Pearl drums, manufactured by the Pearl
Instrument Company, are the most widely used
drum kits today. Katsumi Yanagisawa, the
founder of Pearl, started his company in 1946
in Tokyo Japan. He did not start out by
making Pearl drums and drum kits, but music
stands. 

In 1966 Pearl introduced the first
professional drum kit under the Pearl name,
the Pearl President. Until then Pearl drums
were sold under their distributors’ labels.
Pearl then became the first Japanese drum
brand to penetrate the United States and UK. 

The boom in Japanese manufacturing increased
the cost of production in Japan, and in 1973,
Pearl moved a great deal of its manufacturing
operations to Taiwan. Today pearl drums are
manufactured in the United States, Taiwan,
and Japan, with a corporate headquarters in
Chiba, Japan. Pearl drums are also among the
most widely copied models among drum
manufacturers.