New Guru "Tour" series kits - details here first :)

Andy

Honorary Member
This is our big announcement for the London Drum Show - the launch of our new Tour series drums. Pub, club, theatre, & live stage players have been asking for a Guru kit series focussed on live performance of modern music forms, both acoustically & under mic's, & at a more affordable price level. The result is Tour series drums. These are not, repeat not a mid level series. They're as high end as anything else out there. Let me explain the design principal, & how savings were achieved without adjusting our zero compromise ethos.

Background:

Origin & In-Tense series drums are specialised super resonant instruments with thin solid shells. To get the best from the shells, they rely on ultra low mass shell hardware. It's the lowest mass & smallest footprint shell hardware in the industry, & by some margin. That hardware is punishingly expensive to produce. Tour series drums are still highly resonant by most drum standards, but employ thicker solid shells (10mm - 12mm) to get the live performance profile we want. That means they're much less sensitive to hardware mass, & meant we were able to go for (still relatively low mass) solid brass lugs & high quality (but fairly standard) brackets, spurs, etc.

Additionally, Tour series straight shells are much easier to make compared to In-Tense & Origin. This all adds up to a saving approaching 40% by comparison. There is no difference in the attention we pay to timber selection, bearing edge forms, stainless steel shell fixings, & all the other areas of zero compromise that we're known for. The result is something that looks much more "standard" than our other series, but the devil's in the detail.

The result is a very high specification range of drums that deliver live big time. These are hard gigging drums, already dialled in for live performance by design. They're fairly focussed, punchy, dynamically explosive, & deliver tone in spades. Bearing edge forms & hoops are designed/specified to control edge overtones for life under mic's, but cut off non of the tonal projection so vital for a satisfying audience sound when played without reinforcement.

Kits are offered in a full range of diameters, but only in one depth per size (excluding snares). Bass drums & floor toms are all 14" deep, irrespective of diameter. There's three variations of wood species offered too. Maple (pictured here), sepele, & a hybrid maple/sepele kit option too (maple rack toms & snares partnered with sepele floor toms & bass drums). In the case of the hybrid option, a single badge section of stave will be in the contrasting timber species.

I know the price question will come up, so here's a guide. 3 piece kit shell set from £2,395 ($3,870), snares from £595 ($960).

Available sizes:

bass drums: 20" x 14", 22" x 14" (pictured), 24" x 14", 26" x 14" - All 12mm thick.
floor toms: 14" x 14", 15" x 14", 16" x 14" (pictured), 18 x 14" - All 11mm thick. S hoops as standard.
toms: 8" x 6", 10" x 7", 12" x 8" (pictured), 13" x 9", 14" x 10" - All 10mm thick. S hoops as standard.
Snares: 12" x 7", 13" x 5.5", 13" x 7", 14" x 5.5", 14" x 7" (pictured), 15" x 7". - all 10mm thick. S hoops as standard.

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wow, big bass drums available, I love it. great range of size choices through the line. now where did my wife hide my credit card?????
 
Great news and a beautiful kit, Andy!
Looking forward to some video or audio footage.
 
Seriously looking forward to hearing these soon mate.
Not long now :)

wow, big bass drums available, I love it. great range of size choices through the line. now where did my wife hide my credit card?????
We offer up to 26" in all series - 28" if you ask nicely ;)

Great news and a beautiful kit, Andy!
Looking forward to some video or audio footage.
An honest capture session is in the pipeline, but won't be for a while yet :(

Yeah, get some audio!

Are there any sepele kits in the pipeline that we'll see soon?
Sepele is the next build, along with the maple/sepele hybrid kit.
 
Wow! I also can't wait to see/hear an honest capture session with those drums. They look amazing, and I hope to be able to play them(or any other Gurus) in person some day.
 
Since these are live kits with thicker shells and bolt-on hardware, will you be expanding finish options?
 
Wow! I also can't wait to see/hear an honest capture session with those drums. They look amazing, and I hope to be able to play them(or any other Gurus) in person some day.
Thank you, but recording will be some way away. The studio we use is fairly booked up :(

Since these are live kits with thicker shells and bolt-on hardware, will you be expanding finish options?
We could Mike, but not for now at least. Maybe lacquer, but nothing beyond that. I guess it's just not us, & there's a ton of companies majoring on finishes.

Although these thicker shells are far less affected by mass than our thinner shell drums, they're still affected to some degree. Even though these toms are 10mm thick, they have a resonance profile of a ply shell 6mm or less, just a shorter voice (typical stave).
 
Very nice looking drums. I think the more natural finishes are just fine.

The hardware on your other lines is really unique, and makes the unmistakable statement that 'these are Guru drums',
even without the badges and bass reso head graphics.

A price to be paid for that though.
This line looks a bit more generic, except for those fine shells. But that probably makes them a bit more affordable too.
Here's hoping you do well with them.
 
Wow, 10, 11 and 12mm thick!?

My 10 mm bass drum lacks usable depth/bottom, but its ply.

What percent in net weight gain compared to ORIGIN, IN-TENSE?
 
... also GURU gets 5 stars on the lug splay.

Builders, manufactures take note, tube lugs with no splay.
 

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We could Mike, but not for now at least. Maybe lacquer, but nothing beyond that. I guess it's just not us, & there's a ton of companies majoring on finishes.

Although these thicker shells are far less affected by mass than our thinner shell drums, they're still affected to some degree. Even though these toms are 10mm thick, they have a resonance profile of a ply shell 6mm or less, just a shorter voice (typical stave).
At first I was going to make the obvious quip about some 1/4" bling shard linoleum but got more interested in whether color options might make an appearance. I wasn't even thinking lacquers (I would assume nitro-cellulose not poly), but a nice stain that would still show the wood's grain patterns.
 
Congrats on the new line Andy. Love everything about what you've described and I can't wait to see/hear the hybrid kit. I'm intrigued.
 
Rookie question...
The 15x7 snare... What kind of sound profile should we expect from that size? Can't say I have seen anything like that short of marching snares. Sounds like it would be a deep note. That's a lot of real estate for a snare!
 
wow, big bass drums available, I love it. great range of size choices through the line. now where did my wife hide my credit card?????


Great looking drums as usual. I would love to see and hear some clips of some 26" Guru bass drums. Keep us posted!
 
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