YAMAHA Drums Radical Plans for 2011

It has just been announced that Yamaha is discontinuing their Artist series of snare drums
for a new snare drum line, to start in 2011.
So if you want one of the artist series drums, go find them now, as they will be gone forever.
That means, no more Billy Cobham, Elvin Jones or Dave Weckl drums will be made,
as well as Anton Fig, Akira Jimbo, David Garibaldi, Steve Gadd, ect.

That is a shame, those are all great drums, their new series is called Concept snare drums.
It remains to be seen if this is the right decision, Yamaha is know for this, discontinuing great stuff
for no reason at all.

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/drums/index.php

I have the Elvin Jones 7x14 Snare Drum #00040 Signed inside the shell By Elvin. Beautiful Drum, great sound.

drumman wrote:It has just been announced that Yamaha is discontinuing their Artist series of snare drums
for a new snare drum line, to start in 2011.
So if you want one of the artist series drums, go find them now, as they will be gone forever.
That means, no more Billy Cobham, Elvin Jones or Dave Weckl drums will be made,
as well as Anton Fig, Akira Jimbo, David Garibaldi, Steve Gadd, ect.

That is a shame, those are all great drums, their new series is called Concept snare drums.
It remains to be seen if this is the right decision, Yamaha is know for this, discontinuing great stuff
for no reason at all.

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/drums/index.php

"No reason at all"????... It's apparent to me that they're not making any money
with this concept. This is big business and when something's not selling, it's
outta here!

Also, it's usually these youngsters that get all caught up in these artist lines.
those who have been playing for any length of time already know or at least
have some idea of what sound they want. I have the Steve Ferrone model
but I certainly didn't buy it because his name is on it but because of the sound
the drum produces. A drummers snare sound is a very personal thing and
experienced players aren't tripping on a bunch of mass produced drums with
some high profile players name on it.

They couldn't care less.

I don't know if I could agree with that, the artist series has been around for many years
now. All of Yamaha's snares are pretty pricey.
The non-artist snare's are pretty horrible, I have owned four of them over the years.
Snares are pretty much what a individual player's likes are, it is hard to discuss the subject
because everybody has such a broad opinion on their snare likes.

I currently own the Akira Jimbo and Anton Fig signature snares and are very happy with them.
Billy has used the Anton Fig and the Elvin Jones snares over the years, as well as his own signature snare.
I will be sorry to see the line go, but there is always the used market, like Ebay.

You could be right, drumman.... Though I do think my explanation is
the simplest and most logical. The artists series have played out
and the "fad" of having "the snare that my favorite drummer uses" has
run it's course.... Yamaha is moving on to other money making concepts.