Other Acrylic Drums - Asba

The Asba company began in 1928 in Brevannes - about 10 miles from Paris. The company name is an acronym of "Alfred and Simone Boudard, Accessories". The company was a small, family run business employing about 20 people and traded up until 1981.

Asba were something of a trailblazing company bringing many innovations to market in the 1960s and 70s. These included the first foot operated cowbell (the "Mambo") and a set of bongos with a tuning system very similar to the roto-tom. All of the products were assembled by hand with incredible attention to detail....resulting in Asba drums being amongst the most expensive on the market.

The ASBA "Altuglas" kit was available in smoke, clear, blue and orange. This advert was sent by Mick Holloway from fusion-meisters S.W.A.M.P.

Asba produced drums in steel, fibreglass, phenolic and acrylic in the 1970s - in addition to wood - and were widely known for their latin percussion (congas especially) and the famous Caroline bass drum pedal (named after a daughter).

Amongst the more unusual features of Asba drums were the internal dampers. Whilst the snares and smaller toms had a fairly traditional swing-arm style damper.....

.....the floor tom and bass drums were fitted with an adjustable cam, stretching a felt strip across the head, and tensioned with elastic bands !

Amongst the other features of the Asba line were....

....a tom mount comprising of an 'L' arm (with adjustable elbow) and large sliding tracks on both the bass and tom.....

....straight floor tom legs.....

....air holes that double as handy drum-key holders.....

....and probably the only drum manufacturer to feature brown acrylic as a shell option.

Yes - there's a definite air of French engineering about this...not bad...really quite the opposite. A splendid little kit with some excellent features, superb build quality (the best bearing edges I have ever seen on an acrylic kit) and a whole bunch of really unusual design ideas. Just as the Citroen DS - or the 2CV - is an unmistakably French car - one you either love or hate - so this is a really interesting piece of drum kit design.

In these days of mass produced, homogeneous drum kits, the absence of the Asba company makes the drumming world a slightly less interesting place.

Andy Youell
April 2003