This year’s Musikmesse trade show is a topic for a separate post. For now, let us only mention the fact that the number of exhibitors from the drumming industry has been decreasing year by year, and those present set up rather modest displays this year. The GEWA company was no exception, but they compensated for that with their new and very interesting product – the DWe electronic drum kit. Naturally, BeatIt couldn’t have missed it. Here is our report from the electronic drums exhibition at GEWA/DW stand at Musikmesse 2018.
“Along with the module, we’ve also created hardware and paired up with DW. Lets’s start with the cymbals. GEWA has designed their own cymbals that go with the module. These are three-zone pads with choke. They come in ‘grown-up’ sizes: a 14-inch hi hat and a 18-inch ride. They are completely designed and made in Germany, as is the module. Underneath you can see you have two jacks. We only use one with the GEWA G9 module, but it’s just for compatibility with all the other competitors on the market so you could use this cymbal pad with, let’s say, Roland.
As far as the hardware goes, DW has designed a special rack for the kit with three-tier clamps. The old ones had two, like a door hinge, and this has tree tiers so it hogs the tube like a hose. These are new for the DWe series.
A snare stand, a foot pedal and a hi hat will be included in the full package with the module and drum set. They are close to the DW 3000 series. The footboard has a DWe design, the pedal is based on the DW 3000 and DW 5000 series pedals that are still made in the US. This one has a double chain but it’s more or less the basis of it.
There are some refinements on the hardware. The rubber feet have air holes to reduce impact noise on the ground. The snare basket has the same feature on the rubber tips.
As in the case of the cymbal pads, we wanted to make sure the drum shells were sized like in a regular drum set. Drummers want a 14” snare, 10”, 12” and 14” toms. They come with an 18-inch bass drum, which sits on a riser. With triggering, it’s always a matter of control. An 18-inch drum is still controlable. We will see in the future about huge drums.
On the inside of this tom, you can see there sits a trigger tray. People often ask: ‘Is it possible to use it with my normal drums?’. Yes, you can if you’re willing to destroy the bearing edge. The bearing edge is flat and the tray sits on top of it. If you have an old kit and you want to flatten out the bearing edge, you can use it. It will fit any drum of this size. This trigger tray is a prototype, but it shows the concept of how DWe drums work on the inside. You can put this in any drum you want but we chose DW.
This one is in Wallnut finish for the high-priced range and there is also the Carbon Wrap.
We also have a pad version of the DWe kit available. These wallnut shells are for the visual because an electronic kit doesn’t look good on stage, so if you want to use the G9 module on stage, we offer it with real drums. That’s the concept behind the shells.
Here, we have a bass drum with the Carbon Wrap finish and pads: 10”, 12”. They will be labelled GEWA. The design is the same as with the cymbal pads. Inside, is the same trigger tray I showed you earlier. The pads are dampened so they sound really good, also without headphones on. They don’t sound cheap. You have the DW TB12 bracket on them. If you’re playing a tom, this will absolutely do it. The pads come in the lower price range.
The heads are Dwe on the snare and GEWA on the toms. True Rebound mesh heads designed by Remo. They are made in the US and designed especially for this drum kit. Remo make a lot of mesh heads, but Roland supply them with the material. In this case, it’s our own material and completely done by Remo. Double-ply heads.”
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