Simmons Electronic Drums had been produced from about 1981 until 1995 and are the mother of all electronic drum kits.

Over the years, Wolfgang Stoelzle has amassed a personal collection of 25 full Simmons kits, including more than 150 pads and 25 brains, which he maintains at his home in Germany. According to Wolfgang, his main purpose for building the Simmons Museum site was to document both the history of the company and the fact that so much of the groundbreaking work Simmons did in the 1980's laid the foundation for the explosion of electronic drums, drummers and drumming that continues today.

Wolfgang and many other drum historians agree that Simmons’ SDSV, Suitcase Kit, SDS7, SDS9, SDS1, SDSX, Silicon Mallet and other innovations were well ahead of their time and directly led to the development of e-drum and percussion instruments from companies like Dynacord, Alesis, KAT, Roland, 2Box, Yamaha and Pearl. Says Wolfgang:

"Simmonsmuseum.com is 100% non-commercial. I don't trade, I don't sell and everything I share is for free. The amount of traffic on the site proves that there is still a big awareness of the pioneering contributions that Dave Simmons and the Simmons crew made to the development of electronic drums."

Wolfgang and the Simmons Museum have been collecting material for the past few years with the assistance and oversight of former Simmons employees, most significantly Glyn Thomas, the well-known English session drummer, early Simmons advocate and successful distributor of the company’s instruments in America.

Glyn, who left his friends and family in London to form Simmons Group Centre in Calabasas, California in 1981, explains:

"Let's face it, the SDSV as well as its popularity was at least partly a reaction to the proliferation of electronic drum effects and drum machines that were threatening to take over the drum business in the late 1970's. Those Simmons kits became collector's items. The drummers who played them and the dealers who sold them became rich. Still, no one ever expected we'd be putting the words 'Simmons' and 'vintage' together in the same sentence."

From top drummers like Bill Bruford (King Crimson), Phil Collins (Genesis) and Rick Allen (Def Leppard) to major studio players such as Harvey Mason Sr, Larrie Londin and John "JR" Robinson, Simmons' analog and digital drum sounds were prolific throughout the 80's.

Other acclaimed drummers who used Simmons, include Kiss drummer Eric Carr (real name: Paul Caravello), Danny Carey of Tool, Vinnie Colaiuta, Dave Weckl, and both Roger Taylor of Duran Duran and Roger Taylor of Queen.

The influence of electronic drumming has allowed all types and levels of drummers to expand their skills to include plugging-in, programming and playing electronic drums along with their conventional, acoustic counterparts ever since.

While no one can explain exactly why Simmons and the electronic drum trend faded in the early 1990's, sales figures for the e-drum industry have shown a steady rise over the past 10 years with sales of electronic drum in the U.S. now estimated at nearly 50% of acoustic drumset sales and growing.