Turtlerock Forum

I've been doing alot of research into Australian made guitar amps lately, especially the valve ones from the 60's and 70's. I've discovered brands like Goldentone, Strauss, Eminar, Vase and many many more, all of which were as good if not better than the US and UK amps of the same eras.

After the success of finding out about these amps, I've started to look into Australian drum kit manufacturers. Unfortunately I'm not coming up with much, apart from Brady here in the west and Sheishman in the east.

Anyone else know of past drum makers or brands from Australia?

Al

There's a guy in Queensland that actually makes the shells for Schleisman. I used to have his contact details but I can't find them now... something like IR Drums... I may be way off on that though.

Drouyn (sp) from the '60s......I think they were Brisbane based.

There's a few small customish makers around (DeeJay, Spirit.........). Sleishman had used Keller shells but have moved over to using shells from Metro in Qld. For the record, I had been making ply snare shells but circumstances have put a halt on that..........although as time allows, I am working on developing drums shells with a difference ;-)

Brady snares are fantastic - made in WA
http://www.bradydrums.com.au/
A mate has a few of them ;-)

Brady are world class - the snares at least.
Sleishmann are super expensive. I don't know much else, except they sometimes come up on Ebay.
I'm seriously after a Drouyn kit if anyone has one stashed away.
I have a snare, but haven't really tried it yet (bit of a restoration job).
Drouyn drums are thin on the ground.... well in the two years I've been looking.
The odd drum, or part of a kit has turned up on Ebay.

If anyone has one for sale..... let me know.

TimS wrote:Brady snares are fantastic - made in WA
http://www.bradydrums.com.au/
A mate has a few of them ;-)

+1

Fantastic kits.

ChrisW wrote:Brady are world class - the snares at least.
Sleishmann are super expensive. I don't know much else, except they sometimes come up on Ebay.
I'm seriously after a Drouyn kit if anyone has one stashed away.
I have a snare, but haven't really tried it yet (bit of a restoration job).
Drouyn drums are thin on the ground.... well in the two years I've been looking.
The odd drum, or part of a kit has turned up on Ebay.

If anyone has one for sale..... let me know.

I played in a band where the drummer played a Sleishman kit - sounded awesome!!
We played at The Cat & Fiddle and it sounded huge!!
Was a while ago now though..

hahaha.... sounding huge at the Cat and Fiddle isn't hard when the ceiling's only 4 feet above the stage... hahaha....

seriously though, I have a mate with a Sleishman kit and it's unbelievable. He can't play it for crap, he's just rich, but when someone who can play gets on, it really is an impressive drumkit.

Dave

Sheer Noise wrote:hahaha.... sounding huge at the Cat and Fiddle isn't hard when the ceiling's only 4 feet above the stage... hahaha....

LOL, I thought the same thing.

well, I'm only describing what my ears told me at the time..
;-)
It was still a great sounding kit though - rehearsals pumped

TimS wrote:well, I'm only describing what my ears told me at the time..
;-)
It was still a great sounding kit though - rehearsals pumped

... and I'm just joshin'... :)

Me too.

Incidentally, my kit sounded huge in the Monkey Bar (Balmain).

Acoustics = small front bar with mirrored walls and polished wood floors.
If you breathed on the kit the owner asked you to turn down.

ChrisW wrote:Me too.

Incidentally, my kit sounded huge in the Monkey Bar (Balmain).

Acoustics = small front bar with mirrored walls and polished wood floors.
If you breathed on the kit the owner asked you to turn down.

I used to frequent there alot in 2002-2004..

Dont they still make Spirit drums up at cooktown/cairns way from iron bark?
They had a huge sound back in the early 2000's.

Yes, Spirit drums are beautiful. I had one of their snares. Solid timber.
They started off making djembes - I had a couple of jams with them when they came to Sydney a few years ago.
Really nice guys. They tried their hand at kits, got a rave review in Modern Drummer magazine and haven't looked back.
I don't think they even worry much about the Australian market anymore, more profitable to market overseas.

[url]http://www.spiritdrums.com/snare/beat.html[url] (edit: How do I make this link active? HTML is turned OFF)

Blair Greenberg

there's quite a few current drum makers getting around in Oz at the moment plus some vintage ones:

GAS custom drums
Brady
Sleishman
Spirit
Maestro
Fidock
Barter
Drouyn

On another note I recently took delivery of a new ddrum DIOS Walnut drum kit.. it blows me away everytime I play it
or record another drummer on it..

Thats fantastic I have always wanted to add a WALNUT snare to the collection. Glad to hear that walnut is really working for you. Can you further describe the sound of your walnut kit compared to birch and maple?
Cheers

OzDrum wrote:there's quite a few current drum makers getting around in Oz at the moment plus some vintage ones:

Maestro

Mastro?

HA_DA_JA wrote:Thats fantastic I have always wanted to add a WALNUT snare to the collection. Glad to hear that walnut is really working for you. Can you further describe the sound of your walnut kit compared to birch and maple?
Cheers

What can I say about the Walnut? It's killer.. great attack but also fat tones, lots of life and body.

My other kit was a Pearl Masters Studio (birch) and we also have a Gretsch Renown Maple and dw custom (maple) in our hire department. The ddrum kits blow
them out of the water in overall drum tones. One of the other engineers here has the same ddrum DIOS model as mine but in Bubinga which is really
nice also but not as much tone as the Walnut. So we have lots of options in the studio to play with depending on what sound we are after.



plus some of our snares::

Nice advertising there.
Is the Walnut a full ply walnut or is it like the Bubinga - a bit of Bubinga and a bit of something else?
Cheers

Also the snare looks like an 8 lug snare is this the case in the dios models?

the Dios snares are 13x7 so is only 8 lug but has plenty of tuning range. The Walnut kit is full ply as is the Dios Bubinga - no mixtures.
(the Dios ST series are mixed) these are the top of the range DIOS kits.

and from previous poster - yes, sorry it is MASTRO (not Maestro).. my mate has a 13x5"? all brass Mastro snare which sounds pretty good and weighs a tonne!.