Now, it’s a couple of months now since I looked at the Spaun kits and got all excited about them, so it might be handy (if you haven’t done so already) to read that review as it has some bearing on this one too.

We have three snares to look at here, all very different in their construction, but sharing a load of features too. All of the drums have got the good old Nickel Piston Works strainer on them which is A Very Good Thing, although the catalogue does show another (make unknown) strainer on some of their smaller snares, so it might be best to check if you order one. All the snares today are 14” and have 10 lugs of the same design as the ones on the kits (another thumbs up), but you could probably order an 14” eight lug drum if you wanted (smaller drums have less anyway). All the finishes are as good as the kits and the build quality is faultless (you really, really must read the other review – not only does it save me repeating myself but you will be able to see how excited I got, and it’s all had time to sink in now so it probably wont be the same).  Oh and don’t get too confused by the pictures used here.  They don’t exactly match the finishes reviewed but they do give a general impression.

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14x6.5” Slotted Blonde maple with brass lugs and black hoops and rods

Wow, what a long title for a snare. This is the strangest of the bunch. As you can see, there is a gap in the shell. Yes, that’s right, this drum is in fact two very shallow shells separated by the lugs, which are the only things to hold them apart. You might be asking why, but if you are a loud player (and I mean loud), this is probably the drum for you. Having said that, it doesn’t sound like a rock (‘RAWK’) snare, it’s just that it does things at a louder dynamic than other snare (brush work is great, fabulous sound, just loud). Perhaps I should explain.

In the ‘70’s, Ludwig wanted to make really loud marching snare. They tried cutting large holes in the shell and found this to work. Rather than building a nice shell and cutting holes in it and wasting wood, they decided to build the drums using two bits of shallower shell and have them separated by the lugs which went the full length of the shell. These were the first ‘slotted’ (as Ludwig called them) snares. Recently, other companies have messed about with shell venting; principally Orange County, but here Spaun are using the older ‘tried and tested’ method. What is does is let all the air out of the shell very quickly so you get a drier crisp sound as the shell has less influence on the sound. What it also does is make the sound of the bottom head much louder so your ghost notes sound like they have been amplified or you are listening to a drum miked top and bottom and through a compressor to even out the dynamics. It’s a weird one to explain, but have a play with one and you’ll see what I mean.

Playing wise, I found this to be really strange. When playing backbeats it’s superb, loud and crisp, but the more ghost notes I put in, the harder I found it was to play. As the venting amplifies the bottom head, all you ghost notes sound too loud, regardless of how quietly you play, and it felt really off balance. Obviously this is not a drum for all seasons, but if you play loud, and 90% backbeats, you really couldn’t go wrong with this. If you have a snare collection, you really out to have one, just for the ear bleeding backbeats. Lovely… just not in a ‘nice’ jazz fashion.

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14x5” 16 ply Black Serpentine with black hardware

Here is a more normal snare. It’s a conventional ply shell but twice as thick as a ‘normal’ Spaun shell. The thicker shell makes it have a higher natural pitch, but this comes across as a more… mature (?) sound. Basically, it sound like it has a bit more of everything, body, dynamics, crack, volume etc. The finish on the drum I reviewed is similar to the old Slingerland moiré finishes, and with everything being black, it looks mean and moody. Nice.

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14x5” Solid stave Golden Orange Mahogany, brass lugs, chrome hoops

Okay, here’s another method of shell building. This is a stave built shell which means sections of mahogany have been cut into twenty 2”x5”x½” thick sections. Then the sections are glued together so they form a 14x5” tube and then they are (presumably) lathed into a nice smooth tube, or drum shell as we know it. Stave shell drums are normally quite dry, as the vibrations do not run around the shell in the normal way. Every time the vibrations get to a join, they are reflected back into that section, so what we have in effect is twenty individually vibrating pieces of wood that make up the shell. Only a little vibration gets passed onto the next piece of the shell, but as the shell is quite thick, you get a higher pitched dry crack, with the ring coming from the heads. It sounds similar to a snare with woodhoops – very snarey, but dry with a nice musical ring. This drum sounds expensive.

To sum up, these are quality instruments. I cant get as excited over these as I did the kits only because I don’t feel that these are as much of a bargain as the kits are. These are brilliant custom drums, and as I said last time, you have got to try them out.

Simon Edgoose
simon@mikedolbear.com