Nov 20, 2009 - Yamaha Drums - Page 1

I have been working on the Yamaha drums section. It was really weak in regards to literature. So I started adding new material.

There are 4 different catalogs with the scans for shells, finishes, snares and drum sets.

Yamaha Drum Company History and Catalogs

Let me give you some insight of how and why the main web site is organized the way it is.

1. The majority of people trying to find history have a drum and NO clue of the era. So let's say they are looking for Yamaha drums.

If I just put the catalogs up as .pdfs or downloads they would need to download every catalog to do the research. (Great for the person with all of the info already) but very time consuming.

2. So they click on Yamaha catalogs. They need to open each catalog, which is not that hard to do and then they can quickly view the catalog. Every catalog section has the option to view all catalogs or snare drums on one page.

3. The "All catalogs on one page" Puts all of the drum sets at your fingertips drilling down from the oldest to the newest that I have in place.

My estimation is that there are probably 300 catalogs scanned this way in different sections.

I probably have and can do another 300 and really complete a lot of the history. So, as I see a weak section I try and improve it.

I can probably put another 20 catalogs just in Yamaha!

That is it in a nutshell. Also, I rarely scan a complete catalog unless it is older and rare. Some are 40 - 60 pages or more and I need to stay focused on the snares, sets, finishes and badges which help people the most.

David

There's a catalog missing that I cannot locate anywhere on the internet.

I remember a Yamaha drum catalog from around 1985 or 1986. It had a top down view of a black recording custom bass kit on it. It featured recording custom, tour custom, tour, and the stage series. I remember everything about this catalog. I cannot find it anywhere on the internet. The catalog with the red kit with the drummer "exploding" out of the bass drum hole was released after this one. The one prior to this is the one with the top down view of the natural finish recording kit. Again, the featured series were these four only: recording, tour custom, tour and stage- there was no turbo tour or power tour. The stage series had a wrap option featuring a black wrap with a chrome grid design- that's not seen in any of the catalogs on the vintage drum guide site. And the hardware sticker logo had no red or purple but was a black and chrome only.

Does anyone remember this? Can I get a pdf sent to me from someone?