Drum Kits · Makers

Maker

Ludwig Drums

Models: 19 · Categories: 3

Ludwig Drums is an American drum and percussion brand known for drum kits, snare drums, marching percussion, concert percussion, and hardware.

Maker

Gretsch is an American instrument maker founded in Brooklyn in 1883, known both for its hollow-body electric guitars and for its drums. Its guitars are closely associated with rockabilly, country, and rock players.

Maker

DW Drums

Models: 12 · Sources: 4

DW Drums is a California drum maker producing professional drum kits, snares, pedals, hardware, and custom drums.

Maker

Slingerland

Models: 5 · Categories: 2

Slingerland began in Chicago selling ukuleles and banjos and moved into drums in the 1920s. The solid-shell Radio King snare and Gene Krupa's endorsement made it the American rival to Ludwig through the swing era. The brand has changed hands repeatedly since the 1980s.

Maker

Rogers Drums

Models: 4 · Categories: 3

Rogers grew out of a nineteenth-century New Jersey leather business into the drum company that defined mid-century American hardware. The Swiv-O-Matic mounting system and the Dyna-Sonic snare — with its floating snare frame — were copied for decades. The brand passed through several owners after the 1960s and has been revived more than once.

Maker

PDP

Categories: 3 · Models: 3

Drum Workshop launched PDP to put DW's shell profiles and hardware geometry into imported drums at a fraction of the price. The Concept Maple line in particular is built to specifications a DW owner recognises immediately.

Maker

Noble & Cooley

Models: 3 · Categories: 1

Noble & Cooley is a Massachusetts drum maker associated with snare drums, drum kits, and a long family manufacturing history.

Maker

ddrum

Categories: 3 · Models: 3

ddrum began in Sweden building some of the first velocity-sensitive electronic drum systems with real playing feel, and its triggers are still standard equipment for drummers amplifying acoustic kits. The name now covers acoustic kits and snares as well.

Maker

Camco

Categories: 2 · Models: 2

Camco built drums in Oaklawn, Illinois, and later Chanute, Kansas, for barely two decades, but its bass drum pedal became one of the most copied designs in percussion: Drum Workshop bought the tooling and it became the DW 5000. Original Oaklawn-badge kits are collectors' items.

Maker

C&C Drum Company

Categories: 2 · Models: 2

C&C builds thin mahogany, maple, and poplar shells with reinforcement rings, aimed squarely at the 1960s sound rather than the modern one. The Player Date and Gladstone lines put the company on stages with a generation of Americana and indie drummers.

Maker

A&F Drum Co.

Categories: 2 · Models: 2

Ramy Antoun's A&F builds drums that look like hardware-store objects and sound like nothing else: raw rolled brass, copper, and aluminum shells, whitewashed maple, and the small Pancake and Field Drum formats. The finishes are left to patina rather than plated.

Maker

Craviotto

Categories: 2 · Models: 2

Johnny Craviotto revived the solid-shell drum, steam-bending a single plank into a shell with one vertical seam rather than gluing plies. The result is loud and dry, and the process is slow enough that every drum is dated and signed. The company continues in Santa Cruz.

Maker

WFL Drum Company

Categories: 2 · Models: 1

After selling the Ludwig name to Conn, William F. Ludwig built drums under his own initials until he bought the name back in the 1950s. WFL drums are Ludwig drums by every measure except the badge, which is why they are collected as seriously and priced a little lower.

Maker

SJC Custom Drums

Categories: 2 · Models: 1

SJC started in a basement in Massachusetts and became the custom shop most associated with elaborate wraps, inlays, and stage kits for touring rock bands. The shells are conventional maple and birch; the finishing is the product.

Maker

Pork Pie Percussion

Categories: 2 · Models: 1

Pork Pie is a small California shop known for loud finishes, oversized bass drums, and snares in unusual materials — including a much-photographed series wrapped in glass glitter and one in patent leather. The Little Squealer piccolo snares are the volume sellers.

Maker

Q Drum Co.

Categories: 2 · Models: 1

Q Drum Co. builds in Kansas in small numbers, mixing solid, stave, and ply construction and unusual timbers. Its copper and brass snares are the drums most often seen outside the shop.

Maker

Leedy

Categories: 3 · Models: 1

Ulysses G. Leedy started making drums in Indianapolis in the 1890s and built what is generally called the first factory designed specifically for percussion. Leedy was absorbed into the Conn empire, briefly paired with Ludwig as Leedy & Ludwig, and the name has appeared on drums intermittently since.

Maker

George Way Drums

Categories: 2 · Models: 1

George Way designed for Leedy before putting his own name on drums in the late 1950s. The line was short-lived and much of it fed into Camco. Ronn Dunnett revived the brand decades later, building to Way's original shell and lug specifications.