YAMAHA QC fail! ☹

Les Ismore

Platinum Member
OK, keep in mind this is on my new 2014 STAGE CUSTOMS, it is a $600 drum set, but it 'is' still YAMAHA! Even so, me didn't expect this. I've been crowing about YAMAHA'S excellent fit/finish for a long time, and this is what I get.

Lordy, lordy! I just noticed my BD lugs don't line up, they're 'off'. I've been gigging this kit 1-2 times a week and it been about a month and I just noticed, that's how close the lugs are to being straight, you have to REALLY look hard to see that they're not lined up. Soooo hard that you wouldn't be looking unless you knew, or suspected they were off, like I did.

I 'only' took notice when today I did some head work on the bass drum, this being the third-fourth time I've had the heads off even, so shows you how inconspicuous the screw up is. Me had the BD sitting on the floor, spurs retracted and I noticed the BD wouldn't sit flat on its 4 bottom lugs, there was a roll.

Thought there was something under the drum, after inspecting and finding nothing I checked the lugs and quickly noticed they were off, not in line with each other front to batter. The front 8 are jacked counterclockwise the wee'st of wee little bit.

Im not going to fret this blunder, I can live with it. I mean I didn't notice all this time by casual eyeballing, but in the big YAMAHA QC scheme of things its a pretty big blow IMO, and since their introduction, I've been putting STAGE CUSTOMS in that big YAMAHA QC scheme of things.

Again, $600 STAGE CUSTOM kit... but a fail none the less by YAMAHA.


So if anyone sees some 2014 STAGE CUSTOMS on the floor, very closely eyeball the alignment of the BD lugs. The tell tale test is if your BD doesn't sit flat on its bottom 4 lugs (level floor).

Haven't yet checked the toms that close, I will later tho... stay tuned.
 

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They weren't built by Sakae, 'nough said.
 
Try finding that on a Live Custom..

Maybe these are coming from a contractor in China. Not the Yamaha factory.
 
Try finding that on a Live Custom..

Maybe these are coming from a contractor in China. Not the Yamaha factory.


This BD shouldn't have passed, but its soooo close it did... tho its still off.

You can't tell by casually eyeballing. Inspector should've caught you'd think tho, but then again, its a $600 kit, send it through.
 
No, these are made in the new Yamaha factory in China as far as I know. The same one where they build the pianos btw.

I am 100% sure they will replace that bassdrum for you. A mistake that shouldn't happen, but it can, since we are all human and this is a mass produced set.
 
Had a set on 2014 Stage Customs in my hand a week or so ago found them to be the worst put together set Yamaha has even made.
 
OK, keep in mind this is on my new 2014 STAGE CUSTOMS, it is a $600 drum set, but it 'is' still YAMAHA! Even so, me didn't expect this. I've been crowing about YAMAHA'S excellent fit/finish for a long time, and this is what I get.

Lordy, lordy! I just noticed my BD lugs don't line up, they're 'off'. I've been gigging this kit 1-2 times a week and it been about a month and I just noticed, that's how close the lugs are to being straight, you have to REALLY look hard to see that they're not lined up. Soooo hard that you wouldn't be looking unless you knew, or suspected they were off, like I did.

I 'only' took notice when today I did some head work on the bass drum, this being the third-fourth time I've had the heads off even, so shows you how inconspicuous the screw up is. Me had the BD sitting on the floor, spurs retracted and I noticed the BD wouldn't sit flat on its 4 bottom lugs, there was a roll.

Thought there was something under the drum, after inspecting and finding nothing I checked the lugs and quickly noticed they were off, not in line with each other front to batter. The front 8 are jacked counterclockwise the wee'st of wee little bit.

Im not going to fret this blunder, I can live with it. I mean I didn't notice all this time by casual eyeballing, but in the big YAMAHA QC scheme of things its a pretty big blow IMO, and since their introduction, I've been putting STAGE CUSTOMS in that big YAMAHA QC scheme of things.

Again, $600 STAGE CUSTOM kit... but a fail none the less by YAMAHA.


So if anyone sees some 2014 STAGE CUSTOMS on the floor, very closely eyeball the alignment of the BD lugs. The tell tale test is if your BD doesn't sit flat on its bottom 4 lugs (level floor).

Haven't yet checked the toms that close, I will later tho... stay tuned.

This is not acceptable by any means. Please email me at [email protected] and we will replace the defective drum(s). And in response to other posts on this thread, Stage Custom in any of its versions has never been built by Sakae. Stage Custom, beginning with the all-birch version are built in an OEM factory. previous versions were build in our factory in Indonesia. I have forwarded this to my cobtacts in Japan o that we can find out what happened. I would like to request that you plese send me the serial number off the badge of this bass drum as soon as convenient.
 
Yet another reason to be a DW forum participant... direct contact with industry folks who go the extra mile. So nice to see.
 
This is not acceptable by any means. Please email me at [email protected] and we will replace the defective drum(s). And in response to other posts on this thread, Stage Custom in any of its versions has never been built by Sakae. Stage Custom, beginning with the all-birch version are built in an OEM factory. previous versions were build in our factory in Indonesia. I have forwarded this to my cobtacts in Japan o that we can find out what happened. I would like to request that you plese send me the serial number off the badge of this bass drum as soon as convenient.

Yamaha's customer service is great. I believe it was also Jim that replaced a lug that had broken on my older SC birch kit. Great guy.
 
This is not acceptable by any means. Please email me at [email protected] and we will replace the defective drum(s). And in response to other posts on this thread, Stage Custom in any of its versions has never been built by Sakae. Stage Custom, beginning with the all-birch version are built in an OEM factory. previous versions were build in our factory in Indonesia. I have forwarded this to my cobtacts in Japan o that we can find out what happened. I would like to request that you plese send me the serial number off the badge of this bass drum as soon as convenient.

Very nice Jim Haler ! This is what a badasss does to take care of business immediately !

Jim.. these DO come from a seperate factory from the Absolute/Live production ?? That is what I am reading in your comments about "an OEM factory" ??
 
Yamaha's customer service is great. I believe it was also Jim that replaced a lug that had broken on my older SC birch kit. Great guy.

Yep absolutely agree!!... Jim and the other staff at yamaha are top notch...my 1st 8" apple sparkle MCA Tom didn't quite match the rest of kit..all it took was one phone call to Greg C. at yamaha ...had a new matching tom sent to my house within a couple weeks...sent from Japan no less...
 
No, these are made in the new Yamaha factory in China as far as I know. The same one where they build the pianos btw.

This is correct, they're made in China.

The other 3 toms check out clean, all their lugs are laser straight.
 

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Since you are saying that they are only a wee bit off, is it possible the lug bolts just need to be loosened up and the lugs straightened up a bit, then re-tightened? There may be a little bit of side to side play, within the shell lug holes that just needs to be adjusted.
 
I don't understand what difference in quality, it could possibly make? If you are talking about the batter and reso lugs not being perfectly in line with each other. It's purely cosmetic to me. I don't like the kits with offset lugs. If I couldn't see it, I wouldn't care. It has no effect on the sound, or tuning.
 
Since you are saying that they are only a wee bit off, is it possible the lug bolts just need to be loosened up and the lugs straightened up a bit, then re-tightened? There may be a little bit of side to side play, within the shell lug holes that just needs to be adjusted.


Hmmmm, thought I posted a pic of one of the lugs in my review, they are ABSOLUTE lugs and like all single screw mounted YAMAHA lugs, they have a pin on top, so the lugs can't be misaligned. Reaming out lug holes isn't an option.



I think he means the actual drill holes are the ones off.


This is correct, the holes are off, looks like someone was sleeping at the index machine, or the computer had a glitch. Just hope its an isolated incident, not a whole run of bass drums. Again I checked the other three toms, they a drilled laser straight.







I don't understand what difference in quality, it could possibly make? If you are talking about the batter and reso lugs not being perfectly in line with each other. It's purely cosmetic to me. I don't like the kits with offset lugs. If I couldn't see it, I wouldn't care. It has no effect on the sound, or tuning.


I already stated that I was 'OK' with the blunder, its not that obvious, but now we have Mr YAMAHA Drums USA himself wanting to make it right, this incident was escalated by YAMAHA, not me. Proof industry people read these boards, as they should, this is their 'front line' for drum/consumer relations, we're the people buying/using the stuff.
 

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