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USA Standard drums feature the same 6-ply maple shell recipe that made Gretsch famous.

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• Review

The USA Standard range provides a quicker and cheaper route to owning a set of Gretsch's prestigious American-made drums. The brainchild of Nick Moulin at Fender UK, USA Standard is exclusive to Europe.

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Gretsch is a global brand that produces kits at most price points and has manufacturing bases spread around the world. It is also a company with a remarkable heritage that stretches back to the 19th Century, to the dawn of commercial drum manufacturing as we know it today.

Without dismissing Gretsch's excellent affordable kits that are made elsewhere, US-manufactured drums are what Gretsch's reputation has been built on.

"USA Standard drums are made in exactly the same way as USA Custom drums, and have the same level of care and attention to detail lavished on them."

The slogan 'That Great Gretsch Sound' says it all, and a roll-call of drumming greats from the past 100 years finds a significant proportion of them plying their trade behind a Gretsch kit. So if American Gretsch drums have a certain cachet to them, it's not without good reason.

Until now, the only way of acquiring a Gretsch USA Custom kit involved a wait of up to four months while Gretsch's small, close-knit workforce in South Carolina made the drums to order.

USA Standard has been devised as a fast-track process that limits the options without compromising the quality or integrity of the drums. Launched at this year's Frankfurt MusikMesse, the range consists of three shellpacks available in a choice of six finishes.

Gretsch has manufactured batches of all of the components, so USA Standard kits are effectively stock items with a typical wait of no more than a few days from ordering to delivery. They're also a good 25 per cent cheaper than an equivalent USA Custom kit.

As the range is limited strictly to the stated shellpack and finish options; any extra drums would have to be ordered via the USA Custom route, with its higher costs and protracted delivery time.

The three shellpacks are made up of toms and bass drums only, and cover jazz (18"x14", 12"x8" and 14"x14"), fusion (20"x16", 10"x7", 12"x8" and 14"x14") and rock (22"x18", 10"x7", 12"x8", 16"x16").

This last kit was the example sent for review. Snares are ordered separately from a choice of 14"x5" or 14"x6" models, of which we received the deeper version.

USA Standard drums are made in exactly the same way as USA Custom drums, and have the same level of care and attention to detail lavished on them.

Gretsch's celebrated six-ply maple shell formula - which has barely changed since the late 1950s - is employed across the kit. In a market filled with manufacturers offering new and more radical shell-construction techniques, it's refreshing to find a shell that epitomises the adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.