Got a Piccolo Snare- Now What?

fixxxer

Senior Member
G.C. is having a big sale this weekend. What caught my eye was they had Mapex
13 x 3.5" steel piccolo snares for $39.00 (list @ $124.99)! Now, I have never considered using a piccolo, but at this price I couldn't resist, so I got one.

Forgive my ignorance, but how can I apply this to my sound? How is a piccolo normally used? I just want to get the most out of it if possible...........
Thanks in advance!
 
I had that same snare but sold it. It sounded good but just didn't have a use for it all snap and no body, I replaced it with a 6 x 10 popcorn maple PDP 805, I use it to accent fills, and do some minor solo work on. Some drummers use piccolos as their main snare, see how everyone else chimes on in how they use theirs.

I too went into GC and picked up a OCDP 13 x 7 chestnut ash snare with a black nickel trick throw off, die cast hoops and offset lugs for $169, it seems to be extremely well made and sounds great, some really good deals there for this sale.
 
Ha - I should have waited. I bought one of those about a month ago at full price.

Gotta' play with it a bit, but you can get a pretty good range of sounds out of it.
Tighten or loosen top or bottom heads, adjust snare tension, apply a bit of muffling if desired, and there's always the option of trying different heads on it.

I've been using mine with a set that I've got deadened with Sound-Off pads for practice, so I don't normally hear it at its full volume.
 
11 years ago (I keep saying that but that's the last time I had sat behind a kit with the equipment I had lol!) I bought a Pearl piccolo to further model my forest green Export set after David Silveria's green Tama set he used when he first started with Korn. With my bedroom window open you could hear that snare crack two blocks away lol! It reverbed off of garage doors and traveled for blocks lol.

I love a high cracking pop to my snare, it's great for accents and ghost notes and it adds a very distinct sound to YOUR drumming. I may have to look for it while I'm there and check it out because I'd love to have one again and you can't go wrong with Mapex. ;)
 
Thanks for the responses! I have band practice in a little while so I'm going to set it up and see what I can do with it.
We have a reggae piece we do within a song. I thought about playing around with the piccolo (with snares off) on that one. We'll see how it goes.......

@ zarrdoss- Yeah, it's probably not the best quality drum in the world (the throw on it feels a little cheap), but for the price I figured, what the hell!

@ PDPx7Drummer- Yeah, I play a Mapex kit and have always been happy with it! This little piccolo should feel right at home! Just a heads up, I bought the last one at my local GC. The sales guy told me that each store only got about 5 or 6 of them.
 
Put it on CL for 100! LOL! Not a fan of the piccolos! But I probably would have bought it too at that price. Seriously profit from it. Or donate it. You really don't need it, you're trying to squeeze it in.
 
@ zarrdoss- Yeah, it's probably not the best quality drum in the world (the throw on it feels a little cheap), but for the price I figured, what the hell!


I didn't really have any problems with it I did have a Mapex MPX 3.5 x 13 snare and really could not tell any difference on sound between the two, or much else for that matter. I still have a Piccolo its a 3.5 x 14 10 lug I mess around with from time to time, its all good.
 
Put it to the left of your hats and use it as a auxiliary snare. will fit the Reggae sound.
 
Put it to the left of your hats and use it as a auxiliary snare. will fit the Reggae sound.

lol @larry!

Also ^ this! I've come across quite a few good Reggae artists and it's fun to play along with the music! Not sure if Grunter was joking about the Reggae lol but I dig it.

As for getting that Mapex snare, no I didn't see it, not to mention a bust on my day when GC offered such a crappy deal for my DW 3000's as well as the Speed Cobra's being too high for me right now even with the big list promo going on.

Still though I'd like to get one again some day!
 
Maybe get in a Spin Doctors Tribute Band? LOL!.

Just joking here.....

I'm with others in that I sold my piccolo a couple years back because I just wasn't using it for anything I was doing. Keep in mind this was the Pearl 3.5 x 14 Free Floating model. A very nice sounding drum with more versatility than most picc's. I could have used it if I did a lot of Tower of Power tunes since Garibaldi uses a similar size drum but...I'm not/was not doing that so it just sat in my closet.

These days I try to only buy what I think I'm going to use. It's cool to experiment but if you don't use it after awhile you may end up wanting to flip it.


My .02


Jim
 
I keep my piccolo (3.5x14" steel) to the left of my hi-hat now. For several years I used it as my main snare. I use it for drum loop-style sounds, or with the snares off for a timbale-ish accent. On one song in my last band I would switch on the snares and use it during one of the verses where a marching snare part was called for.
 
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