What’s your favorite snare drum? Mine is a 14” x 4” black nickel-plated-brass Not So Modern Drummer Black Beauty wannabe personally engraved by the king o’ chickenscratch — John Aldridge.

I’m not sure if you’re referring to favorite or best sounding snare I’ve ever heard, or of the ones I own.

As far as the latter, well, I have two, both from PDP:  5.5x14” FS birch, natural to charcoal finish, and 5x13” metal snare.  The metal snare I’ll never part with it, since it was a gift from the Mrs.    The FS, I’m not attached to it, but it sounds ok.

As far as my favorite snare, I’ll have to say it’s John Bonham’s Ludwig Supraphonic 402, 6.5x14”.  I wrote an article a while back about my five favorite snare drum sounds:

Great Snares of Rock

I was able to get a response from a couple of the players of these great snares; they are quoted in the article about the specifics of their snare.  And Andy!  If you or any readers of the article can help me with the specifics of the #4 snare, that would be great.  I’m still not sure (all I know is that it sounds awesome!).

The next time I’m in the market, I’m going for the Bonham snare!

Tough call, I have two favs. 14 x 5 - ‘74 Acrolite (versatility!)  and a 13 x 7 Sonor Maple (big pop!)  Honorable mention to my Pearl Brass free-floater

I would LOVE to own a DW super solid,edge or classisc snare.My mouth waters every time I watch John Good talk about them on youtube
But I`m content with my PDP one I have atm.You can`t have everything can you?

Lots to choose from these days, but I really like AK Drums - Black Beauty:
http://www.ak-drums.com/snaredrums/black-beauty-model/BB10.html

GJS

Very interesting and beautiful drum. I doubt AK would ever be able to distribute it in the United States, though, since the Black Beauty name infringes on Ludwig’s copyright. If they tried they would probably face a pretty hefty lawsuit.

Andy Doerschuk - 14 June 2012 11:27 AM

Very interesting and beautiful drum. I doubt AK would ever be able to distribute it in the United States, though, since the Black Beauty name infringes on Ludwig’s copyright. If they tried they would probably face a pretty hefty lawsuit.

Good point; I don’t know why they would choose that iconic name.

GJS

Tried dozens…. and dozens…. used to love my old Slingerland cheap wood 5.5x14 , then my brass 3.5x13 piccolo….but time has convinced me my Ludwig Supraphonic 6.5x14   will forever be my Number 1…

For the ones I’ve owned it’s a Slingerland brass series; the 8 inch deep 12 lug drum with slapshot strainer from the 70’s. Seriously an excellent drum for recording. The series number escapes me.
Next is my 67 Ludwig LM400 5X14, this drum is currently my favorite, very close to the LM402, which I hope will be my next drum. To anyone who is thinking about buying one, what I found is to tune them very high. One of the best.