Intro | Construction And Features | Appearance | Sound

The Spaun Drum Company is the brainchild of two men who met a few years ago: Brian Spaun and Dave Pimentel. In retrospect, their talents and interests seemed to dovetail almost perfectly into the skills needed to design and build a line of premium drums- Brian did drum repairs, refinishing, and customizing, while Dave had a background as a machinist. Both were also dedicated drummers and both had a desire to build quality drums with unique features, but at an affordable price. They formed a partnership, did design and prototype work, and by early 1996 were shipping their first kits.

The Spaun Drum Company focuses on one line of drums, and in a sense focuses on one drum (albeit in different sizes and colors): All their shells feature the same materials, construction, number of plies, and type of bearing edge. All of their drums use the same custom-designed lug, and the same type of steel hoop is used on all snares and toms. (The bass drum hoops are maple.) The same throwoff and butt is used on all sizes of snares, and all Spaun drums feature the same satin hand-rubbed finish (available in a variety of hues).

This "boiling down to the essentials" philosophy doesn't mean that Spaun isn't willing to make changes when the need arises. I found three things to "nit-pick" about on our test kit- and in each case they'd already implemented changes in their current production to correct the situation.

Our test kit consisted of an 18 x 22 kick, a 5 1/2 x 13 snare, 7 x 8, 8 x 10, and 9 x 12 rack toms, and a 14 x 16 "hanging" floor tom. All toms were supplied with RIMS, which we mounted on DW stands for this review. (Spaun doesn't sell stands or pedals.) We were also given two additional snare drums to review: a 5 x 12 and a 5 x 14. All heads were Cannon Attack models, though Spaun will ship whatever heads the customer desires from Remo, Evans, Aquarian, or Cannon (which pretty much covers the gamut.) The toms had Thin Skin 2's on top and 1- Ply Thin heads on the bottom (both clear). The kick had a clear single-ply No Overtones (integral muffling ring) on the batter side and a black 1-Ply Thin Bass resonant head on the front with an offset 4" hole. The snares had 1-Ply Medium Coated heads on top and clear Snare Side Mediums on the bottom, except for the 13" snare, which had a Snare Side Thin on the bottom.

Construction And Features

When Dave and Brian were building prototypes, they experimented with different shell configurations (5-ply, 6-ply, 8-ply with reinforcement rings, without reinforcement rings, etc.) They decided that the sound they were looking for was best achieved by using 8-ply maple shells without reinforcing rings, so that's the shell design all Spaun drums are built upon, from 6" toms to 26" bass drums. (Drums are available in a variety of depths for any given diameter.)

Along with this shell they chose a rather unusual bearing edge: a double 45° cut that puts the actual edge in the center of the shell's eight plies. This reduces the effective diameter of each drum slightly, avoiding the possibility of the bearing edge coming in contact with the collar of the head rather than the flat part (which Spaun states can sometimes happen with drums having a single 45° cut, making them difficult to tune in the lower ranges). Under examination the bearing edges proved to be very precise. Both the inside and outside cuts were very clean and smooth, and running my finger around the actual point of the edges revealed no dips, bumps, voids, or other flaws of any kind. Well done!

The lugs are unique to Spaun, having been designed from scratch by Dave and Brian. Machined from solid brass, they consist of a cylindrical body with a threaded insert pinned in place. The insert "floats" within the body making it less likely to become cross-threaded (according to Spaun) than a solid lug that has threads tapped directly into the body. Double-ended lugs for snares 6" and less in depth are identical, except they're drilled to accept an insert at both the top and bottom. All lugs are attached to the drum with a single, small Allen bolt in order to minimize contact between the hardware and shell.

All of the review drums except the kick and the 14" snare came with high-quality, chrome-plated, heavy (2.3mm) triple-flanged hoops. I much prefer this gauge of hoop over the thinner flanged hoops you frequently see, and while they're not die-cast hoops, they go a long way in terms of sound and ease of tuning, while keeping the cost under control.

The hoops on the 5 x 14 snare were a different story. Spaun offers optional black or brass plating on drum hardware, and the 5 x 14 came dressed in black. This was fine, except the hoops were decidedly different from the rest. They seemed thinner, and they were pulled out of round at each of the slotted "ears" that accepts a tension rod. You could see by casual observation that the hoop wasn't making full contact with the head collar at each ear, and running your finger around the inside of the hoop felt more like tracing the inside of a rounded stop sign than a circle. When I questioned Spaun about this they said they'd originally purchased those hoops because they came already plated, but after seeing the quality control (or lack therof), they've decided to pass on them. For current production they're having the 2.3mm hoops plated domestically, so there should be no problem by the time you read this.

The snare throwoff was a decent, if somewhat generic, side-throw unit. I've seen smoother throwoffs, but this one was solid and quiet, and it worked fine. It also allowed the user to adjust the tension while the snares were engaged, which is more than can be said about some expensive front-drop designs. The bass drum was fitted with nice, heavy-duty spurs. I found myself frustrated by the lack of any sort of memory locks (either on the pivots or the telescoping extensions), but before I even mentioned it, the folks at Spaun informed me that these spurs have been changed to the same design that DW uses (including memory locks). So this small inconvenience will be eliminated on future drumsets.

Appearance

Because the review set we were sent was Spaun's "NAMM" kit (used as a trade-show display and demo kit) I was warned that it might have minor finish flaws, but actually it seems to have held up very well. Although the finish appeared to be a traditional hand-rubbed satin oil finish, there's more to it than that. Exactly what, I don't know (Spaun considers it something of a trade secret), but it did seem somewhat tougher than other oil finishes I've seen. (Mind you, this is not a "high durability" finish on the order of a plastic wrap; it'll still show dings and bumps and other evidence of rough handling.) Spaun also claims this finish has acoustic benefits, inhibiting shell vibration less than a heavy lacquer finish. More about this in a minute.

The kit was finished in "blonde" (natural mmaple), and the combination of the natural wood (with its understated satin finish) and the small brass lugs added up to what I thought was a very classy-looking set of drums. So much so, in fact, that I thought Spaun's rather large, black, rectangular logo badges distracted from the natural beauty of the shells. I understand that a manufacturer (particularly a new one) wants to display their name as much as possible, but I think if I were going to order a set of these drums I'd ask to have the badges left off and let the prominent logo on the front of the bass drum serve as the product identifier. (All this is a matter of personal taste, of course.)

I've already mentioned the black hardware on the 14" snare, but from a visual point of view I thought it was sharp, adding a contemporary look to the drum. As a note, when a customer orders the optional brass or black plating, everything except the brass lugs gets plated- including the snare wires and tension rods.

The 5 x 12 snare was finished in "cinnamon," a warm, orange-tinted stain that shows the wood grain nicely. I really like the looks of this drum; I'd love to see a whole kit in this color. And while a cinnamon-stained drumset with black hardware might be a bit much (unless your band was based on a Halloween motif), I think a snare in this shade with black hardware might be striking.

Sound

Good looks will only get you so far; sooner or later you've got to put up the sonic goods. (Or, to butcher a famous quote, "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ring.") Happily, the Spaun drums sounded as good as they looked.

Out of the box the kick had a big, ringy, aggressive sound when played wide open (relying only on the integral muffling ring in the batter head for dampening). The drum arrived with the front head tighter than I normally prefer, but before I dropped the tension I tried a muffling technique Brian suggested: placing a bath towel in the drum with the longer dimension from front to back so that it lays against the bottom of both heads. This provided just enough dampening to remove a little of the ring, but left a nice punchy tone that cut well in a rock/funk context. My usual kick prep (lowered tension and minimal dampening against the batter head only) brought out a beefy fundamental that I really enjoyed.

Each of the snare drums had its own personality. Let's begin with the 5 x 14. I'll start by stating that this is not usually my favorite size of snare, from any maker. In 14" drums I prefer either 3 1/2" to 4" depth or 6" to 7" (depending on the type of music). But I must say that this ten-lug drum did a credible job of covering the bases at either end of the tonal spectrum. I wasn't exactly knocked out by its character (not as much "wood" as I expected) or its projection, but I think this may be partly due to the poor hoops. I didn't have a 14" 2.3mm hoop on hand to see what the drum would sound like with the currently offered hardware, but I did install a die-cast hoop out of curiosity, and the sound improved markedly (indicating that the drum iself is fundamentally sound).

The 5 1/2 snare, on the other hand, needs no excuses. This is the drum that "goes with" the review kit (and is the one I spent the most time playing), and it's easy to see why. In the lower ranges this drum had plenty of depth and body. As I raised the tuning most of the body remained, allowing me to achieve a very bright sound with plenty of "pop" that also had an underlying thickness to it. Rimshots were strong and cutting, and snare articulation (aided by the thinner bottom head on this drum- proably 2 mil instead of 3 mil) was quite good. Wide open, it had plenty of ring (which to me is a plus, since you can always get rid of it). Adding a muffling ring tightened it up considerably, leaving the crisp/fat backbeats solidly in place. Very nice.

The little 5 x 12 snare was also a delight, although of a more specialized nature. In a low/mid tuning range it surprised me by producing a fairly acceptable "standard" snare sound, but why bother? It's in the upper ranges that it really shines, so that's where I kept it most of the time. The first time I hit this drum after tuning it up I got a big grin on my face and I broke into the opening riff from "Two Princes" by the Spin Doctors. (Yup, it' that sort of drum.). I wouldn't want to use it as my main snare on every song, but it would be nice to hang it on the left side of your kit as an auxiliary drum, and occasionally place it in the primary position when you really want to whip up the funk.

The toms had that singing quality we've come to expect from quality maple shells: a big, warm sound with substantial sustain. The 10" tom in particular had a sound that belied its size. It sounded like a 12" drum, and I could easily see using it as the mounted tom in a standard-sized four-piece kit. Swapping the top heads to single l-ply coated models (Evans Uno 58's, not unlike Ambassadors) produced a bright, lively tone that would work well in a recording session or in a jazz situation.

As to whether or not the finish made a sonic difference, I couldn't say. I've heard laquered drums that sounded similar to these (and ones that didn't), but in any event the minimalist approach to the finish certainly didn't hurt. My general impression was that these drums will do just about anything you ask of them, which is no mean feat.

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