Latos Drums

03/10/2026

5x14 Kakishibu Birch Solid

Steambent solid shell - roundover/30° batter, 45° snare side

Traditional Japanese kakishibu finish, inside and out: thousand-year old process using aged bitter persimmon vinegar. Water resistant, gets stronger with time.

Hand machined brass and stainless hardware, including:
Patented throw off and butt plate with integrated key holder

Torch silver-brazed solid hoops and brass/stainless badge

Precision bespoke stainless tension rods with class 3 thread fit: the drum tunes smoothly but with good resistance, and stays in tune.

Truly things should get better with age: wines, heirloom antiques, relationships. I'm obsessive and made sure everything on this drum will only improve. No poly or lacquer to flake someday, no plated hardware to rust.

Sound: Presence with a capital P. Woody and warm, but really complex in the upper mids and highs (think tube overdrive). If you want the entire dynamic range to translate to the back of the room acoustically, or a rimshot backbeat that sparkles and explodes, this should do.

06/26/2025

Like everything at Latos Drums, this was to meet a personal need.

I carry a pocket-size on my person at all times, and between that, drum , and marking up sheet music... having a pocketable writing impliment I love on me is kind of a thing. 

pens don't work for me (a lefty, they just go dry). Wood and mechanical are big/fragile/smear (lefty again). are great, but sometimes I want something super sleek, stress-free, and eraseable... especially for sheet music and gig charts. 

So I've come up with a solution that works for me. And maybe you, too.  

I call it the "Utilic."

Compact, pencil. 

3.3" folded - fits in my coin pocket

4.5" posted- feels like a full size impliment 

Two interchangeable tips: 

"Everlasting" - tungsten-graphite that writes like hard lead BUT DOESN'T SMEAR, and is breakage-resistant, with one tip lasting something like 10 full regular pencils.

"Eterna" - tin-bismuth that writes by leaving a silver-colored oxide on the page. It's pure metal and wears INCREDIBLY slowly- a couple could last you a lifetime. 

Both are eraseable with the eraser under the back cap. 

Hand-machined from solid stock, right alongside my drums, to the same standards. 

I'm loving mine for , and have one in my stick bag as a can't-fail pencil. 

If you'd like one, I am making them, one at a time, out of your choice of , , , nickel silver (of course!) and Mokume Gane. 

Link in bio currently goes to these. I have a lot of color options listed, but if there's some combo you can imagine from what I have described above and don't see, just say what you'd like in the order notes. I'll probably settle on just two or so metal combinations soon, but for now, until this supply of bar stock runs out... let's go wild. ;)

 

06/14/2025

I try to make them leave the shop , but prefer if they don't stay that way.

Front and center: shiny, brand new 7x14" Nickel Silver headed to California... beside two siblings from my personal collection: a 7x14" Nickel Silver and the 400th Anniversary (note something missing? logo was still in development, and we needed a drum I could battle test on the road without spoiling the surprise).

One of my favorite values to embrace, which I did with both my Latos line as well as the Z drums, is things that age gracefully and grow *into* their character. And marry that with a design that looks great that way: elegance AND vibe.

Nickel Silver is pretty corrosion resistant, but totally patinas (and can even pick up patina that starts on adjacent yellow brass).

The Zildjian alloy... love it. I've cleaned this drum a couple times for specific purposes, but I think I'm going to let it go full statue 🗽 this time. Unless I get around to doing the all-over etching and engraving concept I've been thinking of... unlikely, though, as I'm busy making drums for y'all.

There's totally an uncanny valley between "pristine" and "fully patina'd" where things just look dirty and fingerprinted. Trust me... keep going. It's worth it on the other side.

Shiny drums with chrome and wraps and etc? It's a fun world, and I might play there someday in my own name. (Designing for others? Absolutely- shiny drums are cool, let's go!). But today, I'm basking in some oxide layers. ;)

05/25/2025

When I started building , it was to have more specific, personal music-making tools. I didn't realize how many drum-making tools I'd need to make to do that!

I love inheriting things from other shops. Since I'm often buying and that is *super* old-fashioned and old-school... the lady clearing out her shop that cranked out screws for B-52s, or gentleman whose factory made to***co pipes for over a century, more often than not throws in a couple boxes of industrial detrius.

Sometimes it's totally insane and specific shop-made bizarro pieces (like an extended, foot long allen wrench for adjusting god knows what, or pieces of jigs specifically for gripping a to***co pipe by the inside of the bowl).

Other times, it's just a box of really nice unused knurling wheels (the tooling that creates that nice grippy texture on metal tools) that wind up being the right tool for the job a couple years later. In this case, I didn't have a holder the right size for said wheels... so in lieu of paying and waiting for something I hoped would work, I just made a holder I knew would work.

(And yes it's borderline silly, but whenever possible, I do try to sign my these projects so the next person knows who to blame. )

04/16/2025

"When you own a drum factory, every problem looks like a drum parts problem."

#5 in series
Q/C reject drum components, stainless steel wire, food-safe copper brazing alloy

Anyone else here the designated whipped cream/egg whites whisker? 🫩

03/22/2025

New , new .

I'm a diehard minimalist. And for years, I never even put a standalone badge on a drum. I was doing metal snares only, and stamping my logo felt tasteful. (It's also a hat tip to the stamped logo of the 20s/30s Lud 2-piecs brass snares of all varieties that inspired me to start building. Same thing with the position: ever note that my logo is just one panel away from the throw? Yep. It's elegant and unobtrusive, and is also a reference to those old drums for the Inner Circle of Drum Nerds.)

But then, a while back, I DID some wood drums where stamping wasn't an option: 's touring kit. I really wanted to celebrate the collab with , so I traditionally etched their logo and rigged up a jig to use my regular shell stamp. And it got me thinking... and, with wood drums of my own on the way, experimenting.

I tried a bunch of things, and of course, landed on the least practical, and most fastidious and time consuming option, because that just seems to be how I roll. 🥁 lettering, very very carefully silver brazed to a stainless steel plate with an jewlers' torch.

So there's your backstory, and here's a little peak: tada, the new badge for Latos wood snares, including the snares.

02/13/2025

Here's one you don't see everyday: reproduction of a Bower turnbuckle drum tuning system.

Yep, same Henry A Bower as the drum method: like several name teachers of his era, Bower was also a drum builder and overall clever man with drum patents to his name. 

A handful of his drums employed this wild, idiosyncratic single-tension tuning system, and not many survive. The hooks grab the flesh hoop of the drumhead through small holes in the proprietary heads (how's that for ensuring the customer comes back!), with NO counterhoop in the mix - yep, bearing edge is right there exposed! 

A "pin" style tuning key goes through the turnbuckle "lug," and turning it tensions both heads at the same time. 

"But wait," the mechanically minded among you might be thinking. "That would only work if one of the hooks and side of the turnbuckle use left-handed thread!"

Right you are. 

The originals were 12-24 thread. Not one to back down from obsessive detail, I actually, somehow, barely managed to hunt down tooling.  12-24 is not at all common (a topic on which I have a painfully massive essay in the wings), but lefty 12-24... forget about it. 

The most enjoyable part of this, by an absolute mile, was getting to collaborate with . Latos Drums probably would not exist were it not for Jacques' incredible kindness (rivaled only by his incredible skillset and knowledge). I know the edge of my capabilities, and precisely reproducing a century-old forged hardware component is his wheelhouse, not mine. Still amazed by how incredibly accurately he duplicated the hook pattern. There's a recent video on his page of him forging these: go check it out.  Some people are good at their craft. Some are incredible. Then, there's a handful like Jacques. 

Proof? Photo #2. His work, and the one original he duplicated from.  

These are headed off to go put an original steambent Bower shell back into complete, playable condition. Always an honor to get to help a drum of the past endure, doubly one of this stature. 

11/30/2024

Modern M8 to 1/4-20 (US vintage size) cymbal adapters

*Finishing up one last batch of these for the year. It'll probably be next summer before the next run, so don't miss out! latosdrums.com/shop to order*

Many old cymbals have smaller cymbal holes that won’t fit a modern cymbal stand.

Here’s my answer. This adapter screws onto the top of a modern M8 stand, and gives you a 1/4"-20 thread, just like older American-made stands.

A couple of these in your bag, and your old cymbals work with any modern cymbal stand that comes your way... or enjoy the practicality of a heavy modern stand with the thread size of an old stand… OR just have a quick, convenient solution when the backline is missing felt+sleeves. 




Some folks also believe that the extra flex and breathing room of a thinner post helps open up even modern cymbals, too. I used to be skeptical of this, but after one cymbal testing session at Zildjian where we couldn't figure out why every ride seemed to gain a bit of low end and open up when it was on the left side stand... and then realized it was because that stand had one of these on it, I was a bit humbled in that certainty.

And yes, speaking of , this is the same adapter they chose to include with all of their NOS, small-hole 400th Anniversary Vault cymbals. Whew. Making 400 of these in one go... that was a few late nights. ;)

Handcrafted in the Latos Drums workshop with:

+Solid stainless body that will patina and age gracefully
+Long-life sleeve
+1/4-20 threaded post is unthreaded in cymbal area for extra strength and safety: even if you wear through the sleeve, cymbal won't be rubbing on thread!
+Vintage-pattern wingnut
+Vintage-style cupped washers, custom-made of long-life stainless steel to Latos' specifications

07/22/2024

TLDR: Aaron is taking on a limited number of private students. Check the video for the whole story.

Online or in-person (Hudson Valley NY, Beacon/Newburgh)

12/29/2023

12/21/2023

The newest drum to leave my shop isn’t a Latos. It’s a Zildjian.

Two years ago, reached out to me. They appreciated my work, and asked for my help making an drum out of their family-secret bronze alloy.

I agreed, with the condition that it would NOT be a Latos Drum.

For a 400th anniversary, Zildjian deserved a that was theirs alone, from the ground up. Of course, Z felt aligned with my approach to or I wouldn’t have gotten the call, but I was not interested in slapping my existing hardware, shell, and edge specs on some Zildjian alloy and calling it a day.

We agreed that this needed to be a no-holds barred (and thus, likely ) snare drum. In the words of Guy Licata / (Z’s head of the project, who has been fabulous to work alongside), a “modern classic.” Its own . Something that would carve out its own sound, its own identity, its own mythology.

So we took Z’s original , figured out what it REALLY wants to do when formed into a snare drum… and played to its strengths to create a drum that subverts the expectations of what a heavy cast snare can do. In the process, we let go of all the “cast drum cliches” (“sandcast 3mm is best!,” 45 degree edges, heavy hoops, and more), and wound up with a drum that will be an instrument of choice in concert halls, jazz clubs, stadiums, hiphop sessions… and most importantly, for beautiful music of the future we can’t yet imagine.

We built it so it’ll age gracefully, with a lifetime measured in centuries, not decades.

Two years of nonstop work later... I think we did it. I won’t know for sure until later in my life, but for now… I really think we met the goals. And I couldn’t be more proud.

Please check back in: over the coming days, I’ll share a point-by-point walkthrough of the drum.

But for now, I present!

The Zildjian 400th Anniversary Limited-Edition Alloy Snare Drum

Photos by the great .fell, to whom I owe the deepest debt of gratitude, personal and professional.

12/12/2023

Thinking of a friend that I miss today, and wanted to share the fruits of his vision in a way that we never really got around to.

A few years ago, the lovely Jeremiah Green of approached me with a vision for this set. Drums that would sound great, but also have personal meaning. So we built these with C&C (their shells, my hardware).

After hours and hours of brainstorming with Jeremiah (a process where the conversation flowed freely between drums, materials, sound, family, nature, our kids, art, mortality, life as touring musicians... so many times we'd both chuckle because we'd totally lost place about the actual subject matter!), and more of sampling finishes and options… we landed on this:

+ ’s shells with a very simple traditional beeswax finish over red cedar, linking to his lifetime of wandering outdoors and love of the Pacific Northwest

+ and my hardware, with a satin polish and a similar wax finish that would age, "bling with honesty”

For these, I made from scratch in-house: lugs, tom hoops, kick claws, kick spurs, floor tom brackets/wingnuts/legs/memory locks, and badges. All solid brass, stainless, and aluminum.

The brass-leafed kick head was in reference to the hw, his previous gold bass drum heads, and the Mouse record “The Golden Casket.”

He specifically didn't want his name or initials on the head, but INSISTED that C&C and I put on ours- he was a deep supporter of us and really wanted to use his platform to support our craftsmanship.

I'm grateful for Jeremiah. Of course, he was one of the first high-profile drummers to reach out, take a chance, and support me. But, by an order of magnitude, I'm more grateful for his friendship, however brief our time together was.

His energy and impact has not left Latos Drums or me, and I can't imagine they ever will.

JG - thinking of you, missing you, but not without you.

Credit/blame: my unskilled photography with .fell ’s redemptive post-processing

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