Drum Workshop
 |
|
| Private | |
| Founded | 1972 in Santa Monica, California, United States |
| Headquarters | Oxnard, California, United States |
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Key people
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Don Lombardi, Founder Chris Lombardi, President and CEO John Good, COO |
| Products |
Drum kits Cocktail drums Snare drums hardware |
| Divisions | Pacific Drums and Percussion |
| Subsidiaries | KAT Percussion Gretsch Drums Ovation Guitars Latin Percussion Toca Percussion Gibraltar Hardware |
| Website | www.dwdrums.com |
Drum Workshop (also known as DW Drums or DW) is a drum kit and hardware manufacturing company based in Oxnard, California.
Drum Workshop was founded in 1972 as a teaching studio by Don Lombardi. It originally offered private lessons and the occasional workshop. However, Lombardi, along with student (and current Senior Executive Vice President) John Good, began a small drum equipment sales operation to cover the facility's operation costs.
This operation soon created the first-ever DW product: The height-adjustable trap seat, which was envisioned by Lombardi. The demand became so great that, after accepting an offer to purchase all of Camco's manufacturing equipment, the primary focus of the DW operation became drum hardware manufacturing. DW's Camco origins can still be seen on their drums today in their unique round "turret" tuning lugs which were designed by George H. Way and originally featured on George Way Drums. Following this, the next big product introduced by DW was the 5000 series nylon strap bass drum pedal, which was essentially a Camco pedal with the DW name placed upon it. The pedal was soon joined by the double bass pedal, the rotating-base and cable remote hi-hat stands. After additional growth and expansion, the first full DW endorser was found in Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe after he tried out a prototype DW drumset when he came to the shop to get his pedals adjusted.
DW expanded into larger facilities in Oxnard, California, and grew to oversee a new company, Pacific Drums and Percussion, a value-oriented company offering quality lower-priced drumsets for any individual.
DW pioneered the timbre-matching technique of grouping a set of drumshells together by listening to the note each shell holds before it is sanded. Each shell that comes out of the Oxnard DW factory is stamped with the note of that shell on the inside. DW offers pre-made standard sized sets as well as custom drums made to customer specification.
For a brief period, DW opened a facility in Ensenada, Mexico, to manufacture its value line of drums and at the same time DW entered the drumstick market with the "3" drumstick lineup. What made the "3" drumstick lineup unique was that they included three matched drumsticks in their offering, unlike other manufactures that sell pairs of two. When DW closed operation at Ensenada facility they ceased the drumstick line.
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Wikipedia