While its obvious Bob doesn't like DW's marketing[...]
Not entirely accurate. I don't like unsupported claims. It doesn't matter a bit to me where they come from.
No other builder will put together a 45 minute video showing you how a single ply of wood and its grain orientation play a roll in the shells construction and overall fundamental note.
Without any A/B comparison or reference or support for the claims, none of his claims are anything more than so much hot air. Okay, so John Good says changing the grain orientation of a ply makes a difference. Why should you and I believe that? Because he's been making drums for a while? Just because you've been doing something for a while doesn't mean your pronouncements are unquestionable.
That's why I have questions: How did he arrive at his conclusions? First, what metric did he establish for "better"? Second, what other approaches were attempted and discarded? Third, etc. etc. etc.
When you boil all the dog-and-pony off of the DW marketing materials, there's no content. In fact, there's no data at all other than "Here's [thingy], and it sounds awesome because I'm John Good and I say so." Forgive me for saying so, but for me that's utterly useless.
The best you get out of the other brands is some sales rep talking about a finished kit and how it sounds "warm and punchy".
True but irrelevant. That other makers don't give any detail at all does not give DW a pass to sell you what - for all you can tell from their marketing materials - is pure snake oil.
The thing is, John hasn't just made one of these videos. He has made hundreds of these videos. If DW crafts something new, JG is out there making a new video about it to show the public.
True but irrelevant. That's not evidence of excellence at drum-making. That's evidence of being very, very good at brand-building and marketing.
I'm not saying I'm drinking the DW Kool-Aid, but John Good does seem genuinely interested in showing you what makes a DW drum. The other manufacturers don't do any of that. You might be lucky to see a 5 minute factory tour video that really doesn't show you anything about what goes in to making a drum.
For that I applaud him. I'm going to be in a position to drop a nice spot of coin on a new kit in a couple of weeks, and DW is high on the list specifically because they innovate. I just want to know how they arrived at their conclusions.
Keep It Simple said:
I thank you for your kind words, but this is not something I've ever said.
My apologies. I must be misremembering. Perhaps I mistakenly read between the lines of some of your previous posts, or synthesized and attributed to you an opinion which clearly you don't have. In any case I was wrong to do that.
In my post you quoted, I was trying to make a point. Clearly I failed, so I'll try again: The difference between ply drums and ply drums - like, say, a PDP Concept Maple and PDP Concept Birch, or between a Concept Maple and a Catalina Maple - is nowhere near so dramatic as the difference between a ply drum with lots of dampening hardware on it and a ply drum with low-mass hardware. Extending the example, that difference, if any, is nowhere near as dramatic as the difference between ply drums and solid drums like Guru Tours. And there's a detectable difference between Tours and Origin, because of things like Origin having very little resonance-killing hardware.
If all that's a given (and you'll correct me if it's not), then the difference between a 7-ply maple shell with the grain direction of the outer and inner plies being on the diagonal and a "traditional" 7-ply maple shell would be so minor that it would require instrumentation to detect it. If they really wanted to increase sustain and resonance, they'd get rid of those hideous and humongous Camco turret lugs.
Is that more accurate?
Also, a tangential question: I've heard it said that less glue = more wood = better. Is this true? In other words, is a ply shell made up of less and thicker plies going to be more resonant than otherwise?