Review: Ddrum Shawn Drover Snare

I recently bought a second drum kit to use for live gigs to save myself the trouble of constantly setting up and tearing down, and to reduce the wear and tear on my main kit. So I bought a second kit used, but the only catch was that it didn’t include a snare drum. So I set out on a quest to buy one.

I began scouring the Internet for snare drums and came across the Ddrum Shawn Drover “Heavy Hitter” model. Shawn Drover is the drummer for metal legends Megadeth and has played on their last 3 tours and 2 most recent studio albums. He’s also on the new Rust In Peace Live DVD (highly recommended). In doing a little research online, I found a couple of quotes from Drover where he stated that this drum is the “loudest snare I have ever heard” and “the loudest snare drum on the planet”. Being that I play in a couple of bands, both of whom play loud hard rock and metal, that was music to my ears (pardon the pun).

I had also wanted for some time to check out one of Ddrum’s acoustic drums for myself. Ddrum started out producing only triggers, modules, and other electronic drum accessories, but a few years ago they made a foray into the acoustic drum market. I’ve admired them from afar every since, and I’ve been impressed with some of their kits that I’ve seen in mail order catalogs and in my local drum shop. So, to make a long story short, I placed my order and anxiously waited for it to arrive. I was thrilled when it did.

When I removed the drum from the box, I was impressed with its looks. It’s a large drum, with a 7” x 14” shell, but not particularly heavy for its size because of its aluminum construction. Speaking of the shell, I can’t help but mention the looks. There’s a cool skull graphic with wings on one side and on the opposite size is the Ddrum logo with the Shawn Drover signature integrated into it. These graphics are laser engraved as opposed to being painted or stickered on.

The drum seems solid and well-built. It includes Die Cast hoops, which is a real rarity on a drum in this price range. It also has 10 lugs as opposed to 8 (also a rarity in this price range). This allows for more precise control over tuning and less stress on each lug. The throw-off and butt-plate are a simple, but effective design, using drumkey-adjusted set screws as opposed to regular screws to hold the snare strips in place. The included snare straps are a woven fabric as opposed to the typical plastic strips, which added a nice touch.

Now, for a couple of very minor complaints. First, in my opinion, powder-coated hardware has kind of a cheap look to it. In general, powder-coating is something that’s more typically seen on cheaper drums (Ddrum’s Diablo, some of PDP’s cheaper offerings, etc.), so I would have preferred chrome lugs and hoops. But this is simply a matter of opinion. Also, the lug design is rather plain and uninteresting, and yes—powder coated. I’ve seen the same lug design on some other Ddrum kits and it looked much better in chrome.

The stock heads included a Ddrum-branded single-ply coated white head on the batter side, and a thinner snare-side head on the resonant side. Out of the box, the drum was tuned rather low for my taste, and had a huge, 1980’s arena-rock sound to it. So, I pulled out the trusty Drum Dial and tuned it up to 80 P.S.I. on the resonant/snare side and 85 P.S.I. on the batter side. This is the lower end of the recommended tuning range for a drum of this size.

After tuning it up, I laid into it with some sticks and was not disappointed. I would describe the sound as “dry” with tons of crack. As I usually do with all of my snares, I applied a half piece of Moongel to the outside edge of the batter head to kill some of the over-ring, which helped clean up the sound considerably. When I was finished tweaking it, it sounded great.

In conclusion, you may ask–is it really the loudest snare drum on the planet? I’m not sure about that, but it’s definitely loud, it sounds great, and I can highly recommend it.

Pros:

• Priced very affordably at around $225
• Seems solid and well-built
• Includes Die Cast hoops, which is a real rarity on a drum in this price range
• 10 lugs as opposed to 8 for more precise control over tuning, and less stress on each lug
• The throw-off and butt-plate are a simple, but effective design
• Cool skull graphics, Ddrum logo, and Shawn Drover signature are engraved directly into the aluminum shell, which adds a stark, but very cool look to the drum

Cons:

• In my opinion, the black powder-coated hardware has kind of a cheap look to it, and I would have preferred chrome lugs and hoops.
• The lug design is rather plain and uninteresting, and yes—powder coated.