Yes, it makes sense. Would you rather see Yamaha buy Slingerland and have them made in China? DW is an American drum company with their own tradition of high quality.

The marketing guys at DW are near genius level. Believe me, I know them. I endorse DW drums and have had a relationship with the company for over fifteen years. They will return Slingerland to prominence using the tradition angle, along with quality.

As far as people buying them, there will be plenty of interest in new Slingerland drums, and they will sell, if DW does it right, and I'm confident they will. Gibson, a guitar company, had no idea how to market Slingerland.

Lots of Slingerland collectors already have their old sets, Radio King snares, etc. Many drummers who know and play Slingerland will want the new ones too. I certainly will want a new set.

I foresee new Radio King solid shell snares and maybe some type of Buddy and Gene tribute snares and/or sets. Beyond that it's hard to visualize anything that won't cannibalize sales from DW or Gretsch ( assuming they continue to distribute Gretsch).

Overall I think this is probably a good thing.

Looking forward to seeing what they have to offer

Well, WE love the vintage gear, but I have to think it's a pretty small part of the overall drum market and sales. When a father buys his son a drum kit, it's likely a new one, and maybe the Slingerland will be attractive to him because he remembers the name and it's built in America.

Building in America is important, and if they can price them right, they should have a winner.

If it's made in America it will never be affordable, especially to the father buying his son his first kit and if it's made overseas....Eye Ball

DW won't be happy until they have total control of every drum company, they're like the Mr. Potter of the drumming world. John Good obviously knows how to market and minupulate buyers, he's also quite full of himself, his drum tuning methods and timbre matching are the stupidest **** I've ever seen.

I have a 1963 Slingerland set, but the vintage Slingerland hardware is too flimsy so I use DW hardware with it. And to be honest, I like the way my DW Performance 6.5x14 snare sounds with the vintage Slingerland kit, so I play the DW snare with the kit instead of my Sound King.

In my opinion, and I'm certainly NOT an expert, DW makes good drums, even with the lower models. I have a Design series snare and a Performance series snare, and I've owned more than one PDP kit in the past (my son plays a PDP FS now.) They're solid drums and if I were buying new, DW would certainly be a consideration.

Part of DW's challenge will be to bring the Slingerland name back into visibility and popularity after Gibson's debacle. On the other hand, DW will not cannibalize it's own brands. DW offers a Jazz Series of drums that are "inspired by the American drum sounds of the late 70's and early 80's". And they ain't cheap, either: on Reverb, new starts at $4k!

I can see the Slingerland brand moving into this Jazz Series space: a line of intermediate drums for serious amateurs and entry-level pros. DW can leverage the Slingerland jazz history and bring buyers back.

I'm happy they are coming back! Never should have gone away in the first place. I'm sure DW will do it right. And hope they have some replacement parts to offer as well!! Rogers Drum USA has been doing great and new sets coming out soon. Nice to see the brand back and alive again.

I get the impression from reading your posts (and laughing at most of them) that you want what you want, and think that everybody else should want what you want or their opinions are meaningless.

Well, Mr. Ringo (snicker, snicker), I've been a Slingerland fan since the early 1950's. My first drum was a hand-me-down Slingerland snare drum from an older cousin in 1953. I've owned and gigged several Slingerland drum sets starting in 1963. If I were still a working musician, I think that I'd love to gig with a new vintage specs Slingerland set made in the USA by DW.

You are entitled to your opinions, and the rest of us are equally entitled to our opinions. If I were be like you, and tell you what you should do, at this moment, it would have nothing to do with drums.

Great, I'm glad you think I'm entitled to my opinion! And while I'm while I'm at it, no modern drums, even Ludwig, which btw I love, can ever match the drums that are 40-50 years old.

I too have had and still have some modern drums and I've even gone as far as playing and recording vintage and modern USA made drums right next to each other, the vintage kits win every time. That's why I choose to come here as opposed to some DW or Pearl forum.

Johnny has a good point, here, new kits will never sound like the old. Different woods, glues, technology and technique (handmade vs computer), etc. etc. Head technology is substantially different. And also, the wood in our vintage kits has aged, and that probably affects the tones as well.

I have several families in the winemaking industry, and I've had the privilege of tasting some really well made wines over the years. And I can tell you there's a hell of a difference between a 1986 Chateau Margaux and a 2014!

As we old ****s age, we don't remember exactly how our kits sounded when first bought them. If we're lucky to hold them for years and decades, I doubt we would notice the subtle changes as the wood mellows. We would just continue to play, and the details in today's session would blend in with the memories of playing 20 years ago.

With the quality of today's recording technology, I think it would be very interesting to record a new set straight off the assembly line, then record the same set 20 years from now and try to quantify the differences.