i’ve been playing drums since the age of nine, and if i’ve come to one conclusion in those 23 years, it’s this: i hate to play bad-sounding drums. i’ve owned and played my share, and i hate playing bad-sounding drums almost as much as i hate limp handshakes, people who only know one big word and use it over and over (usually incorrectly), cats that don’t know when to shut up and the use of the term "my bad." my bad… what? just what the hell does that mean?

but what i hate even more than playing bad-sounding drums, is playing a drum which i know has the potential for greatness, in a bad-sounding room. no matter how well-built a drum is, playing it in a bad room is depressing. a beautiful work of art becomes a small wooden barrel with cardboard lids and a light bulb chain strung across the bottom. yuck.

the room in question is a garage-turned-"rehearsal studio." every door, window, wall and ceiling surface has been covered with sound-deadening board, and the normally-reflective concrete floor has been layered in every faux persian rug available in the greater los angeles area. yeah, yeah, i knew the room was this dead before i brought the drum in; all my drums sound like paper in there. "my bad." but i guess there’s just something about playing a drum *for the first time* in a lousy room that makes it all the worse. "buyer’s remorse" definitely sets in for a minute.

happily, i’m not the dumbest peanut in the turd, so i decided to just take the drum somewhere else to test – the auditorium of a church. a room in which i have played a great many drums, so i know what to listen for. and besides, it’s great to play in a big room with lots of wood and a vaulted ceiling, i tell ya.

the look

the outside of the shell is finished in a clear satin that lets the cherry wood grain show through very nicely. the inside is finished in a clear gloss. the interior has ronn’s name, the build date and serial name written in silver marker. there is also an extremely small sticker inside the shell that says "made in canada." the shell is a pale brown, almost peach in color. there are even a couple of very tiny dark knots in the wood, further increasing the drum’s individuality and character, in my opinion. ronn’s last name is etched on the shell in 2 places; other than that, there’s no badge or other markings to detract from the understated elegance of the shell. the shell’s seam is perfectly smooth with no gaps, both on the inside and the outside of the shell. same goes for the seams of the reinforcement rings. the lugs are dunnett’s r-5 "fat" tube lugs, which he builds himself. i had originally ordered his smaller tube lugs, but due to a bizarre chain of events involving a tire swing and a tank of ranch dressing, the drum came to me with the larger lugs. i now favor these lugs; they look great and are impeccably-made.

the drum also came to me with chrome-plated brass "stick saver" hoops. i had ordered single-flanged hoops with clips, but the process of having them chrome-plated by a lazy outside vendor has taken longer than expected, so they will be coming to me in the future. possibly before my 5-year-old son graduates from college.

the sound

two words keep coming to mind when i play this drum – "dry" and "fat." the dryness of this drum will really bust your chops with it comes to your sticking patterns. if you’re sloppy, it’s an easy tell; the drum’s not all that forgiving. luckily, i have the sticking prowess of jim chapin. the drum is also extremely sensitive at all volumes from ppp to fff, and snare response is very present in all zones from edge to center.

ronn dunnett says that the "stick saver" hoops are a contributing factor to drying the drum up a bit. i can only assume that the single-flanged hoops will do even more in that regard, since they make complete contact with the "flesh" hoop of the head. the drum has minimal overtones, and sounds quite focused when hit dead-center. there are also notably few overtones when the drum is struck off-center, but the few that *are* there are very pleasing to my ear. i imagine that this "pre-e.q." will work very well in a studio setting. at the same time, though, the drum is resonant and sounds very fat. it seems to have the best of all frequencies.

as with all dunnett drums, the shell is undersized, causing the heads to "float" on the shell. this "tympani effect," as ronn puts it, makes the drum extremely easy to tune. i was able to get this drum to any tuning i wanted quickly, with minimal tweakage.

although this drum’s "sweet spot" (the tuning region where the drum "sings" the most), to my ears, is at a middle tension, it’s also extremely versatile. dropping the tension as far as it could go, i was able to get a growly, meaty "second line" sound. throaty, nasty and commanding. when i cranked up the tension, however, the drum still spoke well. it took some effort to get the drum to choke. even in the high regions, the drum still has a strong, underlying fatness to its sound, although the volume of the drum is somewhat reduced. this is not a drum for high-volume situations, in my opinion. and i don’t consider that a bad thing. anyway, i’m sure that the shell thickness (the shells that dunnett uses are thinner than the shells that you’ll see on a noble & cooley s.s. or d.w. craviotto snare), and the wood density (cherry is less-dense than maple, the wood i’m most used to hearing in drums) have a lot to do with the fatness of the drum’s sound. it’s present at all tunings.

but somewhere in the middle is where this drum really speaks. fat, warm and round. and perfectly "e.q.’ed."

as for the throwoff - in typical nickel drumworks style, it holds its tension at all settings and playing volumes, is extremely quiet and precise, and feels very solid.

i did a comparison with one of my favorite wood snare drums - a single-ply snare drum of *roughly* the same dimensions - my 5x14 noble & cooley. i’ve recorded with this drum probably more than with any other, so i know it well. i tuned the n&c to where i know it "sings" the most, and then went to work a/b’ing the two. obviously, all things are not equal between these drums – apples & oranges, basically. the n&c has a thicker shell, lugs that only make contact with the shell at one point, and die-cast hoops. and the n&c is half-an-inch shallower. but comparisons are fun, so what the heck. and besides, they’re my drums, so shut up.

the dunnett really sounds much deeper to my ears than any other 5.5-deep drum that i own. where the n&c has a sharp, distinctive "crack," the dunnett sounds much warmer and more round. thicker. the dunnett also has a wider tuning range than the n&c (the n&c choked up at a lower tuning than the dunnett), making it more versatile. last but not least, the dunnett costs considerably less than a new n&c.

in closing, one final thought: i purchased this drum partly as an "experiment;" i already have quite a few wood snare drums, and did not know if i could honestly justify the need for another. i must say, however, that this drum will take the place of at least 2 others that i currently own, both in the studio and in live use.

i think those drums will be up for sale soon.

kudos to ronn dunnett and rob schuh for information on the drum’s specs, and especially to ronn, for proving to me that metal drums are just a glimpse at what he’s capable of.

next up – my review of the spirit 6.5x13 snare drum… in a good room.