A helicopter company’s music arm and a drum line called CB700.

Gibraltar did not start as a company. It started as a product name at Kaman Music of Bloomfield, Connecticut, the music business of the Kaman Corporation, which the aviation engineer and guitarist Charles Kaman had founded; Kaman’s engineers created the round-backed Ovation guitar in 1966, English Wikipedia says. Among Kaman’s percussion lines was CB700, a drum brand, and the Gibraltar name first appears on its hardware. A survey of bass-drum pedals in Modern Drummer’s December 1980/January 1981 issue lists a “CB 700 Gibraltar” pedal with a fibre-strap drive.

By 1985 the name covered a whole range. A Modern Drummer advertisement in February 1985, under the line “Today’s hard-driving music demands it,” offered “CB700’s Gibraltar Series hardware,” with elliptical-tube legs, memory locks on the height adjustments, one-touch ball clamps and chain-drive pedals, from Kaman Music Distributors in Bloomfield. A review in the March 1985 issue tested a CB-700 drum kit, whose drums were made in Taiwan, fitted with “the new line of Gibraltar hardware,” and singled out the 7207 hi-hat stand as possibly the best in the line. By 1986 Kaman’s CB700 advertisements were also selling a horizontal “Power Rack” and the Gibraltar “Spanner” system for setting up a mix of acoustic and electronic drums, cymbals and accessories.

Introducing Gibraltar, “Rock Solid.”

In January 1988 Gibraltar appeared as a brand of its own. A full advertisement in Modern Drummer that month read “Introducing Gibraltar, a solid alternative in professional quality, heavy-duty drum hardware,” with elliptical tubing or double-braced legs, quick-release adjustments and “a complete line of rack systems,” and ended with the promise “you’ll find Gibraltar ‘Rock Solid.’” It showed the 7000 series stands and the double-braced 9000 series, and the same advertisement ran again in the February and May 1988 issues. By 1989 the address read “Gibraltar c/o Kaman Percussion Team,” the line included Gibraltar Power Rack Systems and a range of spare parts, and the advertisements featured endorsers such as Dony Wynn, then touring with Robert Palmer, and Sonny Emory. At the NAMM Expo of 1988, Modern Drummer reported, Kaman’s stand showed CB-700 drums alongside Gibraltar hardware and a Gibraltar free-floating snare drum.

The early 1990s added to the range. In 1991 Gibraltar advertised its AX Series aluminium hardware, “with 30% less weight.” A January 1992 advertisement called it “Innovative, Rock Solid, Road Proven Hardware,” said Gibraltar offered “more styles of hardware and accessories than ‘drum’ companies,” and showed the 9500 series stands and a new single-leg snare stand. By 1994 its advertisements included the 7500, 9500 and Intruder series bass-drum pedals, noting “all bearings made in USA.” Today the company sells drum and keyboard racks in its Chrome Series II and Stealth ranges, stands and thrones in series numbered from 4000 to 9000, Tour Class pedals, parts and accessories, and its website offers a five-year warranty on stands, pedals and thrones bought there. MusicRadar reviewed its Stealth rack, which the company now promotes for electronic and compact kits, in 2010. English Wikipedia names Rob Bourdon of Linkin Park, Chris Adler of Lamb of God and the percussionist Luis Conte among drummers who have used Gibraltar hardware.

Hardware and the stage.

Instrument stands are a quiet trade, and most of the names in it are owned by larger groups. Three of the brands in this set make broad ranges of stands for every instrument. Hercules belongs to KHS Musical Instruments of Taiwan, which says it has existed since 1930 and makes its products in company-owned factories. On-Stage is a division of The Music People of Berlin, Connecticut, which says it was founded in 1979 and is now “an Exertis | JAM business.” König & Meyer says it was founded in 1949 at Wertheim am Main, in Germany, by Karl König and Erich Meyer, and that almost all the metal and plastic parts of its products are made in-house.

Two grew up around keyboards and the stage. Ultimate Support says its founder, Darrell Schoening, built his first A-frame speaker stands in 1977 from salvaged hang-glider tubing; the brand now belongs to ACT Entertainment. Quiklok says it was founded in 1983 between Castelfidardo and Recanati, in Italy’s Marche, and that its first products were the QL/606 and QL/642 keyboard stands.

One is a drum-hardware specialist. Gibraltar was among the percussion brands that Fender’s KMC Music sold to Drum Workshop in January 2015, Music Inc. reported, and it came under Roland when the Japanese company bought DW in 2022, MusicRadar reported.

The last is a wall-hanger maker. String Swing says it was founded in 1987 by Paul Thieman and Anne Tainter, who ran a small dairy farm in Elroy, Wisconsin, and that its entire product line is still made in that state.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Kaman, Fender, Drum Workshop.

Gibraltar has changed hands with the companies around it. In October 2007 Kaman agreed to sell its music business, Kaman Music Corporation, to Fender Musical Instruments; the sale went through in January 2008, English Wikipedia says, and the Los Angeles Times reported the price as $117 million. Under Fender, Kaman Music became KMC Music, and in 2011 it combined its sales and catalogue work with Fender’s Musicorp as KMC Musicorp, the trade magazine Music Trades reported. A Fender statement in May 2012 listed Gibraltar Hardware among the brands KMC Musicorp made or distributed, alongside Ovation and Takamine guitars, Latin Percussion, Gretsch Drums and Sabian cymbals; Modern Drummer reviewed its Turning Point cymbal stands that August. Then Fender split the business. In January 2015 Modern Drummer reported that Fender and Drum Workshop, the drum maker of Oxnard, California, had finalised an asset sale covering Latin Percussion, Toca Percussion, Gretsch Drums, KAT Percussion and Gibraltar Hardware; Ovation guitars went to Drum Workshop at the same time. The magazine added that DW’s own drum-making would stay in California and Gretsch drum production in South Carolina.

Drum Workshop is itself now owned by Roland. In September 2022 the Japanese electronic-instrument maker announced it was buying all of DW’s shares, in a deal Nikkei Asia reported at $65 million. Drum Workshop is the most recent documented owner of Gibraltar that we found; the Gibraltar website, which describes Gibraltar Hardware as its operator, does not name a parent company on the pages we read. Nor does it say where the hardware is made, and we could not document that. English Wikipedia notes that Gibraltar hardware packs come as standard with Gretsch drum kits, another brand in the same group since 2015.

For a design guide, Gibraltar shows how a product series can grow into a brand. Compare Fender, which owned it for seven years, and Roland, which now owns Drum Workshop. For this guide we use black, granite grey and chrome with a heavy sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Gibraltar Hardware’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.