Ludwig is very fortunate to have guys like Bermuda out there properly repping the brand. I'm glad to hear the drums are being marketed accurately.

Thanks Bremuda.I thought that's what the case was.

Steve B

Thanks Bermuda, for validating what I knew to be true! I had seen a video some time ago, showing the shells being spun... and a mention that it wasn't overseas! OK, we can all sleep well tonight!

I for one do not care where a drum is made.....as long as it's of good quality. And I don't mind paying more for something if I know it's going to last. Sometimes you pay a lot for something that is guarenteed for 'life' .....you have to watch out with that one sometimes......

An aside:

I put a new kitchen in our home seven years ago. I put in top-of-the-line Moen taps.....$370 for some sink taps. They're guarenteed for life. Well....a year down the road the cartridge in the tap failed. No problem said the friendly hardware person....here's a new cartridge. The same thing happened twice more over the next couple of years. Finely...after screwing around with these taps three times in four years I went to the hardware store got a new cartridge...bought the $80 taps...and donated the Moen taps to a secondhand store. The $80 taps are working fine three years later.

I knew for a fact they are where not made in the North Carolina Monroe factory. As I've already stated I have been at the plant many times, the only metal anything the plant deals with are the aluminum bands/collars that go around the drum heads, They do not have a foundry at all, But they do as I have already stated makes their own high end wooden drum shells. I have watched them make quite a few of them right in front of me, I am personal friends with the plant manager.

I consider three things above all others concerning quality of a product.

1. Design

2. Materials

3. Who builds or assembles it.

Design takes care of itself in that a bad design quickly dies.

Materials are important but it's funny to see people downing plywood body guitars and extolling the virtues of six ply ludwigs in the same breath.

Materials might be important but only if it is a key ingrediant of what makes a product "good" or gives it a "signature sound" or determines durability.

"who builds or assembles it" is what I consider most important and where you find the most variation in terms of quality of a finished musical instrument.

"Where" is less important than "who" as in "who determines assembly guidelines and enforces them".

Sometimes, it's the managers who run a tight ship and sometimes it's up to the individual craftsman to keep a good standard of quality.

This is why you might find a korean made kramer guitar that is immaculate and perfect in every way and then find the next guitar in serial number sequence to be a botched up abortion.

USA should mean quality in all 3 but attempting to compete for the bottom line with cheap labor manufacturers in china has had an effect on the "short term gains" bean counters and the products suffer for it.

In japan, honor and pride are (or were?) super important and any mistakes or flippant attitude toward the quality of one's own work are reflected back upon your reputation..........and they are ruthless in skewering your reputation if you put out bad work or are lacking in anything related to your work.

For the USA, (I'm in usa) we should be concentrating on superior product before "made in usa" means nothing to the rest of the world.

There will always be a market for the best of the best and you wouldn't believe how many quality products are sold and exported to the newly prosperous in china who want the real thing over a cheap and local made imitation.

The "short term gain" beancounters need to be purged and replaced by people in it for the long run before the ship get's sunk.