Do you play other brands?

[Jules]

It's all good. Nobody can fault you for liking a variety.

[SonorBart]

All my kits are Sonor (Scandi Birch Lite, African Marble Beech SQ2, Delite/Designer/SQ2 Maple Light Frankenstein covered in Bumwrap that's very close to Signature Impala Lacquer, and a Rosewood Vintage Series arriving later this week. I do have some non-Sonor snares in addition to my LD 547x, D-506, and soon to be 6.5 x 14 Vintage: A '68 Ludwig Supra 400 (from my first kit), an '05 6.5 x 14 Leedy by Gretsch (it belonged to a friend who let me bang on his kit when he was 16 and I was 6. He lost his battle with Cancer 1 year ago), a Gretsch 7 x 14 '65 Fredkaster 50th Anniversary, and a 6.5 x 14 "Acrophonic" I built with a Click aluminum shell and Ludwig hardware.

[Jules]

Cool gear. Sorry about your friend, but really nice drum to have in his memory.

[Frank Godiva]

I use a Premier Royal Ace COB piccolo from 1965. The Sonor equivalent would be an SY1404. These don’t come up often and are a pretty penny when they do.

[DaveInNZ]

My ethos around buying drums is more 'the best possible expression of a given idea' rather than aiming for one brand. It just so happens in my mind, that often the best expression of an idea is a Sonor, so my heart lies there, but there are others...

Kits:
Pearl Decade Maple (my first kit bought with my own money, now really just kept because everyone seems to regret selling their first kit at some point.) 8,10,12,13 rack toms, 14, 16 and 18 floor toms, 22 bass and 5" snare.

Yamaha Recording Custom MIJ 1989. 12 and 13 rack toms, 16 floor tom and a 24x14" bass drum

Snares:
Ludwig Supraphonic LM402 14x6.5
Rogers 1969 7 Line COB Dynasonic 14x6.5
Rogers Dynasonic (reissue) wood 14x5
Dunnett Classic Titanium 14x7
Yamaha Recording Custom aluminium 14x5.5
Atomic carbon fibre 14x7
Pearl 1980's COB All Purpose 14x5
Premier '2016' Carmine Appice signature brass 14x5.5
Craviotto walnut 14x6.5
Ludwig 1980's Acrolite 14x5
Acoutin Inconel 14x8
Joyful Noise 'Conquered' patina copper 14x6.5
Ludwig Bronze Beauty 14x5
Pearl Brian Frasier Moore signature 14x5.5
Noble & Cooley steam-bent maple 14x3.875
Craviotto/Sonor prototype steam-bent maple 14x5.5
Ludwig LB417 Black Beauty 14x6.5
Tama 1983 Mastercraft rosewood 14x6.5
Keplinger Black Iron 10 lug 14x7
Tama 50th Anniversary rosewood 14x5
Pearl 00's Brass Free Floater 14x6.5
Tama 50th Anniversary Mastercraft Bell Brass 14x6.5
PA Lovetone True Solid jarrah 14x8

And the Sonor stuff as well obviously...

[Jules]

Dave, we will be holding a tribunal to determine whether or not your membership here maybe continued. (kidding, of course)

Nice list of stuff! What are your thoughts on the Joyful Noise, and what are the specs? I seriously considered a ferro-manganese, but liked my ProLite Brass too much to spend that money on the JN.

[DaveInNZ]

The JN snare is lovely. Old school crimped snare beds, and on mine the patina is quite colourful, though very much a living finish, there's no lacquer on it or anything like that, so you can get your hands dirty on it if you want to. I suspect the majority of the magic is in genuine, heavy chrome over brass hoops - the whole thing just resonates as one like you're hitting a bell. A lot more 'alive' as a drum than I was expecting.

I've played one of his ferromanganese steel snares, it definitely has that 'different steel snare' tone but is quite a lot more resonant than the D505 and D506 I have, again I suspect largely down to the hoops. There was a rumour, that I haven't been able to substantiate, that Sonor asked JN to do a run of ferromanganese drums for the 150th anniversary. Ultimately it didn't happen - I'm guessing either due to the requirement to be undersized shells, the size of a required run, cost or a combination of all of that. Two separate fellow JN owners have told me versions of that.

Mine:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Civ84gnh2hE ... BiNWFlZA==

[Jules]

Interesting, about Sonor trying to source the shells. I don't think Ludwig or anyone else with seamless shells still make them in house any more. THAT would have been a snare drum I wouldn't have been able to pass up!

[Joe´s Drumgear]

Originally I‘m more a Tama guy that has had a huge interest in sonor for a very long time, but it took a while since I bought my first sonor drum.

Right now besides my HLD580 and 150th Bronze I got:

Tama 50th Rosewood 14x6,5
Tama 50th Artwood 14x6,5
Tama 50th Bell Brass 14x6,5
Tama Starclassic Maple 14x8
Tama S.L.P G-Bubinga 14x8 (quite similar to the HLD)
Tama Starphonic Jarrah One of a Kind 14x6 (only one in the world)
Tama Starphonic Cherry 14x6
Tama Starphonic Spotted Gum 14x6
Tama Starphonic Brann Dailor Sig. Bronze 14x6,5
Tama Starphonic Steel 14x8

[Jules]

Joe, I had a Tama Starclassic Walnut/Birch 5-piece Shell Pack - Molten Brown Burst and added on an 8" Tom. 3 up, 2 down. Nice rig and the memory locks are an integral part of the tom mounts and floor tom leg brackets, where Sonor doesn't seem to even want you to have any. Beautiful kit, and sounded great. But, I could not get happy with their snare drums. I ultimately bought a new Sonor ProLite Brass 14X6 (Hellas) and that was led to my ultimate return to Sonor. That was the 2nd of two of the ProLites I owned, so I KNEW it was a winner.

What led me to the Tama set was budget. I could go a level higher than AQ2, but SQ1 was a little out of my reach. But, I am a die hard Sonor guy, and no matter what I have tried, I always came back.

That's a story irrelevant to you currently owning Tama gear, and in no way a criticism.