So what sells more, drums or electric guitars?

Which do you think is the larger market, acoustic percussion or DJ gear? Acoustic or electric guitars? Digital versus acoustic pianos?

No need to guess. NAMM assembles those numbers every year, although the most recent figures are accessible only by members. Here's a link to the latest report that's publicly accessible (data through 2010).
For those too lazy to follow the link, here are the answers to the above questions:
- acoustic percussion $479M, DJ gear $104M
- dead even: acoustic guitars $419M, electric guitars $420 
- acoustic pianos $287M still king (although down by 50% a decade ago), digital pianos $130M

Other interesting nuggets...ukuleles are a $42,000,000 a year business and growing...printed sheet music is still selling as strong as ever ($545M)...hardware synthesizers are also still strong ($106M)...instrument amplifiers are down ($230M, maybe because everybody's buying smaller guitar amps?)

bitflipper


...instrument amplifiers are down ($230M, maybe because everybody's buying smaller guitar amps?)

The Who has cut back on their touring.

nice statistics, now wonder why my profession is on demand if they sold so little keyboards... 

bitflipper



instrument amplifiers are down ($230M, maybe because everybody's buying smaller guitar amps?)

according to the link multi track recorders are 98 million. People are still using those things? lol computer music products comes in pretty strong at 385 million.
 
Instrument amplifiers may be going down because more people are pluged into the P.A. systems and the are not using the amp at all. I switched from using a guitar and a bass amp to going straight in. That seems to be the trend now. A lot of my friends have done the same thing.

Churches are the big sheet music buyers.  The ones with big choirs and orchestras have to buy all the players and singers books and such things..... it's illegal to buy one and run it through a copy machine on site to save money...... and they do not give those books away. 

Drums..... The fact that there are multiple drums in a given kit would seem to be a good reason for more spending on percussion vs guitars..... Even a cheap kit with cymbals will set you back the cost of a fairly  nice guitar. While for a guitarist, a few hundred bucks (under $500) gets you the guitar and a fairly loud amp these days..... 

Interesting stat's Bit.

bitflipper


...instrument amplifiers are down ($230M, maybe because everybody's buying smaller guitar amps?)

All the more reason for manufacturers to start charging $2,499 for a 10w 8" speaker battery powered amp.

I see musician's slaves sells are up 10% though, interesting...

craigb

bitflipper


...instrument amplifiers are down ($230M, maybe because everybody's buying smaller guitar amps?)

The Who has cut back on their touring.

Nahhh ... The Rolling Stones were so loud, and so out of tune, that I walked out 30 minutes into it!
 
The Who ... was awesome ... and played first ... then Blues Magoos and then Herman and the Hermits ... but the best part? ... that drum kit didn't exist when Keith was done, and Pete's guitar was in 100 pieces and that amp ... yeah ... it had a serious thud crash in it ... like a Mac truck ran over it! This was just before Tommy came out, mind you ... and I'm sure that they wanted to show those other two goons who was better and boss! I still think that Legs Larry Smith did a better job trashing the drums than Keith ever did ... but no one here will like their rock heroes getting trashed for their personal statements!
 
The only thing that is weird in that stuff is that it is not really adding numbers to software, that these days are making a lot of the more expensive equipment redundant ... you don't need a huge U2 rig, or a Fripp rig, or a Gilmour rig any more ... you can have some easy software and play through it and voila ... sounds even better! This was CERTAINLY the case with "The Wall" recently as compared to the original, and it was very "clean" ... and above all ... no hiss, which means you know it's digital!
 
The numbers for software are easily 3 to 4 times those in the hardware these days ... or all these companies that we talk about, including Cakewalk, would not be around ... Cakewalk would not be this big or around, if they only did 25 million per year! They obviously do a heck of a lot more than that ... now you got the other big DAW's, and you really think they do less than that?
 
Yeah

musicman100

craigb


I didn't see accordians or bagpipes mentioned...

satan bought all of those up to include in his welcome wagon package ...

This has got to be wrong!
 
All bad guys and such always played the mad Hammond Organ! ... and their mighty organ and tale as well, but that is another story, of course!

All the more reason for manufacturers to start charging $2,499 for a 10w 8" speaker battery powered amp.

Sheesh, don't give 'em any ideas! It's bad enough what they get for Fender Princetons nowadays. Remember when that was the amp for beginners, whose moms & dads didn't want to spend much until Junior proved he was serious about the guitar?

bapu

chefmike8888

And lastly is my DW's. They don't leave the house. If some drunk splashed or dinged them I would end up incarcerated. 

Mike

DO NOT under any circumstance invite Mooch over to play your DWs.

WHEW!, I was just composing a PM to him too.
Thanks Bapu.


Mike