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Models

Every model, most significant first.

35 models

  • Ludwig Amber Vistalite

    Drum kit model

    Percussion · United States

    A Ludwig Vistalite drum kit in the amber finish. The Vistalite line uses seamless acrylic shells, and the amber colorway became iconic through John Bonham's large amber Vistalite kit with Led Zeppelin in the 1970s.

  • DW Collector's Series Maple Snare

    Flagship custom maple snare drum

    Percussion · United States

    DW's Collector's Series Maple snare is built from hand-selected North American maple as a 10-ply VLT shell with 6-ply reinforcement rings, 60-degree bearing edges, Turret lugs, True-Pitch tension rods, 3.0mm True-Hoops, and a MAG throw-off, customizable in any Custom Shop finish.

  • Technical line drawing of Beverley Drums

    Beverley Drums

    Drum kit model

    Percussion · United Kingdom

    Beverley was a British drum brand that originated in Beverley, North Yorkshire. From 1958 its drums were built in Premier's Leicester factory, and the brand later passed to Boosey and Hawkes before leaving the market in 1979. Once positioned as a budget alternative, vintage Beverley kits are now valued by collectors.

  • Ayotte Keplinger Snare

    Hand-formed steel shell

    Percussion · Canada

    The Keplinger snares pair a hand-formed steel shell with Ayotte's hardware, and the combination — bright, cutting, and slow to choke — made them a studio fixture in the 1990s.

  • George Way Aristocrat

    Way's snare, rebuilt from the original drawings

    Percussion

    The revived George Way Aristocrat is built to the designer's original shell and lug specifications — thin maple, rounded edges, and the distinctive elongated lug — by the Vancouver shop that owns the name.

  • Brady Jarrah Block Snare

    Australian hardwood, stave-built

    Percussion · Australia

    Brady's block-construction jarrah snares are built from vertical staves of Western Australian hardwood, producing an extremely dense shell with a high, hard crack. Production ended and the drums now trade well above their original prices.

  • Pork Pie Little Squealer

    Shallow snare in birch and mahogany

    Percussion · United States

    The Little Squealer is a shallow birch and mahogany snare that became Pork Pie's most widely sold drum: cheap enough to be a second snare and sharp enough to be a first one.

  • Dunnett Titanium Snare

    One of the first production titanium shells

    Percussion · Canada

    Ronn Dunnett was among the first to build titanium snare shells in production, producing a drum that is light, extremely loud, and unusually resistant to choking at high tension.

  • Leedy Broadway Standard

    Pre-war American professional snare

    Percussion · United States

    The Broadway Standard was Leedy's professional snare through the 1920s and 1930s, and its mechanical strainer designs are the ancestors of most of what followed.

  • Craviotto Solid Shell Snare

    One plank, steam-bent, one seam

    Percussion · United States

    Craviotto's snares are steam-bent from a single plank of maple, birch, walnut, or cherry, leaving one vertical seam and no glue lines through the shell. They are loud, dry, and dated and signed by the builder.

  • Q Drum Co. Copper Snare

    Hand-formed copper shell

    Percussion · United States

    Q Drum Co.'s copper snares are formed and seamed in the shop, with a warmer, darker voice than brass and a finish that changes as the drum is played.

  • Rogers Dyna-Sonic

    The snare with a floating snare frame

    Percussion · United States

    The Dyna-Sonic suspends its snare wires in a separate frame that touches the head under controlled tension rather than being pulled across it, which gives an unusually even response at low volume. It is one of the few genuinely original snare designs of the twentieth century.

  • A&F Raw Brass Snare

    Unplated rolled brass, left to patina

    Percussion · United States

    A&F's raw brass snares ship unlacquered so the shell darkens with handling, and the drums are built with single-flange hoops and minimal hardware. They are as much objects as instruments, which is the point.

  • Hendrix Stave Snare

    Vertical-stave wood shells

    Percussion · Canada

    Hendrix builds snares from vertical staves rather than plies, so the grain runs the height of the shell, and machines the lugs and strainers for them in the same shop.

  • Slingerland Radio King

    Solid one-ply maple shell, cut from a single plank

    Percussion · United States

    The Radio King's shell is one piece of steam-bent solid maple rather than laminated plies, and the drum's crack — dry, loud, and quick to decay — is the sound of American swing drumming. It has been reissued repeatedly and copied constantly.

  • Pearl Sensitone

    Metal-shell snare drum series

    Percussion · Japan

    Pearl's Sensitone metal snare series is offered in beaded steel, brass, and seamless aluminum shells, with SuperHoop II flanged hoops, CL bridge lugs, and Pearl strainers, giving a range of bright to warm metal-snare voices.

  • Yamaha Recording Custom Snare

    Birch-shell recording snare drum

    Percussion · Japan

    Yamaha's Recording Custom wood snare uses a 6-ply North American birch shell with 30-degree bearing edges and lightweight 1.6mm triple-flanged hoops, a Q-type throw-off, and 25-strand snare wires, giving the dry, focused attack designed for studio recording.

  • Tama S.L.P.

    Sound Lab Project snare drum series

    Percussion · Japan

    Tama's Sound Lab Project (S.L.P.) premium snare drum series, a collection of individually voiced snares spanning many shell materials including maple, walnut, brass, bronze, aluminum, and steel, each tuned for a distinct character.

  • Pearl Free Floating

    Shell-isolated snare drum system

    Percussion · Japan

    Pearl's Free Floating snare uses a design in which the shell is completely isolated from the hardware so it can resonate freely; it is offered in aluminum, brass, stainless steel, maple, and mahogany/maple shells with die-cast hoops and Pearl's Click-Lock strainer.

  • Ludwig Supraphonic

    Seamless aluminum snare drum family

    Percussion · United States

    Ludwig's seamless chrome-plated aluminum snare drum family (LM400/LM402), widely regarded as one of the most recorded snare drums in history, with a bright, crisp attack and balanced resonant crack.

  • Ludwig Acrolite

    Aluminum-shell snare drum

    Percussion · United States

    Introduced in 1963, the Ludwig Acrolite is built on a 1.6mm seamless aluminum shell with 45-degree bearing edges, triple-flanged steel hoops, and a P88 throw-off, giving a dry, cracking tone that made the student-priced drum a professional favorite.

  • Ludwig Black Magic

    Black-nickel-over-brass snare drum

    Percussion · United States

    The Ludwig Black Magic snare is built around a beaded brass shell coated in black nickel, with black-nickel tube lugs and 2.3mm steel triple-flanged hoops; a mirror-polished stainless steel version is also offered. Common sizes include 14x5, 14x6.5, and 13x7.

  • Ludwig Black Beauty

    Seamless brass snare drum family

    Percussion · United States

    Ludwig's iconic Black Beauty snare drum family, built from a single seamless sheet of brass hydroformed into a beaded shell with black-nickel plating, prized for a warm, powerful, focused tone with strong projection.

  • Mapex Black Panther

    Premium snare drum series

    Percussion · Taiwan

    Mapex's flagship Black Panther snare drum series, introduced in 1997, a deep catalog of individually voiced snares spanning many shell materials including maple, walnut, mahogany, aluminum, brass, steel, and copper, each engineered for a distinct sound.

  • Gretsch USA Custom Snare

    Maple/gum-shell custom snare drum

    Percussion · United States

    Gretsch's USA Custom snare uses the 6-ply Gretsch-formula maple/gum shell with a 30-degree bearing edge, the exclusive Silver Sealer interior, and 4mm die-cast hoops, built to order in Ridgeland, South Carolina, in any USA-palette finish.

  • Canopus The Maple

    Thin maple snare with vintage-spec edges

    Percussion · Japan

    "The Maple" is Canopus's standard professional wood snare: a thin maple shell, rounded bearing edges, and the company's own throw-off, in the sizes the vintage catalogue used.

  • Sonor Kompressor

    Seamless metal snares in three alloys

    Percussion

    The Kompressor line is a set of seamless spun shells — aluminium, brass, and steel — in the same sizes, which makes it one of the cleanest ways to hear what a snare shell's metal actually does.

  • Canopus Zelkova

    Solid keyaki-shelled snare

    Percussion · Japan

    The Zelkova snare is turned from solid Japanese zelkova (keyaki), a dense hardwood used in temple construction, giving a hard, focused crack quite unlike a ply shell.

  • Sonor Artist Series Snare

    German-made snares in wood and metal

    Percussion · Germany

    The Artist Series is Sonor's à la carte snare catalogue: maple, beech, birch, and vintage-spec shells alongside bronze and brass, all built in Germany to the same hardware specification.

  • A&F Pancake Snare

    A very shallow auxiliary snare

    Percussion · United States

    The Pancake is a shallow snare — often under two inches deep — designed to sit beside a main drum for a high, sharp accent, and it turned into one of A&F's most copied formats.

  • Camco Aristocrat

    Camco's professional wood snare

    Percussion · United States

    The Aristocrat was Camco's standard professional snare, a thin maple shell with the company's own strainer, and one of the drums whose reputation kept the brand's name alive after the factory closed.

  • British Drum Co. Bluebird

    Maple snare with cast hoops

    Percussion · United Kingdom

    The Bluebird is the company's standard professional snare: a maple shell, cast hoops, and the in-house throw-off, built alongside the Legend kits in Merseyside.

  • Slingerland Artist Model

    Three-ply Slingerland snare of the 1960s and 1970s

    Percussion · United States

    The Artist Model was Slingerland's mainstream professional snare after the solid-shell era: three-ply maple and mahogany with a reinforcement ring, and the company's clam-shell strainer.

  • Rogers Powertone

    The Dyna-Sonic's conventional sibling

    Percussion · United States

    The Powertone used the same shells and hardware as the Dyna-Sonic with a conventional strainer and snare bed, which made it cheaper, louder, and — to some drummers — the better rock drum of the two.

  • Sonor Signature HLD 590

    The Horst Link ferromanganese snare

    Percussion · Germany

    The HLD 590 is a 14×8 ferromanganese-shelled snare from Sonor's Signature era, heavy enough to be almost unusable at low volume and the reason a generation of engineers asked for "the Sonor". Clean examples trade for multiples of their original price.