Building drums that look and sound good is one challenge, but I also wanted to make them easy to transport. One solution would be to put the snare and toms inside the bass, but to do this the snare and toms would need to be very shallow. I first tried building a two-headed tom-tom with tension collars instead of lugs and collapsing struts instead of the shell in the middle. Being open in the middle it sounded much like a one-headed drum so I wrapped three plies of birch around the outside of the collars. Even in it’s crude form this first “fat in the middle” drum sounded great! And the penguin shell concept was hatched. The penguin design would work equally well for bass and snare drums and with the thin shells and no lugs a drastic reduction in weight (compared to conventional drums) was achieved, most dramatically with the bass drum. Now, you can custom-order a Penguin Series drum set (or individual drums), and choose the diameter, depth, and color. And with the introduction of our Nesting Penguin (snare and two toms travel inside the bass drum) a “compact” drum set with great sound and true custom-made quality is now available.

I felt that the drum set components could be better integrated so I built a prototype that put everything, including the hi-hat and throne, on a single rack. Ultimately, I left the hi-hat and throne as separate pieces when I came up with the “Quickstand” concept. With it’s two vertical posts and rotationally adjustable “Penguin clamps”, the drummer can have greater positioning flexibility than with standard setups, and by mounting cymbal booms on “Penguin clamps” additional cymbal stands are not necessary. Of course, with all of that floor space freed up, one could add lots more stuff!
Whitney Drums is a true innovator in the drum world. We continue to create new products or improve on traditional ways to make drummers and percussionists sound better than ever… and make it a lot easier to move and set up their “stuff”.

JT Whitney