Around this time last year, as part of its 50-year celebrations, California's Drum Workshop announced the upcoming release of an acoustic/electronic drum set featuring wireless triggering tech. Now the DWe convertible kits have officially launched.
Drum Workshop (DW) has been working on a setup to "blur the lines between acoustic and electronic drums" for several years, possibly ever since the company partnered with Germany's GEWA for the Drum Workstation G9 announced at Musikmesse 2018 in Frankfurt – which featured DWe trigger shells.
DW joined the Roland family in September of last year (which has its own e-drum form in the shape of its V-Drums line) to "unleash the next generation of breakthrough acoustic and electronic drums and percussion products, accelerate product development, and push the boundaries of innovation for drummers." A couple of months later, DW kicked off its 50th anniversary celebrations by revealing the "first-of-its-kind wireless acoustic electronic convertible drum set."
Inside the real-wood drum shells are proprietary zero-latency wireless drum triggers, meaning that players can forget about messy cables and link to the included 2.4-GHz wireless DrumLink hub instead, which is connected to a laptop running the bundled DW Soundworks software or to an audio interface.
The system rocks up to 10 playing zones and 16 velocities per drum, while the cymbals have three zones and edge choke. The drummer has the flexibility to remove the sensor-packed trigger star plates within the drum shells to go full acoustic, leave them be to go electronic or roll with a hybrid setup for ultimate versatility.
The user-friendly Soundworks software includes 24-bit/88.2-kHz drum samples recorded at the DW factory, with "advanced controls for those who want to fine tune every detail" available, and the player can also add new sounds to the library as well. The software supports up to 30 active instruments, effects such as compression and reverb can be applied to the sound samples, and the suite can be used as a VST plugin for Digital Audio Workstations.
The DWe acoustic/electronic drumkit is being made available in four-piece or five-piece options in five finish choices, with sales starting this month in North America and Japan, followed by other markets in 2023. Pricing starts at US$4,499. The video below has more.
Product page: DWe
