So from my forays to PDF (Pearl Drummers Forum) it looks like there's a swamp of new stuff out...
Sabian's got a brand new line of cymbals, APX, designed for metal and hard rock, apparently thinner and even more focused than AAX, I'm officially afraid of their volume level. Looks like they have a couple new bells made of aluminum (Alu Bells), 6" and 8" as far as I know, and the Choppers are out (waste of money imo, sound like shite to me).
Pearl's busted out a bunch of new snares, there's a really cool Mike Mangini snare that's based on the golden radio (so it's 10x6.2) just like the vents on their masters drums, and a Power Piccolo that's 13x9 (list price of $650 though!!!)... Say goodbye to the venerable Export series, even the ECX is gone, it's all been replaced by 100% Birch or 100% Maple Vision series, so that's pretty cool I suppose. They've got a bunch of new sparkly finished for the Masters series, and some black on black and white on white kits (with red rubber around the lugs?!) as well as an AMAZING Inca Gold Burst for the Reference series (which you can now order with black chrome or gold plated hardware and some of the Masters Premium finishes). Also looks like they're selling some flat-standing vintage-style cymbal stands. Rumours also abound about all black Eliminators, which look ultra cool, although I haven't seen any photos from NAMM itself. They brought back the all-black Rhythm Travelers too, which I might have to grab for my dorm room next year.
Truth has totally stopped using Keller shells, they now have 100% Truth shells, I've heard they may be the same shells that DDRUM uses. Rumour has it that this will either drive up prices or drive down quality, as the Keller shells are one of the best value woods on the market.
That's all I can scrape together at the moment. Anyone else have some interesting tidbits?
_________________
english, motherf**ker, do you speak it!?
http://www.myspace.com/tuskband
