 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I have the pleasure of being joined by mr. Josh Allen of independent drum lab Josh welcome to the podcast Oh, I'm super excited to be here. I've listened to all your episodes. So it's cool to be awesome. Cool. Thanks, man Yeah, you're you've you you were very well deserved to be here because your brand Which is independent drum lab, but most people have seen your logo for like in indie drum indy with the little e and Super cool stuff man first off congrats on creating such an awesome brand I mean it's been since 2015 slash 2016 ish so not that long so very well done my friend. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that Josh I'd like to hear to start about your background and like do you have a background in engineering? I mean what your background in drumming. Let's just talk about you first and then we'll talk about indie drum lab Sure. Yeah, I'll give you the the whole history. So I my my dad played drums growing up and you know when I was growing up there was a there was a drum set in a box on on the shelves in the back and You know The way he tells the story I don't remember it all that well But he says I came home in sixth grade and said dad you need to get those drums down and teach me how to Plam I just signed up for the talent show and I need to play the drums in it Wow, that was kind of the start and played all through you know middle school band and high school band and Then started kind of playing and rock bands And played you know through college with with some you know a few different rock bands And during that time started to get into building drums a little bit You know just on the side kind of discovered that was something that you can do you can buy the parts and you can You could put them together at home and have yeah have a drum set So I got into experimenting with that, but then you know I was going to school for industrial design so kind of a combination of art and engineering and graduated with that degree in 2004 But then I went up and I did you know a few different industrial type jobs I did I Mean Southwest Michigan so I worked for Kellogg's for a while kind of designing food production equipment and then went to a Division of Fujifilm that made inkjet printers and designed industrial inkjet printers But I was always trying to find kind of a link back to you know designing something that I had a passion for and it was you know kind of either either bicycles or drums and And so you know I was just at a point I was looking online and at job listings and on the consulmer site and sent a resume to Ludwig and At first they hired somebody else, but then they called me back and said hey that didn't work out Do you want to come work for me? So nice in 2010 I Started working at Ludwig as their design engineer Wow, and so designed lots of products for Ludwig several patents and and then Sided to leave that at in 20. Yeah 2015 and start independent drum lab. So Man, that's awesome My college roommate was an industrial design major and he went on to work for Hasbro in the toy always in the toy world, but man It is no joke going through that kind of like here. We have the DAP program that you see it is no joke And very hard work. So, you know, that's the serious degree you got there, man I'm glad you can you're using it for our industry to better to better the drums, you know Yeah, I think there's not a lot of industrial designers in the industry to be honest I think you know even when I got hired at Ludwig, you know, it was an engineering job And I had to go in and convince them that what I have is actually more applicable to what they need Yeah, you know, they didn't know what an industrial designer was so Sure, I had to had to make that case. Yeah, and this is probably a very very broad General question, but like, I don't know. What was it like to work for I'm sure like all of us You've admired Ludwig drums your entire life. What was it like working there? Yeah, so, um, I mean, I mentioned earlier My dad had that drum set on the shelf in the back. That was a set of it was a 1968 Ludwig Hollywood set that he bought new So, you know, he loved Ludwig his whole life And I grew up loving those Ludwig drums And so, you know, to be able to design those and be actually part of that history was like a total dream job And, you know, I came in there at a time when they were really willing to invest in new products and new designs And, you know, so I was able to just kind of follow everything I wanted to do and build a lot of stuff Like the first year I was there I designed all the the new I mean, it's not new anymore, obviously, but all the the new Ludwig Atlas hardware Um, and so, you know, kind of starting from nothing and building that all out and bringing it to, you know My very first Nam show Was just awesome That's great Super cool, but it's it's also cool that you kind of said, all right I've got this experience and you didn't then jump from Ludwig and go to a different company Which there's nothing wrong with that at all if you did do that, but you said I want to be independent Obviously with their the name. So what what happened then with with Switching to your your own brand. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few things that that drove that one is that You know, while working for a company with a legacy like Ludwig is is awesome It also has a lot of limitations because, you know, you can't just design whatever you think you The world needs you have to design something that Looks and feels Ludwig if you do something too different, you know, people aren't into it um, so You know that was part of it and the other thing is, you know, I would create a design and have a patent on that and Ludwig owned that patent and they made all the money off that design and so, you know Several times through this process. I'm looking at it and it's like man If I just owned those patents and did the stuff on my own I could have a legitimate company and Have the flexibility to design things like The way I want them and the the you know, I think without those limitations and handcuffs of both the legacy of The brand and you know, kind of the corporate environment that it was that was within. So, you know, now I get to do what I want Yeah, but like in any career You know, you did the other stuff with Kellogg but having that experience at Ludwig The name recognition legitimizes everything you do after that and probably gave you a great foundation So it's sort of like it's a great Stepping stone and resume thing to go like because I heard it and I go oh man Ludwig and I talk to people about drum companies all the time You know, I'm sure you you appreciate the experience But there's something about the name recognition on your resume that is you can't beat it Yeah, I think so and you know, the other thing is you get the background with all these different vendors in the in the musical instrument industry And you kind of see how the industry works and you know, the whole time I'm there. I'm you know Seeing things that are working but also seeing things within the industry and just how it works that Um, I thought there was a lot of room for improvement. So, you know, I just kind of Made me recognize there was there was a way to do this differently that would Serve drummers better Yeah, absolutely. So uh day one of being your own being your own business. How do things go? What was your first products that you worked on? What how did it all start and then and then go from there even I like to hear about like I mean, you have to have financing you have to do paperwork You have to get your name registered like did you it was a pretty straightforward for you again You're pretty bright guy with your degree and everything but was it was it an easy transition? um, I mean that Certainly a lot of challenges and getting it all going. Um But I had you know I had that background with the industry so so that helped and I had ideas So that's kind of the you know, a really important part of getting something like that going the You know, it's funny the way it kind of evolved because initially I was thinking, okay, well You know, I really wanted to do kind of something with a consumer direct approach um, and You know, I had all these contacts with factories in in Taiwan China And I was thinking, you know just design some drums have them build them and send them over But then I was kind of thinking about like, you know, I've had a number of drum sets in my in my past and Never really had a connection with any of those Drums that were imported from China or Taiwan I was like, okay. Well, I want to build something that I want to play. So then it kind of got into, okay How do I make them in the u.s? um And so, you know, it kind of had to go through a few different iterations to figure out how to make that work And then also, you know, as I'm designing these parts. I'm thinking, you know, okay Here's a new strainer that we're going to put on all our snare drums Well, what if I made those holes spacing adjustable so they'd fit on basically every snare drum ever made and then sell those as a as a You know, additional You know an additional product sure, so You know, I kind of did the same thing with our our mounting brackets Which are it's a patented design has kind of an adjustable spring rate to allow the drums to float a little bit And so I designed those with adjustable hole spacing as well So, you know There I kind of started off with, you know, first of all being able to offer snare drums and drum kits But then also strainers and mounting brackets um, and so when we went to We kind of launched at the chicago drum show in 2016 I had, you know, a handful of drum sets handful of snare drums and then You know these individual parts as well Yeah, well, I mean How many drum sets can you sell at a certain amount of time that people are buying? You know fairly priced on your on your end But like drum sets for any brand are expensive But you can sell a lot of as you said adjustable hole spacing Strainers which you can explain it much better, but that's the first thing I actually think I saw your drums But that's the first thing I saw Uh People like I think it was a drum forum or something where I saw it multiple times of just like oh that should work for you like josh at indie drum has created like Uh something where you can, you know, it will fit It doesn't need to be a thousand different Skews that all have different minute differences in the whole placement What a genius idea that now that it's it exists. It's a little bit like Oh, yeah, why didn't someone think of that earlier? Yeah, I think it's just a different mindset and I think You know you look at the big drum companies and they're like, oh Well, we have enough snare drums out there if we just make it match the hole spacing We already have on a new product like that's fine or not even thinking about it We just need a bracket for this drum. You're not going to really think that way But I always kind of looked at this is, you know, what do drummers need? And drummers need replacement strainers that are broken on their old vintage drums and and so it kind of just made sense then Um, and so my goal is always, you know, been to support drummers Even if they're not buying my drums or snare drums or You know, any of those other parts like at least we can help make the drum set that they have work work better Yeah, absolutely. Now, did you start so let's again going back to your kind of background I'm on your website, which is indydrum.com for everyone if they want to kind of check it out while we're talking indedrum.com Um, did you start with building just some snares or I guess you said you took kits with you as well What was your first line? I mean, did you jump right into the beautiful aluminum Kits that you make or did you uh, how did that start? No, we started with just maple drums Um, and you know at the time I was running this business I I had a full-time day job And I was running this business out of out of the basement in a rental house that I had um, and so You know, we outsourced some of that manufacturing to another drum builder So, you know, I really focused on the design and had another company spray the finishes on and drill the holes and put the parts on Um, and so, you know, basically we started out with you know being able to make maple drums I had a proprietary maple shell layup that I had made for me um, and you know, we just did snare drums and um And drum kits with with those maple shells and so it was You know, I designed our own lugs our own bass drum claws our own strainers our own brackets So it was really you know, even right off the bat. It was all kind of proprietary design Um, which was which is always kind of my focus is you know, get the design right Yeah, um, can you explain a little bit then once you got into the Wayfair Kalamazoo series aluminum kits and Maybe about the rivets and all that stuff for people who are listening and maybe not watching just kind of explain that that kit Yeah, and just to clarify the the Kalamazoo series is what we call our metal shells that are joined in that way and we make full size kits and You know and what we call the wayfarers which are the wayfarers are the short stack lightweight travel style kits And so we actually make those in with maple shells as well So we have wayfarer maple wayfarer aluminum and then we have Kalamazoo series Wayfarer It's kind of funny how I came to that design in that construction. Um, essentially I had an idea A while ago for what we now call the infinite snare bed So this is something on snare drums where Instead of you know, having a tube that you cut both ends flat and then you cut a little cutout for the snare bed This is a continuous basically sine wave curve all around the bottom of the drum head So there's really no starter end to the snare bed It's it's the whole bottom of the head and I had this idea for how to do it But I really didn't know how to make it And so I had an idea for You know, I was thinking okay. Well, it's hard to cut that shape once it's around cylinder Maybe I could cut it when it's a flat sheet of metal um, and then and then Twister, you know, roll it around and make it round and um, and then I just came up with a way to to join those ends with Kind of interlocking finger Style joints and rivets Um, and that lets me, you know, make the shell nice and round. It's a strong connection at the seam of the shell and You know, it was really just utility when I when I started out to try out this snare bed design so, um I did that and I played the snare drum and it was it really wasn't how I intended to do anything in production Uh, but I played the snare drum and it was like it was the snare drum sound that I'd always been looking for It was it was just perfect and to be honest like if you go to my house right now That first snare drum is still sitting in my snare stand. Like it's my go-to Drum at home that that prototype um So then I was like, okay. Well, this doesn't really fit the the indie vibe at the time And so I started what I called great lakes drum company where it was kind of You know shells made that with that construction and I made lugs With kind of similar, you know, all these pieces are cut on a water jet and we do the assembly and and fitting and finishing in house So, you know started with snare drums and it's like, oh, maybe I could try building that into a drum kit and and so I did that um And I was like, okay. These these drums sound fantastic Um, and so then it was kind of like but they were very expensive because it was you know, all the lugs were handmade and Every every piece on it. I you know, I designed a pair of spurs that we could make all the all the fittings in house and everything for Wow. Um, so it was you know, these are you know, four or five thousand dollar drum sets And I wanted them to make them more accessible So I was like, okay. Well, if we just made the shells that way And made them with the indie parts Then that makes it a little bit more accessible. And so, um, you know, again, we started with with uh the snare drums And you know called them kalamazoo series because you know, we're located in kalamazoo The the shells are are cut in kalamazoo. Like they're they're pretty pretty handmade locally shells I mean, we roll and finish the shells in our shop downstairs here um and uh Yeah, it's a it's a locally made thing So Kalamazoo series snares and then you know just started experimenting with the full-sized drum kits And so it's really expanded from there. You know at this point um You know, we're selling more metal drums than wood drums, which is kind of a shift that's happened over the last year Yeah, I mean so it so then it did transition from being being great lakes to just all under the same umbrella or is it still Do you still have two separate things going? No, we you know, basically The kalamazoo series started selling really well and the great lake stuff was just harder to sell because it was so high price You know, it's like we're selling the kalamazoo series kits for you know, 1500 2000 dollars And the great lakes kits are 5000 dollars Um, you know, we just we were selling one and not the other so it's like, okay Let's just focus our energy on the indie brand So we we shut down great lakes a little over a year and a half ago. I think Which it makes sense But you got to try and you got to learn and sometimes you can look I mean really now though The the your wood stuff is beautiful But but I see that metal design with that that kind of rivet and I think indie I mean, it's funny how it's become in my mind of like one of your staples And to think of you kind of separating it. I totally get at the time, but now it's like Oh, yeah No, you should ride that wave because they are they are beautiful drums and um and they sound great too and that was on my list of the the infinite snare bed of things to talk about and that Clearly your industrial design background Helps you and that is a part of your of differentiating you Your style and and and beautiful engineering is is iconic. I think in in our industry. Thank you I really appreciate that and you know, I think part of what makes it unique is that it's All the parts are designed kind of with the same idea in mind Um, you know low mass lightweight, you know designed for gigging drummers and they're all designed by the same guy whereas if you look at you know Any of the other big drum companies they've been around for you know, 100 years or 20 years or 50 years You know, they've had several different designers with different ideas in their heads And you know, they might have designed the lug from here and the bracket from here and and you know Now it's kind of like mr. Potato head parts putting those things together Whereas like these are all designed with the same goal in mind And I think aesthetically they work together together and then functionally as well Yeah, totally. Uh now since 20, you know, let's call it 15 eight years later I think people always like to hear about uh in starting a business Have there been any major pain points or lessons that you've learned along the way or total like oh man I screwed that up moments that that you have learned from and grown from uh in that time I mean We could we could fill up six podcasts with that stuff. Um, I mean just Just in general like It's it's way harder to get the word out about what you're doing than than I expected, you know When when I came from Ludwig, it was kind of like, yeah, you design a new part You're gonna sell thousands of them right away just because you know You have that network and everything built up and especially, you know going mostly consumer directs in terms of drums Um, I'm the only person talking about it and there's only so much that I can extend You know my voice to so, you know, obviously social media and stuff has been helpful, but um All that it you know is just slower growth than I ever anticipated But it's also steady and consistent and and that's working really well Um, yeah, and then, you know, what I found is growth is good but Trying to make it happen faster than it does naturally Um, hasn't worked for me. I mean, I I know some people throw more dollars at at marketing or whatever But for me, it's you know, the most valuable Um, marketing is other you know as people drummers out there telling other drummers about it and yeah So, you know, I you know for a while I I had hired a guy to kind of help with marketing and you know help Grow the business in that way But it really didn't grow any faster than just you know me Occasionally putting a social media post and um, yeah, just keep doing what i'm doing Yeah, I mean really I think also for for the big companies and the small maybe not as important for the small companies I think the drum shows Are huge because nowadays also there's the youtube video of the drum show and then there's the pictures and people share it And the word spreads that way, but I'm in the same boat where you cannot beat Someone who's not you talking about your drums on like the drum forum dot org or like On social media or they have their kit and they play a gig and 100 people see it and five of them are drummers And one of them buys one. It's like you cannot beat that personal, uh, you know Actual fan word of mouth kind of thing. It's it's incredible Yeah, and I think that's kind of one of the benefits of having a wide variety of products like I You know, I've got the strainers and the brackets and you know Now we've got a lot of different hardware parts as well as the drums as well as the you know snare drums all those things You know each drummer might have a connection to one of those parts or use for one of those parts And they're going to tell somebody about the strainer that they picked up or the you know Floor tom legs that they picked up from us um, so it's You know people find out about it from these little different things And and having a wide variety has helped me more than just kind of focusing on on one thing Yeah, for sure. Um, I just gotta say and I think this is uh, I don't know It's talked about a fair amount, but I really like your badge. I like your name. I like your logo I think it's really cool Was that an easy process to come up with like we are indy with the you know indy capital and then the little e and then I like the cursive on your On the bass drum head and and your badge. What was that like coming up with that and designing that because That's not the easiest thing to do. No, I mean it and it's You know, it's kind of one of the first things you have to do when you're when you're Presenting your brand you have to figure out what it is first um, and so, you know, I put I I over thought everything and uh, you know, I I just I started with the independent thing because you know, I'm breaking away from a bigger drum company. I'm doing it on my own. Um, and That was kind of an important word for me Um, and so that was you know, I had the idea for this independent drum lab kind of a more scientific approach to drums Independent from how everybody else was doing it. So the independent drum lab was there But that looked terrible on a bass drum head. So, um, you know, I tried to come up with a way to shorten it And then came up with you know, the the idea for kind of the shortened indie word um, in a way that's, you know, trademarkable, um, you know, so Definitely took a lot of of thought and experimentation and you know, originally we had kind of our block style indie logo Which is on our badges just on our website um, and I always thought like it'd be cool to have a more like vintagey script logo and that was the hardest thing like That took me literally years to figure out. I hired people to help me with it But ended up just kind of figuring it out on my own um And yeah, we've really only done that for about a year and a half that's a kind of a new logo that we you know offer on our bass drums and People like it and and it was a success But I just it wasn't right for a long time and you know, for me, that's how a lot of design stuff works is I just dwell on it I have a basic idea and think about it and think about it and think about it and then it's you know, the middle of the night Wake up like Maybe that would work and then and then a lot of my design stuff comes from that, you know Sure, which is great. You can't rush it Don't you know it takes time and yeah the curse of logo On the kalamazoo kit with the dark wood poops on the bass drum is like pretty cool A job well done. But as you mentioned, uh, you like to be scientific with this stuff And uh, that obviously goes with your your your background and just kind of the way you approach these things Let's talk about the drum nerd lab, which is on your website. What is that? Yeah, I mean that that was always, you know from the beginning something that I really wanted to promote is, you know Kind of a new look at how how drums work how we interact with drums Um, you know and and taking a scientific approach to those things and to be honest like I'd love to I wish I had the time to just focus all my efforts on that and make tons and tons of content because it's it's I think it's really valuable and I and I hear this from people all the time like we have You know a couple of tuning videos Um, and you know people tell me like this totally made it I went from a person who couldn't tune drums at all to now like it's no problem And it's quick sure and it's easy so You know that sort of thing or talking about how drums vibrate and what are kind of the critical design aspects of of creating a drum and how how those are designed and and um Yeah, that's that's really the focus of that and again I'd love to be doing a lot more of that But I'm you know kind of a small operation here and don't have a ton of time to make those those videos really Very cool content and and one thing I noted as I watched is as your tuning video like you just discussed where tuning can be daunting But you have a cool video where you talk about using two tuning keys at one time to stop that kind of like You know you're putting more pressure on one side and then you're doing the star kind of formation on the other side Talk a little bit about the double tuning key Technique. Yeah, and I I didn't invent that. Um, I I kind of Heard other people talking about it. I tried it and then just kind of refined how it works and to me it's You know, you're always working with two drum keys On opposite lugs from each other um as as you bring up a drum detention or when you're just fine tuning it and You know really it's like a as you if you think about it And I think the way I explain it in the video is like think about it as your drum head is a bunch of strings connecting The different lugs together And so you're really kind of working, you know, the the drum lugs or the tension rods that are directly across from each other on ahead They're really really working together because there's a direct connection of of mylar between one and the other So you touch one and it's going to affect the other. So why not just tune them both at the same time? And you know, I think the other benefit is like You you're you're tuning twice as fast. Um, and so you can really quickly Change the pitch of a head. So like I think if you look at a lot of tuning videos, they'll say Oh, you want to tune this head to this pitch and this head to this pitch and you're trying to get a you know this interval between the heads and and My approach is You know learn to do it quickly with two keys and then you can experiment with all the different intervals and pitches And find something that works because it's it's not the same for every drum It's not the same for every person. It's not the same for every application You know, I'd rather focus on the technique of just making it happen really quickly. Yeah, definitely Uh, and I never thought about the doing it faster. You're doing it twice as fast. I mean, that's that's very uh, very very smart Do we have anything cool that you're working on right now that we can expect that you kind of have? In the works, I imagine you're the kind of guy who's always got something cooking in the back of your brain That's like a new product or anything But anything fun you're working on right now that you can give us any, you know sneak peek of Yeah, um the Right now I'm working on a smaller version of our strainer like we do these strainers and sell lots of them But I'm designing one that'll work on piccolo snares Um, and then, you know potentially bringing piccolo snares to our product lineup um, and the other thing is uh We launched We did a really short run of kind of some prototype light lightweight drum thrones. Um, and It really didn't it was it was a it's a cool project Um, and unfortunately didn't work out that well. Um, I just can't afford to make them. You know, they're all made locally um Really lightweight design really cool design but but they took a lot of effort and and you know at this point I can't figure out how to make them profitably um, and and sustainably so Now I'm trying to go back to the drawing board because man like we did a just a short pre-production run of 20 And they sold out in like an hour. Um, once I once I released them So like there's a huge market and and I get emails Daily of people saying hey man, can I get one of those strainers? You know, sorry We don't have any um But it's you know to me that was always kind of one of those things like You know you have when you're hauling your stuff to a gig you've got your hardware bag and it's got all your stands in it And you got your drum bags and it's got all your drums in it But the throne always just was thrown on top because it's you know You got this big top and it's got a thing that sticks off the bottom and it doesn't fit anywhere um, and the bases were heavy and so You know, I've figured out with you know different mounting pieces on the drums symbol arms and you know tom holders on our on our drums You can get rid of a lot of the stands and there's great lightweight stands on the market right now But there's no solution for the throne and you know A little foreshadowing. I don't know when when or what this is going to have the the petals are are difficult to transport too So there's always kind of like a petal and a throne and then everything else in a nice bag. And so true Um, you know, I really think there's there's room for opportunity. I've got a design I'm actually sitting on one of the the prototypes right now um It works great, but I just need to figure out how to make it Usable for you know as a business for sure That reminds me of the pork pie episode with bill deadamore who I believe he talked about how I mean because pork pie thrones We all know them. They're everywhere and I can't remember it's been a while But he said something about how he was making them and the way they were making them was very Cost prohibitive, but he figured it out and I mean that's the thing now where uh, I don't want to say it wrong But I think he said they sell like God, it's like 20,000 a year or probably more than that. I can't remember but it's a I have one behind me. It's a massive part of the business where once you figure it out Because like I said, that's that's the deal with drum stuff is not everyone's buying a kid every day But I'll drop 120 dollars on a throne or you know, whatever here. That's a birthday present for someone or you know, it's It's it's more attainable. Um, so good luck with that. I'm sure people will be very excited to keep up with that Um, I'm curious. Who is someone you're in a unique position kind of and I think ron denets in that position Way back george way, you know years many many many years ago drum designers Who's someone you admire in in that realm or just design wise? You don't have to say a person but a brand But just like someone where you look at their designs and you go God, those are beautiful or you take inspiration from in the drum world. Yeah, um you know, I I think What I do is is take in everything that that's out there and find those little details that um That that work and sometimes it's a just a really functional thing I mean like you look at tama and and their hardware Is design not necessarily like the most? Technically advanced or anything but just from a Producibility standpoint, you know some of the details and designs like I just think they make stuff that works better for less Money than than a lot of people. So I kind of always look to them I think you know stylistically like I love the old premiere stuff with you know the swooping lines, you know kind of Art Nouveau art deco kind of lines to it And definitely took inspiration from that on on some of our hardware bits Um, and I kind of like british design stuff like, you know triumph motorcycles and and Jaguars, you know all that stuff. Um, yeah, so Yeah, they were definitely an inspiration But I honestly I look at everything I go to the vintage vintage shows and I look at all the drums and just all the details And and you know, I think I see things Looking at how a drum pedal works, you know having designed them before like It can just be you know a way a fastener fits on there or Just the way it goes together that that it's like, oh, wow, that's a that's a really good solution So for me, it's it's a lot of those little details Yeah, very very good answer and uh, but you you nailed it with saying like what tama does and things like that And and I will say from asking that question You are totally like I would look at your stuff and go like you are On your own you have your own designs and they're amazing So you're clearly taking them and then filtering them through kind of the the the josh style and then making your own things but Historically in the world of drums looking at drums from like the 20s and 30s and single tensioning, you know kind of techniques and styles people can over engineer things and make it so Just confusing and cost prohibitive where a drum is $3,000 in like, you know, 1925 And no one can afford anything Um, so there's clearly a balance though of it being like Confusing like how many knobs and things to turn do you need? I guess there's a balance there, right? Yeah, and I think the You know the general Input that you get is like man, that's cool But I wish it had this feature too and and this feature too and I actually had a quote on my website For years that is it's one of my favorites. I'm probably gonna get The exact words wrong, but it's basically, you know design perfection is achieved Not when there's nothing left to add but when there's nothing left to take away And you know, I just like that simplicity, you know figure out what the function you need is and Figure out the most efficient way to get that function and I think the the over featuring I Yeah, I really struggle with the over engineering because I think engineering Engineers should be making stuff better not not more complicated or worse. Yeah But yeah, I think that over featuring is a common common problem And I think you know in the drum industry In general like The drum companies are Competing with each other and looking at each other And you know, they're getting feedback from the store. Oh, well, well tamo or yamaha are doing this They make this kit that's really good and we sell a ton of those So then the other drum companies go and say, okay, well, we're gonna we're gonna do that And they try to do that, but they're never gonna get as good as the guy who's been doing it for years So I've always just taken the approach of You know What do drummers actually need and what and if somebody already makes it? I'm not gonna waste my time trying to make it, you know, I'm gonna focus on the stuff that That is different that Doesn't already exist Sure. I think that makes sense and and to kind of jump off that I'm on the lug You know hardware design slash lug tab on your website and you've got three key things Minimal mass no dampening materials and sexiness which sexiness is obvious It says our stuff looks good beautiful lines and curves with each component Complimenting the others you've nailed that that's pretty clear, but let's talk about the other two minimal mass How does that apply to your building? Yeah, I mean designs and the lugs and all that stuff Yeah, I think there's there's different approaches for how to make a drum sound the way you want it to sound And you know, my goal has always been to hear the shell as much as possible because Legitimately when you play a drum 95% of what you hear is the heads and you know, so the heads and the tuning are super important But as a drum designer, I'm focusing on that other 5% and I want to make that You know, if I can make that 6% or 8% that's that's That's a win for me. So, you know, basically if you're just looking at The physics of a drum you're putting energy into the head And if you want the shell to also vibrate along with the head The less mass there is the less energy it takes to make that move and resonate So our shells are designed to be super thin and lightweight All the parts that we put on them are designed to be, you know, thin or, you know, low mass parts so You really hear more of the shell and it's you know, honestly like Just a change in the shell You probably couldn't hear that difference in that or just a change in a lug You probably couldn't hear a difference in that but I do believe when you When every single part on that drum is designed with that same concept in mind It does make a difference And so, you know, that's a big part of the design of the drums like just make everything thin lightweight And try to get as much shell resonance as possible and you know, yeah It makes the shells really responsive like you don't have to hit them hard to have the the shell open up They don't choke It's it's just kind of a different Different approach and the other Benefit is when you're hauling your gig your drums to a gig You're not carrying a 50 pound bass drum. You know, you're carrying a 12 pound bass drum. So It really lends itself well to, you know, those gigging drummers Yeah, absolutely. And then we also have no dampening material, which I just in the lug world here You're talking about you say, I don't know why this started But it has become commonplace for drum manufacturers to use rubber gaskets under lugs and mounting brackets and plastic inserts in every lug These materials convert vibrational energy to the thermal energy and just dead in the drum You will find none here. So that's smart. You do find that in everything where I guess I always thought that there would be so many Uh kind of gaskets and inserts to stop vibrations and things like that is a good thing But you're right in in the big picture. You're just deadening down the drum and not letting it vibrate Yeah, I mean if you look at any other acoustic instrument, I mean look at a violin or a guitar or something like that I mean, you're not going to find a chunk of rubber on that like it would It's it's just dead mass and at at the worst it can, you know, take away some of that Acoustic energy that you want to you want to hear so, you know, again I could probably put gaskets on the drums and A blind test you you may not be able to tell the difference But it's that that same kind of concept and detail Approach on every single part on the drums and I do think it makes a difference So it's kind of like all these things work together to make drums that do have a little bit of a unique character to them Yeah, absolutely. Maybe the last thing with the drum nerd lab would be uh that you have an area for recording drums um audio recording techniques because if you're going to be recording drums that are made to be open and sing Because I've had experience in studios where it's just literally giant squares of gaff tape on them to make them just sound dead And then you eq things and and stuff about that. Why don't you talk about What's your experience with recording drums and techniques that you like to use? Yeah, I mean Honestly, I I started with no experience But what I knew and and this all this all came from how to demonstrate our drums differently than than how other people do and you know, I'd go and listen to any of the audio files or you know Promotional videos from any of the major manufacturers and they all sound the same and they all have a microphone You know pointing real close at the drum head on every drum and they're all you know compressed They got all sorts of eq going on and they all sound the same And you really don't get a feel for what the drum sounds like so Really early on my goal was you know, how do I figure out how to record a drum? So it sounds like the drum That the customer is going to get you know, we we sell 95 of our drums To people, you know, we ship them to them. They buy them off off our website. So You kind of have to rely on those videos to give you a clear picture of what the drum sound like So it really started with experimenting on that and you know, obviously there's tons of resources online for how to how to record drums But I just figured out a simple way that we could do our videos that would That makes them really sound like like drums like like they actually sound in the room And so, you know, the first thing is getting getting the mics away from, you know, that close Close connection with a drum head You know get the mics away from the drums a little bit and then it's just kind of fine tuning from there So, you know, if you listen to any of our videos on our on our youtube channel They're recorded with two or three mics The mics aren't close to the drums And our goal is to make them sound like the drums sound in the room and so So, you know, that's useful to other people and so We figured let let's put that on the on the drum nerd lab channel Yeah, which is extremely helpful because uh, again my experience in doing some studio stuff years ago would be Like 13 drum mics and it would be top bottom But for doing a youtube that's great for albums and things like that or I did jingle stuff and it but it would be If you're doing a youtube video, it can be too much It can be like prohibitive with like, you know, you have to have the right amount of inputs Doing a three mic setup or four mics or whatever kick snare two overheads or one overhead It's just easier to set up. It's less to mix. It's more natural. It's more true But that's the fun part is everyone can experiment and find what works best for them and And you know and have fun with it But all right, you also have I wanted to mention earlier the the timba drums What are those talk about those because they're they're clearly they're very unique looking. Uh, they're super They're lightweight. That's for sure. Yeah Basically, they're they're made with our, you know, same construction technique that we do with the kalamazoo series drums So they're made out of aluminum And basically it's just a minimal drum. It's a it's a really shallow shell single headed drum We do bass drums as well as tom's from from eight inch to 16 inch They all have a mounting bracket on it. So it's kind of a great thing to add on to a drum kit that you already have Oh, that's cool. It, you know, can give you really cool kind of timbali type sounds Um, yeah, but with different tuning or different heads. It can sound like a multitude of different things Um, and so like You know, I personally I like to have a 10 inch timba tom Kind of in the the area where a lot of people will put a cowbell, you know, just on your bass drum over over the You know in between, you know, two toms on a on a four-piece setup And it just gives you a lot of different sound options Um, and then the bass drum, you know, it's a single headed bass drum You know, you can throw your snare drum in there and just carry it, you know, it takes up minimal space Um, You know, we just make a 20 inch which actually has a really pretty big sound to it Um, and it's a great like little accessory drum or you know, if you just have a lightweight coffee house style gig You know, you can just bring one of those in a snare drum or you know, add a couple other timba toms and have a really lightweight Kind of travel setup Sure. All right, josh, uh, as we kind of get close to the end here Do you want to like tell people where they can find you and uh, you know, social media your youtube channel is awesome Uh, where can people find you? Yeah, I mean it our website is probably the best place to start Which is indydrum.com indydrum.com And you know, that has a lot of the videos that are on our youtube channel linked to it It also has links to our facebook and instagram pages Um, but yeah the the youtube, uh youtube channel We try to keep that updated with uh with new content as as much as we can and the stuff that's on there is You know, really good resources, uh for stuff like tuning and and stuff like that And then we try to you know, keep our social media facebook instagram updated with you know, what we're doing in the shop and what's new Um, and then also, you know, if you go to our website It should pop up with a with an opportunity to add yourself to our email list and uh, we don't we don't send a lot It's you know, maybe one every every month or two Um, but that's a great way to keep up with what's new with with what we're doing Yeah, totally. It's just cool to see. I mean, you're very innovative and and I think It's neat to see what you come up with because uh, you know I think if you come up with something super cool It does send you've been doing it long enough for people in the whole industry Notice and I'm excited about that throne and I'm sure people are too. There's something about a nice throne where Man, your drum set can be amazing, but we've all got lower backs and uh that can hurt from a bad throne So you'll have to keep everyone updated on that. Um, awesome. Josh. Well before we wrap up I do want to give a quick thank you and I should have done this earlier in the episode to mr John Gill who suggested you for this episode because he said that uh, he got Uh, he had an old slingerland snare that is his number one old faithful kind of a neil piernt nod there Um, and your sp1 strainer was the only solution for the problem. He said that's a success for his 40 year old snare drum So, um, that has to feel good for you to be saving people's drums where they can't find a solution, right? Absolutely, that's you know, those are my favorite emails to get people send me their You know pictures of their drums that that we saved, you know, and uh, it's always great to hear that Josh, this is awesome, man. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. Uh, I think we covered everything Is there anything else you want to tell folks before we wrap up? No, I mean, I I had a great time on here It's it's awesome to be on your show. Like I said, you know, I I listened every episode I I love this drum history stuff and and you're doing it so well. So Um, it's an honor to be on here Awesome. Well, thank you, josh, and uh, I hope to see you at another drum show soon Um, because you go to most of them, right? So if people are going around at the drum shows, they can usually find you there Yeah, I try to there's a lot of them and you know, it's always tough to schedule But um, but I try to chicago every year and then I try to fill in, uh, wherever else I can Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you josh. Yeah, thank you