DW's $4000 True Cast Bell Bronze snare!

[Clutch_Rod]

I chose the same options. John makes phenomenal instruments, with the best customer service you can find anywhere.

Funny thing about DW, and to your point, is that they're charging $1,600 for this 11-ply maple snare:

DW Dave Grohl "Sound City" ICON Snare Drum

6.5" x 14" Maple Snare Drum with 3mm Triple-flanged Hoops - Icon Dave Grohl

www.sweetwater.com

That's a great looking drum! but DW is getting a bit big for their britches...on their prices for such. I wonder what the mark up on that is?

 

[DutchDrummersDreams]

I have a Duluth Shell about to be finished.

You can get it in any thickness, I chose 5mm, but also you can get the Concave re-rings as well for no extra cost.


The Recent DW TrueCast is for sure from Duluth, because the Hoops are Aluminum Bronze just like Duluth offers. I chose the Tree Bronze Shell and the Aluminum Bronze Hoops.

Thats what's foul about DW though. They charged an insane price for a shell and hoops they paid a little over 600 bucks for AND that's if they paid retail. The Brass Hardware isn't that expensive because I had custom Brass Tube lugs built for me for 100 bucks shipped. I mean, I had an opportunity to spend 500 bucks on Solid Bronze Lugs and they still wouldn't justify DW's cost.



I feel like any one who purchased the DW True Cast drum should feel duped. DW just cashed in with very little work.

There is more to the story that it cost that much besides the name.

Dave can shed some light about that.

Regarding using cymbals in the Ocheltree:

Mark Peter, sort of a long story. Every Spirit of 2002 shell has broken and cracked cymbals melted into the mixture. The original idea was to have it 100% melted down cymbals, but when we tried that we lost 3 our of every 4 shells to bad metal. We then made a test bar out of the cymbals and sent it in for testing. The resulting chemical analysis came back as 90% copper and 10% tin (with small amounts of "other" that we believe contributed to the bad finish). 90/10 is equivalent to CA 907, which is what we stock in ingot form. After that we used cymbals and ingot to sweeten the mixture and the shells came out much better (3 out of every 4 were now good shells). After that, and some tweaks to the pattern and molding work over the years, we haven't lost a shell to bad metal and we've kept CA 907 as one of our two main alloys to cast shells out of. Hope I kept your attention for this small novel.

So they kept using cymbals but added 907 to it to make the mixture “unbreakable”.

This also explains why Noble Cooley/Zildjian snares keep breaking over time.

 

[Justinhub2003]

Being serious, I wonder if it’s the re-enforcement rings that are carved into the shell that causes the drum to not sound well.

What would be the advantage to doing that with a Bronze snare?

 

[Mojo.Rising]

My opinion: It's a gorgeous drum! A work of art! .....but it sounds terrible. In fact, I think it's the worst sounding bell brass snare I've ever heard. I'm not even kidding.

The tone is all upper midrange, no bottom end to speak of, and has no real "crack" either, despite having an aggressive sound and lots of volume.

How is that even possible? DW managed to fit all the worst frequencies --and none of the good frequencies-- into one snare drum. And it's $4,000!

But that's just my opinion... (flame suit on)

i would rather have this...

 

[Justinhub2003]

i would rather have this...

I maybe wrong but i thought I heard someone mention that Duluth makes the savage shell fir their Bell Brass/bronze ?

If so, it shows how DW screwed this up.



***Edit***

Just confirm that savage custom drums is a partner of Duluth and they make shells for them according to the website.

That’s the thing, most of the USA Bronze snares are going to come from Duluth it seems. Which Is why I think it’s better build your own with them.

Partners — DULUTH BRASS DRUMS

www.duluthbrassdrums.com

 

[Mojo.Rising]

I maybe wrong but i thought I heard someone mention that Duluth makes the savage shell fir their Bell Brass/bronze ?

If so, it shows how DW screwed this up.



***Edit***

Just confirm that savage custom drums is a partner of Duluth and they make shells for them according to the website.

That’s the thing, most of the USA Bronze snares are going to come from Duluth it seems. Which Is why I think it’s better build your own with them.

Partners — DULUTH BRASS DRUMS

www.duluthbrassdrums.com

correctamundo mi amigo!

 

[DutchDrummersDreams]

In DW’s defense.

They could never see the hype this year brought with Duluth and cast bronze snares.

And I still think there is more than only their name and their higher price point to ask such a high price.

Even DW wouldn’t be so crazy to make something that doesn’t sell or at least not enough.

To go even further, If it wasn’r for Duluth recent sucses, they probably would have made more of them with a (slightly) more sell-able price tag as the the start up costs are returned.

 

[jaykaydrums]

wow........sounds like my sub $200 hammered steel snare, only less toneful and with more limited tuning range. even if i liked DW drums, i certainly wouldnt be dropping $4000 on this.

 

[IBitePrettyHard]

Do you hate snare drums that sound good?

Do you also hate money?

Then great news! The True Cast bell bronze snare is back with a shallower 14x5" version.

It has even less low-end than it did before!

 

[DutchDrummersDreams]

4k. And here in Europe even 5,8k…

Although I wouldn’t mind owning that 8” if it wasn’t so ridicoulously priced.