Pearl Musical Instrument Company

Mitsuo Yanagisawa

A snare drum design attaches snare string(s) in a manner to protect the snare string(s) from damage at the snare gate. More particularly, the snare drum design prolongs the useful life of snare strings by providing a friction resistance member along an inner periphery of a snare gate formed in the snare rim.

Snare rim design for prolonged snare wire life

A spring formed of an elastomeric body suitable to isolate vibrations transmitted from a support structure. A recess is formed in one end of the body to retain a portion of the supporting structure. A second end is adapted to be placed on an underlying surface such that the spring is disposed between the underlying surface and the support structure. A channel or hollow portion extends through the body to allow the second end to deform and thereby isolate vibrations from the underlying surface. The spring is particularly useful in isolating vibrations generated from a musical drum.

Elastomeric spring

The hoop clamping system for bass drum assemblies features an assembly attached to the foot pedal's floor plate into which the handle bolt is attached and made easily accessible from the side of the pedal. The toe clamp is activated by a pivoting cam, one end of which is under the heel of the toe clamp; the other in contact with the handle bolt. Turning the handle bolt causes the cam to lift or lower the heel of the toe clamp resulting in the desired clamping action. This hoop clamp system provides greater range of travel for the foot board, and substantially improves accessibility to the handle bolt for ease of adjusting the toe clamp. This hoop clamping system further reduces unwanted vibration and lowers manufacturing costs.

Hoop clamping system for a bass drum pedal assembly

An improved strainer that has click stops in between the fully on and fully off settings allowing the artist to instantly change the tension of the snares by simply moving the lever to the desired click stop. Without having to manipulate the cumbersome tension knob, the artist is free to instantly choose between relatively loose, medium and tight settings of the snares.

Snare drum strainer

A multi-task beater head having multiple striking surfaces for producing a variety of attack sounds, wherein the beater head may be adjusted or oriented in a convenient manner to achieve the desired attack sound. The drum beater incorporates a shaft that clamps into a receptor of a bass drum pedal, and a striker head that attaches to the other end of the shaft. The improved bass drum beater is molded from a hard plastic-type material or the like, and features a cube-like head with flat top and bottom surfaces and four faces, each with uniquely oriented convex shaped surfaces. The beater can be rotated by loosening the receptor of the bass drum pedal so that any of the plurality of surfaces is in position to strike the drum head. Thus, the percussionist can achieve a plurality of distinctly different bass drum sounds by choosing the appropriate surface.

Multi-faced beater for drums

An improved foot pedal features a moveable heel piece and footboard with fore and aft motion along the pedal's base plate. By sliding the heel piece and footboard, the position of the top of the footboard can be changed in relation to the position of the pedal's wheel section, in turn changing the pulling direction of the chain which links the top of the footboard with the wheel section. By altering the pulling direction of the chain, the feel and action of the pedal is made relatively lighter or heavier allowing the drummer to customize the performance characteristics of the pedal beyond the typical range of the pedal adjustments.

Bass drum pedal assembly with moveable heel plate

Tom tom and bass drum lug casing

Snare drum lug casing

Bass drum lug casing

A pair of tension bolts for applying tension to a pair of drum heads are screwed individually into nuts. These nuts are held individually by means of a pair of lug bodies which are fixed to a drum shell. The lug bodies, which are formed by die casting, are connected to each other by means of a connecting member. The connecting member, which has a uniform cross-sectional shape throughout its length, is formed by pressing a metal plate with a predetermined length, or by cutting a metal pipe into a predetermined length. Two opposite end portions of the connecting member are fitted individually in openings at the respective end portions of the lug bodies. A hole is formed in each end portion of the connecting member. The lug bodies and the connecting member are connected so that projections on the lug bodies are fitted individually in the holes of the connecting member.

Device for applying tension to a pair of drum heads

The hinge joint of a tom-tom holder for maintaining an adjustable angle relationship between a support bar mounted on a bass drum and a tom-tom holding arm adapted to hold a tom-tom comprises a housing connected to the support bar and a bushing connected to the tom-tom holding arm. A resilient band extends along the inner periphery of a cylinder defined in the housing and has one end fixedly secured in the cylinder inner surface and has the other end biased by a band fastening screw threaded in a threaded bore formed in the housing tangential to the cylinder bore. The annular projection of the bushing is received in the cylindrical opening formed by the resilient band. The annular projection and the cylinder bore are maintained in co-axial relationship by an aligning bolt and ring unit. By loosening the band fastening screw, the annular inner face of the disk portion of the bushing and the adjacent end face of the cylinder in the housing are maintained in slidable contact. The tom-tom holding arm can be manually adjusted to a desired angle. Thereafter, by fastening the band fastening screw, the bushing annular projection is fastened about the outer periphery thereof by the resilient band so as to secure the bushing to the housing to maintain the tom-tom holding arm at a desired and adjusted angle with respect to the support bar.

Growing community of inventors

Chiba, Japan

Mitsuo Yanagisawa