Ivor Arbiter (1926 - 2005)
Ivor Arbiter is well known to many famous British drummers. He was a saxophone repair technician and amateur Swing drummer. In the 1950s he started the first music shop in Britain to be dedicated to drums, Drum City on Shaftesbury Avenue, London . It quickly became the place to hang out for many up and coming young drummers who would go onto great things.
In the 1950s and early 1960s it was difficult to buy decent musical equipment in the U.K., especially drums. There were a few home-grown companies, such a Premier, which commanded respect but the post-war era meant that good quality wood was rather scarce. When thinking of high quality kits, most drummers aspired to buy American; Slingerland, Ludwig, Gretch, Camco, Rogers. Unfortunately import restrictions meant that there were very few of these kits around.
Ivor set up a dealership to import Trixon drums from Germany and later Ludwig drums from the USA. One of his early scoops was to persuade Ringo Star to purchase his Black Oyster Pearl four piece Ludwig kit. It was Ivor who organized the front drum skin with the Beatles logo - with the Ludwig logo above it. Suddenly nearly everyone wanted Ludwig.
Later Ivor entered the arena of drum manufacture, being involved with the 'English Rogers' company. They manufactured Rogers drums under licence in the UK at a factory in Shoeburyness, Essex. Ivor wanted to manufacture British drums of high quality with first class materials to compete with the American manufacturers. This resulted in the 'Hayman Drums'. Allegedly named after a craftsman in the factory, George Haymon (Note the different spelling, although I have also read that the name was in fact a composite of two peoples names) the first drums were named 'George Hayman' - later to be called just Hayman.
He was a great innovator and had dreams of revolutionising drum design. This was to lead to the very brave, unconventional and revolutionary Autotune drums in 1975.
A very brave design, they were fibreglass, the shells were a unique barrel shape and oversized, the diameter being greater than the skin and they used the unique single lug tuning system invented by Ivor himself. Perhaps he gave us too much to cope with all at once, the kit generating a lot of interest but ultimately failing as a commercial venture.
Later, Hayman was to re-emerge as a brand name for kits with imported shells.
In the 1990's Ivor had a second shot at his dream of single lug tuning. The Arbiter AT (advanced tuning) range used a completely different principle to the 1975 Autotune. This time only the tuning was unique. The rest of the kit embodied all of the popular conventional features that drummers demand in modern drums; high quality maple shells, lacquer finishes, isolation tom mounts and familiar contemporary sizes.
Whilst the 1975 Autotunes were too weird and quirky for most drummers to cope with, there were no excuses for overlooking the AT. Alas, drummers let themselves down by doing just that.... Production ceased in about 2001.
The AT idea did not die, though. The tuning system was introduced on the company's 'Flats' kits, which are still selling well today.
Ivor Arbiter was not only a hero to drummers. A keen football fan, he became the chairman of Fulham football club in 1994. Sadly, Ivor Arbiter passed away on Tuesday 26th July 2005. He was aged 75. A popular man, he will be missed not only by musicians, but by football fans as well. You can read tributes here and here.
