Vinnie/Gretsch divorce?

[gretsch-o-rama]

I've got to say, I've been disappointed with Vinnie's gretsch sound in recent years but I always thought and still think it was a tuning issue. Like Jeff Lorber's Now is the Time, his drums were tuned so low they had absolutely no definition whatsoever. I hypothesize that that uber-low tuning method probably has a lot to do with the way things are mixed today(i.e. loudness wars). Which is good for everything but acoustic instruments, drums etc. I mean just listen to ten summoner's tales...now that's a drum sound!

[matthughen]

Anyone own Rogers?

Yamaha owns Rogers. Did you know that Rogers was the first drum company ever to use Keller shells way back in the day?

http://usa.yamaha.com/news_events/drums ... ers-drums/

Thanks, DSOP, I did not now either of those facts. Time for the big R to make a comeback.

[matthughen]

not a photoshop!

[matthughen]

While we are all waiting to find out where Vinnie goes, it looks like Gretsch has acted fast to fill the massive hole resulting from Vinnie's departure . . . I guess they are aiming a a younger demo.

[Tom Hipskind]

Ludwig would make sense to me, as it has more of an old-school sound and identity like Gretsch does. Plus, obviously he has quite a few Ludwigs in his snare arsenal.

I could see him going to DW as well--he could use their Jazz series, or just have Chef John Good just whip him up something special, as he's known to do.

[matthughen]

Yamaha got him back !!!!

[old_K_ride]

If Ludwig is good enough for THIS GUY, surely they're good enough for Vinnie.

baby dodds would not approve

[Clint Hopkins]

If Ludwig is good enough for THIS GUY, surely they're good enough for Vinnie.

baby dodds would not approve

He wouldn't approve of the running, sarcastic joke or of the performance?

[Julián Fernández]

From the ´07 MD interview:

Why did you switch to Gretsch drums?

I was always a closet Gretsch freak. I love the sound of Gretsch drums. While they have a very resonant pure sound, they also have a particular sound that I like. I like that I can tune them differently to produce more or less overtones and the sort of fundamental sound I was hearing from the tom-toms.

At a certain point in my life I thought, "This is my voice." Why not be true to that and just play what I want to play? If I died tomorrow, I would have wanted to play Gretsch drums and let it be known that I express myself on these drums that I consider to be my voice.

It's easy to say that I was influenced by my heroes that played Gretsch, specifically Tony Williams, my hero. That was his voice. But you don't see me putting black dot heads on the drums and playing a 24" bass drum. A lot of people besides me heard Gretsch drums on a lot of jazz recordings. I became aware of them on studio sessions in LA with specific people having played them. Cartage companies were sending them out on sessions because they knew that Gretsch were the real deal. I noticed how they sounded in various kinds of contemporary and pop settings outside of jazz that expanded my awareness of how they sounded and how adaptable they are.

[circh bustom]

Julian, Ive thought of that interview a few times during the course of this thread, but just figured that as an endorser, especially in an MD interview, he said exactly what he was supposed to say. Im sure he said similar things about Yamaha when he was on their roster, and im sure he will say the same thing when we find out where he is going next. In fairness though, part of me thought that the passage you put here was the truth when he spoke it. Oh well.