The snare drums I use...

This is the classic Ludwig (LB416BT) Black Beauty, 14 x 5 brass snare shell drum.
This beautiful drum is fitted with tube lugs and has brass plated hardware and die cast hoops. This is my favourite snare drum for live and studio-recording.
When tuned high, the seamless brass shell really gives a cutting edge to the overall sound, though not as sharp and unsympathetic as a steel snare drum. To personalise and enhance the sound of this snare, I have replaced the original Ludwig 20 strand steel wires with Puresound Custom Pro 20 strand brass wires. This creates an even tighter sound.

I especially like the die-cast hoops on this drum. They enable me to play loud, ear splitting rimshots as well as subtle rimclicks.

This is the Ludwig (LB546) Bronze Black Beauty, 14 x 6.5 bronze shell snare drum.
It is pretty much identical to the standard Ludwig Black Beauty, but instead of a brass shell it has a black nickle plated bronze shell.
This version comes with the classic Ludwig Imperial lugs and triple flanged hoops. However, I am not a big fan of triple flanged hoops on the snare drum and prefer die cast hoops, as they keep the ringing under control and generally sound better. I have replaced the batter side and snare side triple flanged hoop with TAMA die cast hoops. To make the most of this drum's potential, I also swapped the original Ludwig 18 strand steel wires with PureSound Custom Pro 24 strand brass wires, to give it a more focused sound. I have also replaced the standard, and rather flimsy, P88 strainer with the more robust and better looking P86C model.

As with my other snare drums, I tune this one quite high in pitch, but it still gives me enough low end.
It's great for live gigs and sounds powerful, with a warm tone to it.

This is the PDP Concept Series (PDSN5514BWCR) Black Wax, 14 x 5.5 maple snare drum.
PDP is the 'budget' (as in: Made in China) brand of DW, but don't let that fool you. This is an amazing snaredrum for its price. It has a 10 ply maple shell and has really attractive lugs (well, I think so) and the DW MAG throw-off mechanism found on the more expensive DW snares.
I have replaced the somewhat cheap, err budget, standard heads with Evans heads and also replaced the budget style flanged hoops with die cast hoops. Keeping it low budget, I have used the Millennium (Thomann's budget, cheap, whatever) home brand die cast hoops (snare and batter side). Added bonus is that these hoops are in a dark finish, which complements the esthetics of this snae drum nicely. To top it off I have fitted it with Puresound Custom Pro 20 strand steel wires.

And last but not least, the Pearl (FC-1465-C), 14 x 6.5 Free Floating copper shell snare drum.

I tend to tune this snare drum rather high in pitch. To me, this brings out the best balance between attack and resonance for this drum.
Its 6.5" depth and the warm and lively nature of the copper shell compensate for any possible loss in low tones.

Other notes on my snare drums:

• The PDP and Ludwig snare drums are fitted with an Evans 'Onyx' black batter head and an Evans 'Snare 300' resonant head.
• The Pearl snare drum has an Evans 'ST' batter head and an Evans 'Snare 300' resonant head.
• I tune my snare drums in the "classical" way: the resonant side is tighter than the batter side.

Any comments? Leave 'em 'ere:

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