Mel Lewis' Pearl Maple Kit is at Good Hands!

Thanks to our friend Paul Wells for sitting down with Jess to talk about the history of this kit!

Newest arrivals

A bit about us

Good Hands Drum Shop is a unique brick and mortar destination in a landscape of increasingly isolating and lonely online commerce and digital interaction. Yes, we do business online—its a survival necessity in 2024—but the heart of Good Hands is the door you push open on 30th Street in Manhattan, its the ancient floor tiles you tread, the walls that hold the shelves that hold the Slingerland Radio Kings and Sonor Phonics and Yamaha power toms in that finish you haven't seen since you were a kid. It's the smell of 80-year-old mahogany inside that Ludwig snare, and the sensation of running your fingers over the lathe-ridges of a K. Zildjian that has been played with care and passion in who-knows-how-many smoky jazz club basements for three generations. It's the faces and voices of the Good Hands staff, and the other folks you run into here. The conversations about how seeing Elvin at the Vanguard right after that breakup saved your life, or the time David Byrne helped load your drums into CBGB, or about the summer when you were 13 and made $200 for 8 weeks of playing every night at that resort in the Catskills.

Our desire is for Good Hands to be place for working drummers, drum collectors, historians, curious musicians, students, music educators, audio engineers, music producers, drum techs, and aesthetes. Who else? It's a place to shop, learn, chat, theorize, scheme, commune, reminisce, share, cry, and dream. What else?

The heart of Good Hands is the offline part. The blood and guts part. The analog part. The part we can't afford to lose.

Instruments we carry

We are proud to have relationships—formal, informal, and peripheral—with many makers of fine drums, cymbals, drum sticks, drum heads, hardware, and lots of creative accessories/solutions and retro-fit parts.

Some of those companies are larger, time-tested brands whose legacies are driven by integrity, service, and consistency. Zildjian, Sabian, Meinl, Paiste, Istanbul Agop, Bosphorus, UFIP, Ludwig, Gretsch, Sonor, Yamaha, Tama, Canopus, DW, Pearl, Vic Firth, Regal Tip, Promark, Remo, Evans, Humes & Berg, and Mono Creators are all members of this category.

We also love finding and supporting smaller, independent cymbalmakers like Funch, Brett Borba, Big Island Cymbals, Jesse Simpson, Craig Lauritsen, Ottaviano, NickyMoon, Royal Cymbals, PGB, Burke's Works, and Timothy Roberts; drum makers like Craviotto, Ronn Dunnett, Sugar Percussion, Parra, Keplinger, Twin Cities, Brady, and Noble & Cooley; and inventors/innovators like Brushfire, Dragonfly Percussion, Low Boy, Dynamic, Cac-Sac, and Tackle Instrument Company.

And of course the pioneer companies that we love, some of whom are no longer in existence, but who produced some of our favorite instruments starting close to the turn of the 20th century, paving the way in drum and cymbal technology and design. Companies like Slingerland, Rogers, Camco, Premier, Walberg & Auge, Fibes, Blaemire, Leedy, Trixon, and countless others virtually lost to history but who contributed in important ways to the rich landscapes of innovation and creativity in the industry.

Browse our site for these brands and many others. And if you can, please visit our shop and put your hands, eyes, and ears on them yourself!