 Dunnett 5.5x14 cherry shell snare drum
~or~
good drum, crap room
specs:
- 5.5x14
solid cherry shell, with cherry reinforcement rings
- r-5
lugs
- stick saver
hoops
- clear
nickel throwoff and butt
- clear
satin finish
- aquarian texture coated batter head
- r.m.v.
snare side head
- 24-strand puresound snares
hits:
- flawless edges
- very
sensitive
- sound
is very powerful and "fat" for its size
- meticulous craftsmanship
- reasonably-priced
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.
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