Mike Dolbear DRUMS | Spaun Drums

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Spaun Drums

Custom drum companies. Who needs them? Not a month goes past without another little company opening up, offering ‘new’ this and ‘new’ that, and basically trying to reinvent the wheel. What on earth could another company offer the drumming world? Well, at the risk of sounding really obvious, quite a lot. Okay, so there are only a limited amount of ways to build a tube of wood with some plastic film on the ends and some metal work to hold it all together, but when you are talking about drums that are built like these particular ones are, it all becomes obvious. We are talking quality, and to get it off my chest I will go so far as to say that the drums I reviewed are the best built custom drums I have ever had the opportunity to take apart. There…said it.

Spaun Drums have been around for a couple of years now, but are new to the UK. They started appearing in little ads and in music show reports in Modern Drummer, and I must admit that I was a bit sceptical. Loads of people have had a go at the custom drum market, indeed I was thinking about it a few years ago (not seriously though). When I was told that they were coming over and I was going to review them, I was interested but not madly excited. Perhaps that helped, as I had no preconceptions.

Custom drum companies started appearing big time in the eighties, I can’t mention names for reasons that will become apparent. What tends to happen with custom drum manufacturers is that they struggle for years making really great gear, then all of a sudden they get a break and they become ‘trendy’. Everyone starts to use them and because the demand goes sky high, things start to slip. Quality control starts to go down the pan and things get out of the factory that really shouldn’t. The companies are still living off their old reputation but the goods are getting a bit dodgy. Compare this with the ‘big’ manufacturers who constantly make gear and regardless of the size of them quality control is usually excellent. It’s much easier to be consistent when you are making a few hundred drums a day rather than a few drums a week. What I am getting at is that if you want an amazing, well-made kit, either buy a top of the line kit from one of the ‘biggies’ or get one built by a custom builder before they get big. Anyway, enough of such stuff, what about the gear?

There are three ranges in the Spaun catalogue – Custom (maple shells), Recording (birch shells) and Vintage (birch or maple shells but with maple rims). Colour wise, the world is your (white) oyster (pearl), and that’s the bit that will take the time to decide on. The finishes I saw were all perfect; it’s down to you whether it’s a wrap, a satin oil, a lacquer, a custom paint job or something that just hasn’t been thought of yet. I would really recommend you have a look at the web site (www.spaundrums.com) to get an idea about what they can do.

First up is a Turquoise Stain Satin Oil in 10x8, 12x9, 14x11 and 22x18 from the Custom range (unfortunately, no Recording series drums were available). The drums are all RIMS mounted and feature Spauns own lugs that are made from solid brass and plated. These are small footprint tubular ones that attach to the shell with one screw. In the interests of being a complete train-spotter, I took one off the shell. The hole in the shell was totally clean, and the lug insert was secured with a little grub screw inside the thread for the screw that attached it to the shell. I know it sounds complicated but it works really well, and you wont get stuck if you are on tour and something goes bang in the middle of nowhere. The lugs, like all the metal work is available in chrome, brass, black, and once again, pretty much any colour you can imagine (the website and catalogue have got some great pictures of a kit with glow-in-the-dark hardware). Hoops are ‘normal’ triple flange ones though carry on reading and check out the Vintage range. Tom blocks were Spauns own L-arm affair, which is fine, but they might put someone else’s block if you ask very nicely, if you currently use someone else’s hardware.

The shells are 8 ply 5.5mm Keller ones (although they looked like Jasper shells to me) and they are beautifully made. The bearing edges are 45/45 cut with the edge in the middle of the shell (read the tuning article if you want to know how this affects the sound) and are nicely cut with smooth edges. There are no reinforcing rings in the shell and the air holes are closer to the bottom head, which I am a big fan of, as it lets the air do more work before it escapes from the drum.

The heads supplied were Evans G2 clears on top and G1 clears on the bottom on the tom and an EQ3 combo on the kick. Now the difficult bit, how did they sound? Well, here I run out of superlatives. Big, fat, sensitive, loud (when needed), quiet (when needed), powerful… err, lovely? These drums are everything I could (personally) ask for from a drum – loads of attack (thanks to the bearing edges), loads of bottom (thanks to the shells) and… well, loads of everything really. This is one classy kit and a bit of a steal. It’s not expensive at all for this sort of quality and I could not find one thing wrong with it. Not one, not even a smudge in the finish or a bit of dodgy plating. Lovely. So I went onto the other kit…

Right then, it’s not often I hit one tom, once and decide that the kit is a killer, but that’s what happened with the Vintage kit. The 10” tom with Evans G1 coated heads on just sung… fabulous. This kit is not for everyone, but I think it’s going to find a lot of fans. This Vintage kit has a Blonde to Black fade satin finish and as well as sounding great looked stunning. Sizes are as before, but again, you can go for anything. Rather than metal hoops, it has 10 ply wood hoops that continue the finish, so the bottom hoop is black and the top one blonde and the finish on the shell graduates from one to the other. The hoops are held on with little claws so that each drum looks like a little bass drum. I thought the claws might get in the way but when I deliberately rimshot the toms over the claws it made not one bit of difference. The wood hoops come up fractionally higher than the metal versions but not enough to worry about, and have a section routed out of them so they hide the rim of the head underneath them.

Shell wise and hardware wise, these are the same as the Custom kit with options coming out of your ears, but sound wise, as I said before, wow! . From the finish to the little metal hoop protectors on the bass drum, the attention to detail is fabulous. The maple shells and hoops just work, but don’t just take my word for it, go and try one.

This was a bit surprise for me. I’ve taken apart and played most drums, but I have got to say that these are fabulous. These drums are what other big name ‘custom’ kits should be, and you would pay twice as much for those. I actually feel a bit concerned about my praise, just in case the next batch into the country isn’t as good. I’m sure they will be, it’s just that I can’t remember the last time I was this impressed. It’s an awkward situation to be in, but I hope Spaun carry on building their drums like the ones I have been playing and don’t get too big, although I wish them every success, as they deserve it. If you want one of the best kits around, get one of these now, before everyone else finds out about them.

Simon Edgoose
simedgoose@hotmail.com
simon@mikedolbear.com

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