 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I am your host Bart van der Zee and today we are talking about RIMO I am joined by Herbie May who is a 32 year veteran of the RIMO company. Herbie, how are you man? I'm great Bart. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you about drumheads me too And I'll I'll say that there has been a as we know There's been a previous episode that was the history of drumheads which we we kind of focused more on Evans And this is sort of the opportunity to to get the RIMO side of the story and they're both obviously, you know Vital pieces of drumming history, but today we're talking RIMO. So So yeah, Herbie, why don't we why don't we just have you take us back to the beginnings of RIMO and we can start at the beginning and go all the way through to modern day. Okay. Well Hopefully like I said, this is actually my first podcast. So I have to say it's a little different for me I'm used to Demonstrating physical things while I'm talking or showing someone graphics or something. So it's a little bit different But I'll try to stick to the agenda and try not to ramble too much because our company is really you know, we have so much history you have over 60 years and You know, we it's sort of divided into some segments. The first part of it is You know, RIMO belly being a touring drummer You know moving to LA kind of to me It's it's it's really a Cinderella story about, you know, this guy who who was a drummer who ended up, you know Doing getting a drum shop together, you know playing Hollywood doing things with with movie stars and And then starting his own company. So I wanted to talk Just for a second about the actual film because you know, the film the polyethylene terephthalate there I said that is the that that's the actual film that was developed back in the in the late 30s is really when it when it when it happened around 1938 there was a guy named Wallace Carruthers who was Who was a polymer chemist? He worked at Dupont. He he is really credited for doing nylon, but he first started with polyesters and Then I switched to nylon then there was these two other guys in the UK That had read all of Wallace's notes and details on Nylon and polyesters that he was working on and they actually developed this film Which later became they called it Terelene and so they they were the actual guys that developed it and they The the actual what they call PET now the polyethylene terephthalate So yeah, so they were the ones that actually came up with it, but but it was through Wallace Carruthers You know who who sort of started the thing. Okay. Yeah, so then They they work for a small research lab and they the company that they work for You know did not want to really Do any development to it. So they licensed it to To Dupont in the United States. And so Dupont Actually started making this film and then And then ICI ended up which which makes makes Melon eggs and by the way those two films Melon eggs is made by ICI and my arm is made by Dupont Those two films are still films that we use today because they have certain sound properties that are very unique and So anyway, I've worked with a number of their chemists over the years From around the world and their help has just been incredible Remo Belly has said many times that you know Dupont did some things for us to help improve You know help improve our drum heads And they were intrigued I think by the sound properties as well I find it interesting that at that point that in the very beginning that there was just nothing to do with drums when this sort Of film was was created. Well, let me interrupt you there for a second because you would think that but actually Dupont and Dupont's patent. Okay, so we're talking about these patents that were done back in the back in the late 30s early 40s Dupont had a patent for For polymers in the 40s and then ICI in the mid 40s So you would think that that no one knew about it, but actually in Dupont's patent application in 1951 The actual potential products listed in that patent application in 1951 was snare drum and bass drum heads. Wow cool. I had no idea. I thought it was like 1956 was kind of the when it really came to a head and that's when it became hey, let's use it for this But man, they knew right away. Yeah Right, they knew right away and there was a whole list actually have the copy of the patent There's a whole list of products that they knew That this polyester film would work on and like I said, they actually put that in their patent in 1951 Okay, so the the idea that that these other people Other companies were the first is just really not true I'm looking at there were 13 patents between 1951 1968 for synthetic films and different types of fastening systems, you know for For synthetic films Evans never got a patent for any of that Rimo's patent was the one that was successful and that's what Rimo has always said, you know He said we weren't we've never been the first there were so many people that tried and actually in Ludwig had quite a bit more interaction with Rimo I think then and so the any other company at the time because there was a guy that had patented a synthetic head and and or he actually Had an application in 51 Jim Irwin was the guy in 1955 Who was really the first guy to do it? He worked at 3 a.m. And he had already been working with Mylar for some eight years. And so he had put together a drumhead back in I think 52 or 53 Interesting enough. There's a there's some great history John Begs and Cyclopedia of percussion is a great read for some of the history of mylar and it talks about Those early days built Ludwig's the making of a drum company is another one Yeah, but anyway, this was Jim Irwin's was back in 55 and he had made, you know some sample drum heads earlier than that and and so really he was the first guy and then like I said there were about 12 or 13 other people That had designs that they actually patented but Rimo's was the one that was most successful Yeah, and so it took off from there Rimo's was in 57. So anyway, let me backtrack a little bit So Rimo has a touring Dramar he was doing this show with Betty Hutton who was a Hollywood actress He would go to Chicago and then when they were would they would make a stop in Chicago He would go by Frank Trump shop. He would go by Ludwig and he would go by Slingerland and and this is again well documented there's lots of Information as far as the timeline and when he did these things and and and again I hoped that one of these days Tom Sigmund and I were going to be able to you know, publish a Rimo history book But so what happened then this was I think about 53 or 54 he had gone by Frank strum shop when he was in Chicago and then he went by Ludwig and then he went by Slingerland and at that time But Slingerland had shown him a mylar drum head that he was working on and Jim Grollman also worked at Ludwig and Selma He was already working on mylar drum is back in around 53. I think it was And so there were other people that were doing it, but they just hadn't come up with the right You know fascinating means for it, you know, they had the film But they just come couldn't come up with the fascinating means so while Rimo was doing his touring thing He was also a part owner. He and Roy Hart of a drum city As a touring drummer and also a drum shop owner. He was welcome in all of these these companies He was welcome, you know to the factories as a like I said as a potential customer and as a player and So they knew him he knew them He would see and check out different things that they were doing but at the time He wasn't interested in the plastic drum head. He had seen it. He just wasn't interested in it so he gets back to drum city and then he was they were doing this percussion fair drum city and He had gotten some mylar from a distributor there in LA and he decided that he was going to do this display so he got some and he tacked it on a Drum to put in as a window display and he just used You know staples and he tacked it on there But he realized that the film was a little bit brittle at the time and the the tax and the staples would sort of tear the film And so he did the display, but you know felt like that that wasn't going to be any great way of fastening the You know the material to the frame So then he gets a letter that was sent out by by Chick Evans Saying that he has this new plastic drum head. So the letter reaches Remo Remo orders some heads and and Roy Hart was actually a big session player at You know in LA at the time that was Rimos partner In drum city. So Roy had actually used some of those heads some of the Evans heads on some gigs and Even though there were problems with them Remo said that you know, they would they would split and they would break and they would crack But you know, they would do enough to give people the idea of what mylar sounded like and you know How would perform in different weather conditions? So with that when Remo got one of the flyers he contacted chick Evans And so he made in a and and Rimos told the story many times to me. There's there's quite a bit of There's uh, you know, I think everybody wants to hear the tall tree tidbits of You know of what happened, but but basically what happened when Remo got there Chick had told him that he had quote a factory Remo found him living in a boarding house and he Was in no condition to talk about business whatsoever. Remo They were actually doing a wholesale business at drum city as well as retail So he was interested in and buying the Evans heads as a wholesale To become a distributor So he went to talk to chick about, you know, what type of volume he had and if they would be able to supply You know all the customers because he was Remo was going to try to promote it And so when he got there, he was completely disenchanted about the whole situation Chick actually offered to sell his quote factory, which was supposedly in the bottom basement of this boarding house Remo never saw it but he offered to sell whatever he had on inventory and and whatever, you know, else for like $5,000 and Remo when he got there and and chick had shown him the sort of tacked head He knew that that design wasn't any better than the stapled head that he had previously tried as a store for a window And he knew it wasn't gonna hold up Anyway, he got back and again completely disenchanted about them being any sort of distributor for Evans drum heads and then He he decided that, you know, what Evans had to offer Just didn't work. Evans had already sent heads to to Ludwig Ludwig had tried them out and they failed miserably And so Remo had between he and Roy Hart They had initially purchased some then they purchased more for other people that wanted to try them out and And Remo said in his own words many times. Yeah, we tried to make the heads work, you know, we we gave them out to customers We used them You know Roy used them on sessions, but they just didn't work. They didn't hold up the design was just no good and You know, they they didn't have any sort of form collar. So what? Basically what chick had to offer just did not work. Okay, and and I think that's the biggest misconception there You know, there's this concept that while Remo stole everything from chick. Well, chick didn't have anything to steal I mean, it was it was really there was nothing that chick had that that Jim Irwin the the guy that created the patent You know three years before chick Evans created these heads. There was nothing there That he had that was different from Jim Irwin's You know, and it just didn't work They didn't hold up if they had everyone would have bought them and he would have been able to get a patent Like I said, there were 13 patents held for drum heads during that 10-year period of time and Evans didn't have any so Anyway, Remo goes back in 56 and like I said, they they bought the heads. They used the heads they tried to To sell the heads but nobody wanted to you know to buy the heads again because just because they didn't work and that included the OEMs and so at that time Remo had an accountant his name was said girl and who introduced him to an aerospace chemist his name was Sam Munchnick and He is actually I'm the very first Remo drumhead catalog. He's the guy's picture on there with like a With like a chemistry beaker and hey, you know pouring some some stuff in there, you know And they're very first catalog so, you know with Remo's guidance It was Sam that actually came up with the the actual idea of taking the aluminum channel and then pouring a resin into it Because he was familiar with resins Mostly the other companies were trying to do some other sort of a crimped head and not a glued head So anyway with sort of all the other stuff behind Remo with with all the sling on the Ludwig and the The other companies and the Jim Erwin actually Jim Erwin Never really found anyone to to try to take the reins on his patent because again what he had just didn't work You know, I mean he was one of the first guys to do it, but it just didn't work So when Remo got back He they started playing around with some other designs and Sam ended up coming up with the design that basically they they filed for a patent in 57 and then at that point in time there was two other people that Premier actually had a glued head in 59 that they had a European patent on there was another European patent in 58 There was a crimped head two others and So other people again were trying to do this, but now that their designs were still any good So Ludwig ended up going with this crimped style head that they ended up getting from a guy over in Switzerland He was making basil drums and even Remo said that the heads that he sent the initial heads of the mylar That he got had received from Dupont. They actually couldn't take the tension of the marching drums that they were doing over in in Switzerland so there was a guy named Oscar Bauer who was doing a dry crimped heads and Remo actually saw that process and when you saw that he still felt like that that wasn't the best design He still felt like that the glued head was the best design because it still made the best sounding head Even today you can't make a good two-ply crimped head Because you're contorting the two You know plies of mylar you're sort of stretching them in different ways and so you just don't get a very good sound So anyway, Ludwig ended up basically taking that Switzerland design bring coming back in the 1960s They started making their heads crap, but again interesting enough between that period of 57 in 1960 it took a number of years for these patents to come through Remo I'd filed for it in 57, but it wasn't actually granted until 1960 Wow, so during that period. Yeah, so during that period of time, you know, the market had grown so much that Ludwig Initially bought a number of heads from Remo as did slinglin as did Gratch Gratch branded them permaton So they were buying heads from Remo for you know for quite some time And then Ludwig started making a collude head Similar to Remos and at that point time and Remos says in his own words during that whole time There was no love loss all the companies it was like, you know every man for himself because there was just such a demand You know for plastic dermis. Yeah. Yeah, and so when Remos patent was awarded he actually went back to Ludwig and slinglin and got them to actually Pay him Some royalties for the amount of heads that they had sold during those period of times because they basically copied his design Sure, you know, wow. Yeah, and then getting back to the the Evans situation You know chick Evans then decided that he would sell the business to Bob Beals who was a Think he owned a retail music store. He was actually an engineer He had actually sold that business to him and then they started making the polyester flesh you design Which to me was another bad design I mean they they want the first and and they certainly want the best and then they took on another design That wasn't the best But that's what they use for years until later Again, they finally adopted, you know, the aluminum flesh you and which is what a querying uses today So the things that that Rimo and Sam did way back in the in the mid fifties or we're still You know some of the designs that we use today as far as making the best sounding drum head Yeah, and I think that's where that misconception came in of of it was like I thought it was this business man Rimo coming in and stealing the little guy's idea Which obviously isn't true and that's one of those misconceptions But it sounds like right like what I've learned in multiple episodes here are like things happen naturally Like music progresses in a certain way And now 20 20 something minutes in I should have probably said for most people know this but the synthetic Head came along because before that people were using animal skin heads that would be affected by weather and that's why you get the Rimo weather king is because This situation of your you're you're at the mercy of mother nature and when you're playing and your head would tighten and loosen So that's where that pursuit came from, you know the the the themes back then were Rimo created the weather king and You know Ludwig was weather master and Evans was all weather, you know Because they would they were trying to get that concept, you know in people's heads that hey This is this new and great material doesn't change, you know And so Rimo coined those sort of king themes, you know like diplomat to the king and that sort of to the king and then Emperor which meaning King King itself to actually denote the thickness of the mylar So he was just way ahead of his time and and coming out with sort of those marketing terms Yeah, they're still used today, you know, yeah weather king was what he developed and and again depending on how you parse the words I think Everybody wants to be the first and everybody wants it to have a certain history and a certain brand loyalty But you know Rimo said many many many times, you know, we he was never the first He was never the first But he was the first one that developed the system that worked. Yeah, like I said, there's 13 patents during that time of Systems that did not work and other people that didn't you know Evans never got a patent for his design and so there were other things that that were tried But they just didn't work and that's why they didn't take off. Yeah. Yeah, and it sounds like like Rimo didn't give up not to say that Evans or these other people gave up But it sounds like he tried a lot of things and he saw that okay This might be a little bit of you know trial-and-error system, but but he didn't give up and he's not with it No in the fatigued boys is the turn right use have always used for Rimo He was like never tiring and even in his 80s He would walk by in my office here every day. We would meet and talk drums I mean he loved drums of percussion and he was just like I said never tired Working with it doing things experimenting playing. So yeah, that was that was basically basically how it happened back then and just Go back just for one one other quick second about the evidence thing is that If anything first of all, there was nothing for Rimo to steal from chick happens Okay, and if if if anything, you know Rimo gave him I think more credit than what credit was due with the early samples that that they were trying to do You know a drum city that they were trying to promote a drum city because he tried to promote that yeah And and like I said they used them But it was like Bill Ludwig said if you put any tension on them whatsoever for any period of time They would just break you know now to clarify that a little bit So then so so Rimo would be in the business of selling drums at drum city And he approached chick Evans to say hey, let me try and distribute and sell this cool Synthetic drum head you've got working on here. It didn't work out, right exactly, but he was trying to just say hey This is a good idea. Let's try and work together and I can he was probably thinking I can make money off of this just as a salesman, right? Exactly. Well that that was he never intended to go in the business and that's why I say his His his story is in three parts first as a working drummer second as a you know as a Distributor and a dealer a drum city and then the third part becoming a manufacturer because he you know He started working with this chemist who came up with this idea. Rimo said that he guided Sam But I mean he's given credit where credit is to you know over and over and over again Sid girl and came up with the name and came up with the Rimo name and Sam came up with really design and Rimo was the one that was sort of guiding and directing and helping him because he was the drummer You know and they and he said that that he and and Roy learned so much Over the course of those nice couple years at drum city because you know they were drummers and they were hanging with all the great drummers and all the players Yeah So yeah, he was able to to guide that and then develop that whole marketing thing, but but yeah, believe me Nothing can be further from the truth that Rimo took advantage of That situation there was just nothing to take advantage of and like I said they they ended up doing their own thing And they made that polyester flesh soup for years again, which I could probably talk to you for like days On drum head design and yeah types of films and all those of that hopefully we'll have a little bit of time Towards the end To kind of talk about some of the other innovations that we've we have here and what we've done But anyway, you know, that's that's the history and like I said, I've taught personally to Rimo about All these stories over the years Tom Zigmatt did a series of interviews with Rimo like I said We're trying to publish this history book and he would meet with Rimo on a day-to-day basis and did a lot of recording So he's really documented the first 30 years of our existence and and I'm trying to document the last 30 years Of our existence here. Yeah, and so that's coming straight from the horse's mouth as well as other people that will Cooperate Bill Ludwig's in his book and other other people, you know, and I actually think it's interesting that you know We even have an old library. I'm looking at one of the the 1964 Evans, Meany catalog and they put in here the historical and present-day facts and this was back in 1964 and They just stayed right here Chick was the first to discover Mylar being ideal was the first to be an ideal for drum heads by tacking them my lord the wood flesh it There's just so much history before that of people that had already received that already had patents and things like that That just completely negate that but if you write your own catalog, I guess you can say whatever you want That's a good way of putting it But so then so if we're moving forward here, so then like like I'm on your website It's cool to think like the Remo crown logo. Yeah, it was the king. It was the crown It was that whole king theme. Yeah, they're wearing the crown the king wearing the crown the diplomat the ambassador of the emperor That was you know, that was sort of the whole marketing strategy of it and that's how the crown came about Sure, you know, he was the weather king and so there you have the crown So yeah, the crown went through a number of variations and I shall I got to take a second here because I Have a bunch of these old Heads in my office. I get other collectors and people that send me things that that have been made in original boxes All these things. Yeah, I've got some original weather king drumsticks I even have some clarinet pads Remo. Do you know that Remo made clarinet pads? I did not What is it? What is a clarinet pad? I don't even know what that is It's basically what it does is it you know when when you press the pads over an open hole Like if you have a recorder or a flute, yeah, it stops that hole and so there's these little mylar pads with Almost like felt on but but you know at that time Remo was it was all about band and Orchestra instruments. It wasn't about guitars and amplifiers like it was in the 70s and so Remo He was trying to get Remo incorporate involved in all these band and orchestra things And so he wanted he told me this we were talking about some of the old things that we've you know that I have collected And he was just saying that yeah, he he had a number of people that were really bright And so knowledgeable in so many areas that he wanted to sort of build the company into into selling a number of Accessory products and so he had drumsticks. He had practice pads. We you know, like I said He's claring up ads Some other really sort of wacky things. Yeah, you know in the beginning like I said He he was just so into what he did and at the time if there was an accessory that he thought That he could make there would be an improvement and it would be a useful item Then he would certainly do it. It's cool to just think of the passion that he had right away now Was Remo and yeah, was it an instant success? Was it just like instantly this blew up and everyone adopted it very quickly and said, I mean, I can't see too many people saying no I prefer animal skin heads. Was it just overnight? You know money rolling in absolutely and that's what we What we like I said playing to do eventually when we get this both together when when the when the corporation was created when Remo Inc. I came about Remo attended the tri-state music of festival in, Oklahoma and After that show he came back With sales that totaled over twenty five hundred dollars and Just in that one show and the group they grew enormously with like sales totaling over $37,000 by the end of the month. I mean it was just overnight and and they outgrew a 500 square foot Quote factory and I say that and I lose this turn. I've seen pictures They moved to a thousand square foot a place in in Santa Monica near Vine Street And then after that he started hiring other people. They actually made You know these forming dies they could do things fast initially, they just had these little sort of Heat strips that would go around the head and form it and I mean it was really no You know no real big production And so yeah, because because he had all the OEM sales as well as the dealer sales It was just overnight success, you know, it's like it's like, you know, selling selling an app today You know, yeah, oh, wow, it's a two million dollars overnight It was almost like that. Yeah, and now the OEM sales are referring to Remos selling to Ludwig and then Ludwig putting their name on it. Got it. Got it. Which which happens all the time I mean, that's that's happens today Pearl and all these people they have you got to have drum heads on your new drum set Right and you know to this day we've we've we've got such a great relationship with all the OEM companies, you know, whether it be Pearl, Drone, Workshop, Ludwig, whomever Ludwig uses are actually Ludwig stopped a couple years ago making their own heads and they use our heads now and with their name are we put their name on it and if they want, you know, some little different difference in The type of film that we use or the type of collar or the type of Flesh-shoot and we'll do it because we make, you know, a tremendous amount of means of fastening the film now You know, we have crimp style. We have a crimp lock. We have Four different kinds of temporary Insert range we we have all this because what we do is we look at the end use, you know and So yeah, the OEMs were a big part of that. Yeah getting off subject you know No, no, no, let's I say let's move forward in the timeline. So we're in the 60s. So it's it's happened Yeah, Rimo is getting popular. It is popular. It's an overnight success What was going on in the 60s then obviously Ringo played Rimo, right? That's got to be a big deal Oh, yeah, it was huge. Well and CS When CS dots came about that in the becoming huge because you know, it was a look too I think even early on in the early days people were fascinated that a transparent film could be so strong Sure, and you had fives and some transparent drums being made and people just thought it's all you know It's the Jetsons. It's like, you know, it's like this really cool new kind of thing Yeah, it's just transparent films that that I can hit as hard as I want to and I can't break it Yeah, and so Rimo said that the whole CS thing really came Well, it it goes way way back to toddler drums Really even P3 if you look at the way toddler drums were made and the gobs that are put on there The way it sort of keeps the film from twisting and makes it more of a trampling motion So you get more of a fundamental sound. So what happened there was Buddy Buddy Rich was using these wood beaters on his bass drum and it was denting the head really bad in some cases you know back then buddy and Louis they all used diplomat and So it was seven and a half mil film and so it would break so Rimo put a patch on it and Because it was a clear patch. Nobody could see it. Yeah, and so he said well, you know, let's Let's let's make it worse black. So or you know, like what do you deal with pinstripe? Let's accent the fact. Let's don't try to hide it, you know And so anyway again He was a visionary as far as marketing these things and he started doing the CS black dot and coupled that with the transparent heads and you know, you have Bonham and you had Vistalite and you had all that stuff and bam before you knew it again. It was another rave there and Another big wave of drum heads that were unique sounding and also unique in their appearance it's kind of one of those things where you know every kid in America or I should say every kid around the world is Watching a big drummer like John Bonham or like Ringo and if they're playing Rimo, that's like it's product placement. Basically, that's you know Exactly. I I did so so so many drawers do it at that time You know talked about just dreaming over the that Ludwig Vistalite catalog and just that hole You know that hole look that was it, you know But again the sound was great And and then you you started getting a lot of recorded sounds that wanted more fundamentals I know Rimo said that that Hal Blaine and Steve Gatt were like huge proponents of those heads and all the recordings were done with those and Everybody wanted that sound and Hawaii 5-0 soundtracks and you name it everybody wanted that sound and And in the marching drum and made it better too because it made it more durable Yeah, so marching snare head started the NCS that really took off in the 70s as well as sparkle time You know sparkle time that was sort of another thing. I want to address. Maybe I don't know if I could jump in here right now Go for it about that. Yeah, the way we do the the the actual Graphic heads that were done back in the day like sparkle tone and some of the other four color Silkscreens those were innovative because they just had graphics they weren't innovative because of the necessarily the process We're necessarily the sound what we have now with with our skin deep is a very very unique process that Actually Tom and I both we we hold a patent for that and that's a process. It's literally like a tattoo on your skin it The the inks actually go down into the pores of the film You'll never get it off and we put that on our tried and true films our tried and true Dupont films and so there's no change in sound. So that technology is really different It's not just basically painting the head with a polyester ink Got it or a silkscreen. It is totally different. Cool. It's big and it's a human It was something that we started back in 1996 and if you look at any of our the cores and no college bands If you look at and listen to any of those heads There's just nothing that can compare with it. The other companies still do surface printing and And and do laminations on top of that which changed the sound of the heads And so our process is totally different totally unique and and it's not anything like it was back in the 70s But that showed back then that people were looking for something new and different when sparkle tone came out People weren't looking for something that you know that when it was put on television that it it made a splash Yeah, that is definitely a technology that I didn't realize went back that far It's really cool to know that it was like yeah I mean Rimo is very innovative in that way and and as I'm looking on the timeline here Something that I've always had a pair of and I think a lot of people have a pair of is the rototoms I mean, there's such a cool technology Yeah, well in recording like I said, they use those and I think the early versions of why 5.0 Where people sort of got that sound and did who chancellor started using them and He was he was like the guy to a lot of Phil Collins I think and some other people big first ended up promoting them Some of the larger sizes of as practice temporary when we came out with the pitch pedal that was mated to that and So yeah, they would they were definitely innovations and they had a unique sound because there was no shell You know for the head to resonate on it Very unique kind of Timber to it. Yeah, and those those went through well I mean, they're still around obviously, but I feel like those were in the 80s you see Yeah, tons of people using them there, which it's very very iconic But backing up into so rototoms were as it says here in 68 So that seems early on for that technology. What else is happening around that time? Mainly during that time It was more about film thicknesses being changed and some of the pros some of the different kinds of films You know at the time there were on there was a 3 mil film a 5 mil film and a seven and a half mil film Then you we we started getting 10 mil films, which then became the ambassador a single-ply ambassador and As people started, you know, like I said as amplification came in and drummers had to compete with guitars They needed something that was really strong. And so 10 mil film is Extremely strong. It has a nice attack to it versus a two-ply head, you know, which is going to be a little bit more warm Yeah, sure not have quite the punch So so a lot of that was about coatings for brushes Different things like that the Rimo did early on and then the film thickness and then the improvements Rimo says And like I said, these are some of the things that I was listening to and some of the audio things some of the earlier Milar that we had gotten from DuPont in the late 50s wasn't as good as the Milar that they had in the mid 60s because the mid 60s they actually open up a new plant that we're making it up in Delaware Then they open up a new plant Which started making this other type of my law, which was a 10 mil and at that point in time They started making the film and and Rimo said that that he worked with a number of those Chemists at DuPont to give us some things that There are other customers didn't want nor cared about, you know, yeah So so yeah, there were things going on in the 60s But I think it was more related to to like the melanics and the mylar Types of films sure cool. And like I said, we still we still use those today It's amazing to me that some of those films that were developed back then have certain harmonics that are They're they have no dissonance to them There are so many films that I get today whether it be for solar panels or whether a window of film Treatments or whatever or you know for tinted windows the films they have these really bad harmonics and for the most part they're hard to tune and So the films that we use like our black film for instance Is the same film that we use for our coated ambassador? Let's say we don't take an existing window treatment film like some of the other companies do and And to make a drum head out of it We make it out of a film that we know that sounds good And in most cases it's a little bit more expensive because we have to take that film And then we have to do the die process to it, but it gives you a better sound Yeah, that's why we do it. It pays to do it, right Right. So okay, so if that's the 60s then getting into the 70s and 80s and pushing forward here What was going on then it seems like dampening in the 70s and 80s you get more of that I like to think of it as like the Steve Miller band that kind of like muffled sound so I'm sure things got more you get more of the the dot and all that stuff Absolutely, and that's when pinstripe sort of took over a pinstripe has this Spray that goes between the the two layers and what that does is add some weight in that area And it takes away the higher frequencies And so it gives you a much darker and a warmer sound and that's what they were after back then Yeah, and the late 70s and early 80s that was it but also during that time we we started making woven heads and a marching line started to expand quite a bit because the with the integration of kevlar and tecnoir and some of the other Airman fibers the marching snare drum Companies wanted something they could really tension tight and get a really precise sound what they're trying to do There's they have ten guys playing a certain pattern and they want them to sound like one Yeah, so for that to happen because the articulation is so tight The drumhead has to be able to produce those really tight short staccato kind of notes So we got into To doing the marching kevlar heads and that has grown tremendously over the years to now We we actually use some you know a few different types of air made products and a few different kinds of weaves The weaves on our black max and our cyber max are completely different and what that does is gives the drummer a different feel One has a little bit more balance. It's kind of like a you know a certain amount of air in a basketball Just a little bit more you get a little bit more bounce a little less you get a little less So that's sort of what the weaving does sure you it gives the guy some options there in addition to sound It gives them a feel option, huh? So while we're in the 80s, and I've always I've always wondered about this I've always seen them and I never knew what the deal was with it. So Remo making drum sets How did that come about and what's the story behind that? Well, that is a really long story. I'll try to make it really short So most companies when they come out with a drum set They they make it the best possible set they could do and they they have one or two models They have you know different configurations and then later on after that gets established Then they come up with a student line model or something that right. Yeah, so Remo came up with this Pre-tune head which was incredible. It was it was an amazing thing Which was really happened by accident, but again, it's a long story, but he came up with this pre-tuned head and So to promote the pre-tuned head It was it was supposed to be a fairly inexpensive item But all the drum shells and all the because the head didn't need all this heavy-duty tension hardware It was already pre-tuned all I needed was some sort of latch to hold it on the shell So Remo's introduction into drums Came about from the low-end market So all he wanted was a very inexpensive drum shell that he could put a PTS head on Okay, so what he did was he initially got you know Some some tubes that they used to pour concrete with and he hardened those up and and put pre-tuned heads on and bam he was in business he had a very inexpensive product and The drum sounded really good, you know because the heads were so good. They were already pre-tuned He didn't have to have all his heavy hardware. So he wanted to make a number of Ethnic drums, you know that whole pre-tuned system and and so that's really how we got into the drum set world Then the major drummers like when Louis Belson started tinkering around with because Louis Was a was just a great person and a huge ambassador I know point intended to our company and you know, we know with friends and so Louis started actually Playing the PTS drum set But one of the problems that he was having was the fact that the hardware was so lightweight that it just wouldn't hold up You know, he loved the sound of the drums, but they just didn't hold up And so eventually when when Louis came on board and then we we got some other artists that came on board They all said basically the same thing the PTS heads had aluminum Hoop on them and they couldn't do a decent cross-stack. You need to be steel Yeah You know, they had all these other things that they were trying to do that they really couldn't do with PTS because they wanted it to be at a level that it was never really meant to be and so what happened was the market Actually forced him into making a drum set that had counter hoops and all the heavy lugs And I was part of that. I was part of that design and all the lugs and all the things that we did You know over the next number of years But initially he got into it because all he wanted to do was promote an inexpensive Pre-tune drumhead interesting so it really didn't matter about the actual drum set Itself it wasn't meant to be like a competitor for Ludwig at that time. It was just a way to promote obviously the Technology and we had and and even one of the biggest sellers back at that time was a junior pro You know because the junior pro kit was all pre-tuned. It was really lightweight It was a great sounding set and again It was never meant to be a you know a high-end drum set Yeah, well in you you bring up a good point though about talking about the world percussion like the jambes and all that stuff which Remo makes Unbelievable hand percussion. I mean I've played and owned the jambes and stuff and I think from what I can see that was in The 90s correct, right? And that's another one of those things that I would really love to drill down and talk about all the details Over the years I've kept really good notes day-to-day notes literally on everything that we've made and some of the prototypes and The artists that we work with and how the concepts came about and what they ended up being and just totally passionate about that whole thing because like I said that was during my time and So there was a chemist that we had here who Helped us develop a lot of those Those things and we learned quite a bit about how we can vary the sound of acoustica and shells because It's interesting that when you have like a drum set Tom Tom, you know You want to be as resonant as possible and you want the thing to ring for you know a whole note and a dotted half and Versus something that has a very quick kind of a tone Yeah So a lot of the world percussion instruments if you make those like we would we would initially make some of The gym bays and some of the other material out of really we would make the shells really hard and resonant because we could control the amount of Reson that we put into the shell and how you know we could harden it up and how we could make it vibrate So in early on we found out that we didn't want that for wall percussion every time we'd make a shell that was so resonant We would get an artist that would come in it was like man You got to do something about that it ranks forever it gets in the way the bass gets in the way of the high notes and this and So what we ended up doing was catering the different products To different hardnesses, you know in the shell to give them You know more of an authentic sound and even like the heads that we have now they represent a goat skin head So if we have a Egyptian dune back We want that to be like a you know like a fish skin like what they do what they're used for so Anyway, it's about the shell and it's about how it resonates about the design of it if you take like our Jim day if you widen that waist it becomes almost like a Helmholtz resonator if you know what that is. It's like blowing a coat bottle Yeah, so if you if we widen that waste a little bit it will change the frequency from like 80 You know to a to a higher frequency, you know And so you can you can do all these things and and those were just fun things to experiment with because we had the option of Molding the shell the way we wanted to mold it and Making the film with whatever lamination we want sure those things have always been fun and continue to be fun Yeah, I mean Remo you guys are kind of masters in resonance whatever that is the absolute the art of things resonating and You hit it with a stick and make it sound good and uniform and There are so many different varieties of Of drum heads obviously and as I'm looking through your history too one thing I think that's cool is your guys involvement with the Olympics There's obviously multiple things on the timeline where you guys are featured. Oh, yeah in the Olympics I mean, that's doesn't get much bigger than that No, it doesn't and actually Remo and I went to the summer Olympics in 96 We made these gigantic drums That they did for the opening ceremonies and I was actually there for the opening ceremonies when we did this Wow before and during that time and it just incredible Things that happen because we we we made these gigantic drama. I think the smallest drum was a 30 inch They were like 30 32 34 36 and 40 inches and they had these humongous depths to them And yeah, they were just really cool fun things to work on, you know, that's awesome. Yeah But yeah, it's like you said we we we look at what the end result needs to be You know, does it need to be resonant? Does it not to be does it not need to be does it? I did this I Rendered a camera that actually records drum heads and like a high speed like 10,000 frames a second cool because I was I was working on a couple of designs that I couldn't really figure out what was going on and What's what's so unique about it as you could see how the drum head works and and the way it's being played like For instance, if a guy plays like a slap on a gym day The way that his hands hit that head it makes the head like a graphic equalizer So basically he's he he turns the dial to get more of the high frequencies and almost no low Yeah, yeah, but then if you take the base of your hand and you hit the head You can see the head has more of like a big trampoline effect And and the whole head goes up and down and you get only that low note And when you play all these other tones in between That's what gives you the sort of the open tone the slap tones and the base tones and whatever You're basically making that head vibrate by the way you strike it And that same thing happens with different kinds of sticks and different types of mallets. And so again It's a fascinating thing when you see it When you actually can see it the way it works, you know, yeah, it's unbelievable So obviously we could talk about Remo and what happened in the past all day long But what I'm curious about now is we kind of wrap up is What can we look forward to in the future? Like is there anything new you guys are working on right now that you're you're allowed to talk to us about? Yeah, I we have got so much on our plate right now. There's there's two things I unfortunately I'm not gonna be able to tell you what they are but they are going to be really cool I One in it involves Some new mesh drum heads. Oh, and we've got some new marching stuff coming along as well Yeah, so there's There's there's quite a bit of things that we're working on and also some other things that we we continue to work with our OEM partners and with artists and You know, it's like I said, I have to pinch myself every day because I I just love what I do here And I think what sort of like the Baskin Robbins You know, we have so many flavors and he makes a little bit here. Yeah, and we can get what you know What what people want? Yeah, and so yeah, so we've got just a tremendous amount of things It's great plate right now. We've got so many things going on as far as drum heads and and wall percussion Yeah, we we we're keeping in Rimo's Indefatigable Yeah, spirit. Yeah, I don't think anyone needs a go to you know Rimo comm to buy Rimo drum heads I think everyone out there knows where to find them But one thing I think that I can highly recommend is on your guys website under the company tab There is the history and there's a ton of information right that goes really in depth And that's what I've been following along with so you can go through here and there is So much more than we talked about honestly, I feel like we could talk for four hours about this Well, yeah, we were definitely because like I said, I mean, I'm I know I'm a geek when it comes to this stuff But I mean as far as the the technology and you know the the tools that we have today to the digital world We do 3d modeling 3d printing we do all the The sort of the latest stuff and like I said high-speed videos that actually show how the heads vibrate Yeah, we have all this technology We have these machines that we designed to test the heads that you can actually see that on our YouTube page if you look at our It's I think it's called a drum machine you can look at those are one of the machines that we built in test-based remits and You know, we just have so many things going on and like I said, I'm just proud of everything that we do here and You know besides being a drummer myself I have friends that are drummers and you know artists and we all want everything to work really well Yeah, and and so like I said, I'm really really excited about some of the newer things that we have coming up That's awesome. It's good to be good to be proud of your company and and before we wrap up I want to give a shout out to So I met at the Chicago drum show Brian Levan who it was unbelievably nice and actually got us connected So I just want to give a big thank you to him and just say that it's you guys as a company have been very, you know Open and just coming right on the show and and it's just it's just awesome And then also a shout out to which I never thought I'd get to stay but Stan Bicknell who's a great drummer Everyone knows him on social media and stuff. He's the one who told me. Hey, you should get You should get Rimo's side of the story on drum heads because he's a big fan of Rimo and all that so Shout out to those two guys. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Bart. Thanks so much. I really really appreciate it. Like I said, we we On the contrary, I I actually love giving tours when people come in especially artists that are into what we do You know, yeah, because I besides just coming up with some, you know A lot of times other companies just come up with some kind of marketing gimmick or whatever And and I can tell you all the reasons that it doesn't work You know when you look at it from an engineering side and from a recording Sure side or or from a performance side and I absolutely love When people come in here and we can physically show them what we do why we do it the way we do it What films we use and how we do it because like I said, we absolutely have nothing to hide You know, I don't only Right now it's just how to disseminate all the information Yeah, now with the web and and everybody having their own camera and their own videos or whatever It gets, you know, obviously there's some things that we want to keep our selves And other things that we're more than welcome, you know to to show the public why we're different And you know versus the other companies. Yeah. Yeah, we we certainly want to be transparent and And like I said, wait, I'd love for you to come into the factory and we can show you all the things we talked about That would be great. That would be great You're a you're a great ambassador of the company and that is a pun that I intend to drop there But all right, Herbie, thanks again for taking the time to talk with me today. Great bar. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it All right, we'll talk to you later. Okay. Bye. Bye If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review and let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future and Until next time keep on learning This is a Gwyn sound podcast