Pearl StaveCraft Snare Drums

Pearl StaveCraft Snare Drums

‘Producing sharp sonic focus and full-bodied volume for the heavy drummer, StaveCraft snares are a startling addition to any pro player’s soundscape. Each 25mm thick shell starts from two layers of meticulously beveled solid Thai Oak wood staves. Using a principal exclusive to these snare drums, an added stave of exotic Makha wood is inserted into the center Dado channel formed by each stave. This “Dado-Loc” joint increases total shell strength by 50%.

The shell is then lathed to a perfectly round 25mm thickness, hand lacquered, and fitted with our Swivel Tube Lugs and MasterCast die-cast counter hoops for added volume and tuning precision.

Yielding solid shell tonal snare spike from a powerful mix of hardwoods, Pearl’s StaveCraft snare drums are the perfect fusion of old-world workmanship and new-school performance.’
So this blurb from Pearl’s website should give you some idea what these drums are about. There are four drums in this series, two 6 ½” models and two 5” versions in two wood options: the Makha with Thai Oak DadoLoc (the darker one) and the Thai Oak with Makha DadoLoc (the natural one). They are classy looking drums before you even pick one up.

Each drum features a 25mm thick shell, die cast (MasterCast) hoops, Remo USA heads (CS Dot and a snare side Ambassador), 20 strand Pearl wires and Click-Lock Snare Strainer; all high end components.

Now, the build and set up of these drums – i.e. a thick shell, die cast hoops and a CS Dot head – pretty much dictates what kind of sound they’re going to give you, and that’s a higher, attacking, focused sound. That’s fine, because you don’t really need to hit the drum to know that. I have actually owned a drum very similar to these and I found it really only managed to do higher and medium tensioning.  However, with these drums, I found that despite the thickness of the shell and other factors I mentioned, some of them did manage to go to a lower tensioning in a more convincing manner. I wasn’t really expecting that and only initially did the lower tensioning in the video ‘just because’ rather than because I was expecting anything useable from the effort.
Ok, using a more common ‘regular’ snare head choice, e.g. a single or double ply coated, would probably assist in getting deeper tones out of these drums, but with the stock head they still work just fine.
The build quality is good and the added bonus of the CS Dot head is that you get to enjoy the inside of the shell as well. The outside of the drums, whilst not the most ‘exciting’ or ‘fancy’ in wood terms, are still really nice to look at.
I didn’t get to play any of these in a band situation. But, to play them in my studio, you could still tell that they’re loud and would cut through well. I don’t think they are the most versatile of drums because of what they are in relation to what I mentioned above, but what they do I felt they did well. They feel solid under the stick and despite the thick shell etc, they’ve still got plenty of sensitivity to them which also might be a little surprising.

These are a relatively specialist item in terms of application, so they won’t appeal to everyone. 

Yes, they will go a bit lower if you want them to, but then again, why would you want a drum with a shell that thick and then tune it down? However, if you want a drum that will deliver a higher pitch and don’t really like the feel of a piccolo, something like this might work out for you.

 

By | 2022-09-03T12:36:14+00:00 September 3rd, 2022|Categories: Reviews|Comments Off on Pearl StaveCraft Snare Drums
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