This snare drum was an absolute guilty pleasure for me. I've been building drums for many years now, and occasionally Stave, plywood, acrylic, metal, and hybrid shells start to bore me. I wanted to challenge myself a bit to try and achieve something a bit out of the ordinary.
The guilty pleasure part comes from feeding my inner wood nerd. There's nothing more enjoyable to me then the complex and daunting process of making a drum of this type. It requires a lot of planning, accuracy, grueling repetition, and a deft hand. It's not always the most fun process, it can definitely be challenging. But it's very engaging, and there's no better reward in the world then playing that first note on an instrument of this caliber and knowing that it'll go off into the world representing me and my craftsmanship.
Okay enough mushy stuff. Let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
The shell is made from North American red birch on the top and bottom, South American Bocot茅 in the center, with two stripes of exotic Paduak.
The shell features a 45 and quarter inch roundover bearing Edge. The inner cut of the edge is a 45-degree chamfer, and the outer cut is a smooth quarter inch roundover. The round over allows for excellent shell to head contact, as well as a nice warm, fat, round tone. Where the two cuts meet there is a mildly sharp Apex that allows for just the right amount of pleasant overtones, and crispy articulation.
The shell is finished on the entire inside of the drum and on the edges with our house Blended mix of waxes and oils, all the outside has three coats of high-quality nitrocellulose lacquer.
This drum features a fairly deep and wide snare bed. this snare bed should prevent all unwanted snare buzz and give the snare wires a nice cushy pillow to sink down into the snare side head.
Now let's talk Hardware...
This drum features chrome over brass 3.5" tube lugs. It has a vintage style P85 strainer, diecast air vent, and diecast buttplate. Every single piece of hardware that touches the shell has a hand cut, top-grain leather washer between it and the shell. This drum also features 42 strand snare wires.
A special feature.....
You may or may not have encountered a drum with internal tone control or internal dampening before. I have fond memories of an old 60s supraphonic snare that I had that featured this mechanism.
If you know what I'm talking about, Skip this paragraph. Basically, internal tone control is a small mechanism on the inside of the drum that consists of a piece of spring steel, and a circular felt dampening pad. An operation knob is placed on the outside of the drum, this knob turns a threaded Rod which moves the felt dampening pad on or off of the batter head, effectively muffling or dampening the drum to the desired amount.
The problem with old internal dampening mechanisms was that they had a couple of small details that were overlooked, these small details turned the majority of the drum world against these simple and genius little devices.
We have done our best to reimagine and improve upon the design of our predecessors, and have reintroduced this feature on all hhg drums including this one.
You'll notice a small wooden knob above the air vent on this drum, the knob is made from the exact same Cherry board that was used to build this shell, and it bares the hhg initials engraved in it. This wood knob is the operation knob for the internal tone control. By turning it clockwise you advance the large felt dampening pad toward the head. The knob has a positive stop so that you can only back the dampening pad so far away from the head before it stops. This way, you are always only about a quarter of an inch away from a dampened snare drum head.
The way I personally like to use the dampening system is to hold a drumstick in one hand, making repeated strokes on the drum at a medium to low volume, while slowly turning the dampening knob, I use my ears to listen to the drum and as the dampening is slowly applied.... this allows you to find The Sweet Spot or you have just the right amount of dampening applied without choking the batter head.
Okay, enough about internal tone control.
Did you notice the hoops?
This drum features handmade segmented wooden hoops. The Hoops were made from the exact same boards of birch and paduak used to build the drum. This is done to ensure the most cohesive sound and aesthetic.
These hoops have the profile of a diecast or triple flange metal hoop, whereby there are protrusions where each tension rod passes through the hoop, this serves to reinforce the hoop by making it a bit bulkier at this point, while also making the hoop look less bulky and adding some visual Dynamics.
Please keep in mind that though they are strong, all wooden hoops are not indestructible. They can be destroyed with ultra high tension and heavy bashing. Of course, the Hoops can always be swapped out for any standard metal hoop at anytime if you need to do some aggressive playing.
I'm sorry that I had to write a small book about this drum. It just felt appropriate. Anyways, if you made it this far congratulations to you... And I very much hope that you consider purchasing this instrument. It was an absolute labor of love building it... And I look very forward to it living its life in the hands of somebody that will put it to good use!