Big Drum Thump

Tama has released a video of Kenny Aronoff chatting about and demonstrating his signature line of Track Master snares. Three sizes are available (14″ x 6.5″, 14″ x 5″, and 15″ x 4″), and the shell of each is made of nickel-plated brass, which Kenny describes as sounding both aggressive and warm.

Prices? We don’t know yet, but here’s hoping that Tama also throws in a pair of flippin’-sweet Kenny Aronoff signature sunglasses with each drum.

We’ve already posted several pics of Lars Ulrich’s signature kit, and now we got the goods on how its color came about.

[Press Release]

Metallic drummer Lars Ulrich wanted a new color in his life. More specifically he wanted a new orange finish for his set for the Death Magnetic tour.” And not just any orange,”said Terry Bissette of Tama.” Lars Ulrich was very specific that he wasn’t looking for something we already had, such as our Marigold Sparkle or anything like that. Our people in LA and Japan worked with Lars for a while before we came up with just the right shade to match what he was looking for.” That finish went on to grace Lars’s kit for the tour. Fortunately, for Tama and Metallica drumming fans, Lars Ulrich was willing to share.

For 2009, that special orange finish, now named “LU Magnetic Orange” for both the tour and drummer, is now an available finish for Tama’s Starclassic maple series. Drummer’s can re-create Lars’s tour kit, or choose from any of the staggering number of diameters and depths available in the Starclassic maple series.

The struggling economy has affected quite a few instrument manufacturers, but you wouldn’t know it from ddrum’s mightily awesome booth at NAMM 2009. Along with its usual bevy of cool bangables, the company proudly displayed Vinnie Paul’s new signature kit (complete with huge rack toms), new signature snare, and new signature pedals. Check ‘em out below. The rest of our ddrum gallery can be eye humped here.

We snapped a few in-the-wild pics of Danny Carey’s signature snare from Sonor at NAMM 2009. More photos of Sonor drums are available here in a Flickr set.

Orange County Drum & Percussion busted out with a black-on-black-on-black Travis Barker kit at this year’s NAMM show. The set was also—and understandably—outfitted with Zildjian Pitch Black cymbals. Less understandably, a “do not play” sign, which you’ll see in the teaser pics below, defaced this beaut of a bangable.

Check out our full OCDP gallery on Flickr for more images from NAMM.

It always happens this way. Before every NAMM show, I plan and plot and map out my strategy for hitting every drum booth in a methodical and efficient manner. But as soon as the doors are thrown open and I get that smell of new gear in both nostrils, I immediately run to whatever big and shiny drum kit I see first. This time, it was Tama that grabbed me by the balls with a Lars Ulrich signature set. Here are some teaser pics before we get the full gallery on Flickr up.

[Update: Our complete Tama gallery is now available here. It includes thirteen photos of the Lars Ulrich signature set.]