We've been challenging ourselves lately to push our boundaries as drum Builders at HG. That's what inspired us to try and craft an instrument from the materials in this shell.
We started with a base shell material of Maple and Cedar, Maple being renowned for being one of the best tonewoods for drums, we wanted to try and enhance a bit of the warmth low end of the harder Maple, by balancing it with a softer species, in this case aromatic Cedar. Then finally to top it off we added copper to the drum, the star of the show. The blend of the wood species along with metal make for shell that is crispy, articulate, and extremely Musical.
The copper on the shell has a rich coloring. This coloring was done in-house at the HHG shop, and is simply how the copper naturally reacts to various patina chemicals that we use to bring out its beauty.
The copper has deep blue, teal, green, black, orange, and red tones. It's a vivid and striking finish for a very unique drum.
Here's the details for the hardware. It features Chrome tube lugs, vintage style P85 strainer, 42 strand snare wires, 2.3 mm triple flange Hoops, diecast antique silver hhg badge, diecast air vent, and hand-cut leather washers everywhere a piece of Hardware touches the drum shell.
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.
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
馃榾
-Sam from HHG