DW Drum Factory Tour
Having been a DW Drum fan for the better part of my life a tour of the facility was high on my list of things to do. So when I we were invited out, I had to make it happen. We arrived into LAX in the late morning. Our shuttle picked us up and promptly took us the 60 miles northwest to our hotel. After settling in we grabbed some lunch at the local IN n Out Burger. Back to the hotel, relax for a bit then get ready for the 7-9pm cocktail receptions in the hotel lounge. I assumed this would be hosted by sales reps and people of the like. For the first time but not the last during this trip, I was wrong. We were greeted by a few of the international sales staff when we arrived. Soon after, John Good V.P. and DW “Woodologist” along with Don Lombardi CEO and founder of the company greeted us. After some libations and some great appetizers Wills and I were seated at the bar when Mr. Lombardi took a seat next to us. We proceeded to carry on a conversation with him for the better part of 45 minutes pretty much uninterrupted. We talked about whatever came up. After excusing himself to engage some other guests, John Good made his way over to us. DW staffers told some great stories of the times when John was a roadie for Jonathan “Sugarfoot” Moffett during Madonna's early career and Chad Wackerman who was in Frank Zappa's band for some time. Great stories if you stop in the store ask Wills or I and we can give you a little taste! Stories shared and glasses raised we said our good nights and headed off to our rooms we had an early start in the morning.
The next morning we all met in the hotel lobby for our quick 15-minute drive to the DW world headquarters. There John Good, Don Lombardi, and a new face that was unable to make it the night before Chris Lombardi again greeted us. Chris is in charge of most of the day-to-day business of DW and was just as warm and inviting as his father and John.
We were first up to take a personally guided tour of all things DW with John Good narrating the whole way through. We went through the paint shops and met Louie the gentleman who designs and paints all of the graphics for DW. John then took us in one of the spray booths and we saw for the first time one of the limited Japanese Tamo Ash 40th anniversary drum kits near completion.
John Good explaining how DW shells are finished
Next we saw how DW makes their plywood for all DW drum shells. They get in sheets of veneer, cut them to size, glue them together, and put them in a press at 200 degrees with 3100 pounds of pressure. The plywood is now made. Then it is cut to size and has to be used almost immediately because of the ever-changing weather of southern California. These are all aspects of the drum making process neither Wills or myself knew about. Assuming they got the plywood in and bent the shells to size not that they made their own plywood!
After that we witnessed a shell being bent. Three separate pieces of plywood glued together to make a 7ply total shell then rolled to make the beginnings of whatever size drum they are going to make. The shell is then put in to a heat mold for 6 minutes. From there it comes out of the mold and right into a cold mold under extreme pressure. The shell will stay in the cold mold for up to 24 hours depending on the shell size.
One of DW’s unique finishes
The process then moves to applying the finish plies where the shell seals itself so the seams will never come apart. Then to shell pitching. This is where I was given an eye opener and my opinion changed about the DW method of timbre matching drum shells. I went on this visit with the misinformation that when John Good timbre matches a drum shell that tuning note is for the whole drum. I was totally off base. John told us directly the note on the inside of the shell is meant to be a starting point for tuning the BOTTOM HEAD ONLY! Whoa, what a revelation. I was always under the impression it meant the top head as well as the bottom. The bottom is where your fundamental pitch comes from the top is your attack. You can tune your top head to whatever tension feels good to you, but it still must be in relative pitch with your bottom or the drum just won't sound right. Drums are a relative pitch instrument, not like every other instrument out there that has a specific pitch. However you can get a great starting off point with your drums if you tune it to the natural resonating note of the shell.
john Good inspects drum shell
After all of the new revelations filtered through my brain we ended up at final assembly. We saw the drums come to life. Lugs put on. Heads put on. Tuned to pitch. Then to the “White House”, a room flooded with light where the drums are cleaned spotless and photos are taken to show they are in pristine condition upon heading to packaging. From there we are taken through more of the DW facilities seeing where the hardware is produced and assembled. We finally get to put faces to the names and voices we know so well. John then takes us to the showroom where there are numerous drum sets set up and available to play representing all of the DW line. Then to lunch, homemade tacos! Amazing!
Dw factory floor and white room
The next leg of the tour takes us in to the “office” of the one and only Terry Bozzio. It's not so much an office as it is a big practice space. And I say big because if you know Terry you know what his monster kit looks like. Imagine sitting 15 feet away from that thing and seeing it being put through its paces. After that treat from the folks at DW we go off to Mr. Lombardi's office. That is where we saw...CHICKEN WINGS!!! Sorry, we were sworn to secrecy on what we saw in his office.
Hardware awaiting final assembly
Now comes the fun part. After we went through the factory tour with John and saw some cool new products in Don's office and had a killer lunch, we had a little Q&A with Chris Lombardi and Don Lombardi about the state of our industry. They were very interested to know what could do to strengthen our drumming community, and what we felt they could improve on. That was a great session, we all got to put a lot of ideas on the table.
From there we were back with John. On to the shell molds! Every one who was there for the dealer factory tour got to build their very own drum shell! That's right, we glued the 3 different pieces of plywood together and bent them into a circular shell like form. Then put them into the heat. After 6 minutes we put them into the cold mold. We took our shells out of the cold mold and put our names in them and picked our depths. They were off to be cut for us. We didn't get to leave the factory with them but we should have them soon to proudly show off.
More unique finish options
The final leg of our tour was like a miniature NAMM booth. They have the 3 new finish ply colors available for the performance series kits on display, along with the natural finish performance snare drums. Also on display for us were the new black nickel over a thin brass shell snare drum. They are available in 2 sizes a 5.5x14 and 6.5x14. We were treated to a peak at the finished product of the 40th anniversary six-piece kit along with the brand new maple mahogany collectors series kits. These drum sets sound great and need almost no EQ at all. During part of the tour we were given the opportunity to do an A/B with a SSC (specialized shell construction) kit and maple mahogany kit. You could hear the differences between the two for sure. The biggest difference to me was the maple mahogany sounded like it naturally had a mid scoop. We were given the demos of the kits by the great talents of Thomas Lang on the SSC kit and Dave Elich on the maple mahogany kit. Again if you don't know either of these gentlemen look them up, it will be well worth your time.
The last drum kit Mitch Mitchell ever played live
The end of the day arrived and we were greeted with more great food for dinner along with great entertainment. A local group of world-renowned musicians treated us to a great set of music while we ate and talked shop. Our awesome experience at DW came to a close and we arrived back to our hotel, TIRED but stoked on all that we saw, learned and epically heard throughout the day! Wills and I talked for the next couple of hours about everything we absorbed over the course of 8+ hours in a drummers dreamland.
Terry’s Office
Upon our return to the Garden State we were singing the praise of our hosts for the short 48 hours in California. We were both very impressed with the way all aspects of the business were run. From the moment we arrived everyone associated with the company treated us like family. We both came away with a newfound respect for the enduring legacy of DW drums, not just the product, but also the people behind the product. From the ladies and gentleman who get the drums ready to come to you to John Good and Don Lombardi the driving forces behind the DW brand name. They are all great people making a great American product. Wills and I would both like to thank all of our hosts at DW for a good time, a great hang, and more education then either of us thought we would receive in a short but worthwhile visit.
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