Pearl Drums

Pearl was founded April 2, 1946, by Katsumi Yanagisawa, to manufacture music stands in Sumida, Tokyo. In 1950, Yanagisawa shifted his focus to the manufacturing of drums and named his company "Pearl Industry, Ltd."

By 1953, the company's name had been changed to "Pearl Musical Instrument Company," and manufacturing had expanded to include drum kits, marching drums, timpani, Latin percussion instruments, cymbals, stands, and accessories.

Yanagisawa's eldest son, Mitsuo, joined Pearl in 1957 and formed a division to export Pearl products worldwide. To meet increasing worldwide demand for drum kits following the advent of rock and roll music, in 1961 Pearl built a 15,000 sq ft (1,400 m2) factory in Chiba, Japan, to produce inexpensive drum kits for other companies. Such instruments, known as stencils, bore the brand names of more than thirty distributors, such as Apollo, Coronet, Maxwin, CB-700, Stewart, Werco, Ideal, Crest, Revelle, Revere, Roxy, Lyra, Majestic, Silvertone, Toreador, Westbury, and Whitehall.

In 1966, Pearl introduced its first professional drum kit, the "President Series".

In the early 1970s, Pearl was distributed in the U.S. by Norlin, the parent company of Gibson guitars at the time.

Today, Pearl's Taiwanese operation encompasses five factories whose output supplies nearly the entire worldwide market for Pearl products. The original Chiba factory now caters to the domestic Japanese market, producing drum kits, marching drums, timpani, and symphonic chimes. The company also produces drums in Zhejiang, China.

Adams Musical Instruments are sold in the U.S. through Pearl dealers, Hughes and Kettner guitar and bass amplifiers are distributed through Pearl's main warehouse in Nashville, Tennessee and Sabian cymbals are distributed in Japan through Pearl dealers.

Pearl created several drum products, such as shells in the 1970s that were made of wood with a fiber-glass lining and ones made of a composite called "Phenolic." Additionally, Pearl combined roto-toms and these Phenolic shells to create the Vari-Pitch line of drums. Other early innovations included shells that were slightly undersized, so that the drum head would extend over the edges, much like on a gong drum. Pearl manufactured seamless, extruded acrylic shells that were different from the tabbed-and-seamed Vistalite shells used by Ludwig. Pearl also developed the hinged tube tom-arm, a design widely copied by many other drum manufacturers.

In addition to producing drums, Pearl has also produced hardware for its drum and percussion instruments as well as pedals. One of Pearl's major improvements was the introduction of the Uni-Lock tilter on their tom mounts and cymbal stands. Introduced in 1982, the Uni-Lock tilter uses a frictionless, gearless tilter, allowing the player to make more precise angle adjustments to their toms and cymbals. This was further improved with the introduction of the Gyro-Lock tilters which rotate a full 360 degrees. Most of Pearl's pedals come equipped with PowerShifter heel plates, which allow the player to adjust the pedal's feel by sliding the plate either forwards or backwards.

Hardware

700 Series - Pearl's low-end line of hardware featuring gear tilters and double-braced legs. These come standard on Forum kits. Replaced by the 830 Series in 2013.

900 Series/930 Series - Introduced in 2009, the 900 Series is Pearl's mid-ranged line of hardware featuring Uni-Lock tilters. 900 Series hardware come standard on Vision series kits. For 2013, the 930 Series was released, being the updated version of the 900 Series

1000 Series/2000 Series - Pearl's high-end lines of drum hardware. 1000 Series hardware come equipped with upgraded Uni-Lock tilters, while 2000 Series hardware are equipped with Pearl's Gyro-Lock tilters. For 2013, the 1030 and 2030 Series were released, being upgraded versions of the 1000 and 2000 series respectively.