry. Was not sure how they would dig that or not so I left the camera behind.
Basically the wood comes in very thin sheets, then they seperate what would make good lacquer type drums verses finsh ply drums. Then they make 3 ply sheets of ply wood, to later be formed into the heated cylinder machine which in turn makes the shell.
I got to see the whole process from the wood selection to drilling, finshing, buffing, sanding all the way to packing them up and shipping out to the US. I mean what I saw was no different than what the American Dream video shows, but my view was hands on.