Yamaha Drums is a subsidiary of the
Yamaha Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate with a very wide range of products and services. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company. The former motorcycle divi ...
founded in 1967. The company manufactures acoustic and electronic
drum kit
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
s as well as
percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
s,
marching band
A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Most marching bands wear a uniform, o ...
equipment, and
drum hardware.
Production
Most of Yamaha's drums are manufactured at two different locations in Asia. Their factory in
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
produces their high-end professional drums as well as all of their marching percussion. The research and development of new products also takes place there. Marketing is managed from the Yamaha Corp. headquarters in
Hamamatsu
is a city located in western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. the city had an estimated population of 791,707 in 340,591 households, making it the prefecture's largest city, and a population density of . The total area of the site was .
Overview
H ...
. The factory in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
produced the entry-level GigMaker kit and the intermediate-kit Stage Custom Birch. Their factory in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
produces the Tour Custom and the newly introduced Rock Tour series drums. The Indonesian factory uses the same machinery and techniques in their drum shells and all of the craftsmen working there are trained by Japanese craftsmen from the Osaka site. The only difference between these two plants is that the Osaka plant uses the more exclusive woods (
maple
''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since h ...
,
birch
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' cont ...
and
oak)
["Absolute knowledge" on official website]
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Acquisition of Premier
In 1987, Yamaha acquired the Premier Percussion factory in England in an attempt to establish the Yamaha name in the tougher European market. Yamaha placed machinery and trained the Premier craftsmen in the "Yamaha-way" of making drums, resulting in Premier producing a large number of Yamaha drums "made in England." In 1992, Yamaha withdrew and sold their stock shares back to Premier.
See also
* John B. Riley
* Yamaha DTX series Wikipedia listing of Yamaha's electronic drum and percussion sets.
References
External links
*
{{Percussion instruments brands
Drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...
Percussion instrument manufacturing companies