9 Best Snare Drums For All Styles of Music

Gretsch Drums USA Bell Brass Snare Drum Review

The USA Bell Brass is one of my top snare drum picks from Gretsch. It’s an incredible professional snare drum that I think is well-suited for both live stages and recording studios. If you want to add a luxurious snare drum to your collection, it’s well worth looking at. 

The main feature of the Gretsch Drums USA Bell Brass Snare Drum is its 3mm brass shell. 

When playing this drum, I’m blown away by its incredible tone and responsiveness. It offers all the classic tonal qualities that you’d expect from a brass snare, including cutting bite, piercing brightness, and plenty of sensitivity.

I found this particular brass snare to also have a strong low end. This combination gave me a powerful snare drum with an impressively wide tuning range. 

The snare drum comes with a set of 42-strand snare wires, and those do a great job of boosting the sensitivity.

I could hear the snares very clearly when playing the lightest of notes, making this a great tool for playing grooves with a heavy inclusion of ghost notes. 

I’m personally a huge fan of die-cast hoops, as they offer excellent tuning stability and a better tone compared to triple flanged hoops. 

However, the die-cast hoops also add extra weight to the already heavy brass shell, so this is one of the heaviest snare drums I’ve carried around.

If you use this snare in your setup, you just need to make sure that you have a heavy-duty snare drum stand like the DW 9000 series snare drum stand. Otherwise, it may tip the stand over. 

Brass snare drums are always fantastic for versatility. They tend to work wonderfully for every style of music. If you’re looking for something that fits the bill for your band, the Gretsch USA Bell Brass snare is a great option.

Pearl Free Floater Mahogany/Maple Snare Drum Review

This snare is one of the options in Pearl’s popular Free Floater snare drum line. It’s a premium snare drum, and its shell comprises six plies of maple and two plies of African mahogany. 

While playing this snare, you can hear how the maple provides the drum with its classic warm and smooth maple tones, while the mahogany plies add an additional a bit of spice. 

The combination of these two woods led to a versatile snare drum that has plenty of boosted low-end. 

The snare sounds fantastic when tuned low, but you’ll still hear a bit more depth when it’s tuned high. 

The key feature is Pearl’s Free-Floating Lug System. All the Free Floaters have this, and it’s an innovative design that allows the snare drum to have more sustain than usual. It also makes swapping drumheads a bit easier. 

The Pearl Free Floater Mahogany snare also has Pearl’s Click Lock Throw Off, which is one of my favorite throw offs available. It’s incredibly rigid, and it ensures that your snares stay engaged at all times. 

The Smooth Satin finish is beautiful to look at, and it perfectly fits in with most colors of drum kit. So, you don’t need to worry about the snare looking a bit out of place with your set. 

I must admit, this snare drum is quite pricey. However, it’s one that you can use for every style of music, making it a worthy investment to consider.

Ludwig Supraphonic 14” x 6.5” Snare Drum Review

The iconic Ludwig Supraphonic Snare Drum has been played on countless hit records in history ever since the 1960s. 

I’ve always loved its distinctively bright and crisp sound, with the perfect balance of snare crack and resonance. I have played several of these snare drums and each one sounds just as good as the last.

The seamless aluminum shell provides a dry but very sensitive tone and it has a great balance of frequencies across the range. The snare drum also sounds delightful across all tuning ranges from low to high.

This Ludwig Supraphonic snare drum is perfect for use across all styles of music and it sounds remarkable on stage as well as in the studio.

This drum features high-quality and durable chrome hardware as well as 10 classic Ludwig imperial lugs for consistent and reliable tuning.

It’s one of the best snare drums that simply sounds remarkable for a wide range of musical styles.

DW Design Series Brass 14” x 6.5” Snare Drum Review

DW is renowned for creating high-quality drums and hardware, and this snare drum is no exception. The DW Design Series Brass Snare Drum consists of a 1mm, bead-reinforced, all brass shell that has been crafted with care and precision.

It is a seriously good sounding drum. The MAG Throw-off is efficient and classy. It makes turning the snares on and off a breeze and it is silky smooth in operation.

True-Pitch tuning rods help this drum to sound great consistently for each performance. This drum contains all the signature quality of the high-end DW drums but at a fraction of the cost.

After setting the 10 lugs to a medium tuning, this drum opens up with a fantastic tone and projection, and what I love most about this drum is that it produces a thick and lively backbeat.

It is highly responsive and sounds great with subtle ghost notes all the way to explosive rimshots. Its versatility means it would be a perfect upgrade and will deliver years of fantastic sounding performances.

I’m not the biggest fan of the standard DW Design Series maple snare drum, but this brass version impresses me a lot more, and it’s one of my most played snare drums in my setup!

Yamaha Recording Custom 14” x 5.5” Snare Drum Review

The Yamaha Recording Custom is an incredible snare drum for session musicians to have in their collection. There are three versions of this snare, but I’m recommending the aluminum one here. 

Yamaha teamed up with Steve Gadd to create a snare drum that works incredibly well for recording environments, so this snare performs extraordinarily well when hooked up to microphones. 

It has a 1.2mm aluminum shell that produces a fairly dry tone that still has quite a woody sounding ‘pop’. I heard a few overtones, but not too many. And it’s the dry sound that makes the snare so good for recording with mics.

I’m highly impressed with the build quality, and Yamaha even provides two sets of snare wires when you buy this snare so that you can switch between sensitivity levels. 

The tones are further controlled by the 3mm die-cast hoops. They round the snare drum out quite nicely, and they give a stronger rimshot sound when you need it. 

The snare is inspired by older aluminum snare drums, but it has a modern design touch that makes it look seriously sleek. 

The last thing to mention is that the snare comes with a Remo Ambassador batter head, stopping you from needing to get a better head after purchasing it. That Ambassador does a brilliant job of bringing the best tones out of the drum.

This is one of the few snares on this list that I wouldn’t recommend swapping the batter head out. The Ambassador is one of my favorite drumheads ever, and it just sounds so good on almost anything. 

Tama S.L.P Big Black Steel Snare Drum Review

The Tama S.L.P. Big Black Steel snare drum is a powerful snare option with affordability being its main selling point. It’s an inexpensive steel snare drum, but it has the tone and build quality that you could easily expect from high-tier snares. 

The majority of its tone comes from its 1mm steel shell. 

With this drum I get plenty of volume with explosive power behind every stroke. When I didn’t apply any muffling to the drum, it sounded huge with all the dry overtones it produced.

The volume is further boosted by the Starclassic Carbon Steel Snappy snare drum wires that are placed underneath. These make it loud, but they also add a lot of sensitivity to the drum. Steel snare drums can often lack sensitivity, so these do a good job of countering that. 

The hoops placed on the snare are the 2.3mm Steel Mighty hoops. They’re standard triple-flanged hoops, but they feel solid and do a great job of keeping the drum in tune. 

When it comes to tuning, the Tama S.L.P Big Black Steel Snare Drum performs best when tuned somewhere in the low to medium range. It has a huge 8-inch depth, so you get big and powerful sounds when tuning it low. 

This is the type of snare that will allow you to get a deep and thuddy tone that sounds massive in the mix. 

You can tune it high as well, but it won’t sound as effective. You won’t be able to tune it as high as shallower steel snare drums, so drummers who like that sound may be disappointed. 

The drawback of this snare drum is that it’s not versatile. It works very well for styles like rock, metal, punk, and country. However, I don’t think it’s the best option for styles like jazz or hip-hop. 

It’s not a snare drum that you should get to use for every gig you play. I’d say it’s better as an additional option to add to your snare collection that will work brilliantly for certain settings.

Sonor Benny Greb Signature Snare Drum 2.0 Review

Benny Greb’s original signature snare drum was a hit in the drumming community due to its unique size and interesting tones. This version of the snare is an updated one that improves on many aspects of the first. 

I’ve played both the Beech and Brass versions of the Benny Greb Snare, and I really like them both, but I must say I do prefer the Beech shell version over the Brass.

I find this snare has a surprisingly deep sound for a 13” snare drum, but it also has the potential to sound tight and cracking when tuned high. Both tuning settings work for a wide range of styles, making this snare very versatile.

The snare has Sonor’s 2.3mm Power Hoops. They’re triple-flanged hoops that offer a wide dynamic range and make the Sonor Benny Greb Signature Snare Drum 2.0 sound quite powerful. 

The stand-out feature for me with this snare drum is the Twin MonoRail dampeners. You have two dampeners on the inside of the drum shell, and you can control them using levers on the outside. The one dampener is made from sheep’s wool, while the other is made from felt. 

I got softer dampening from the sheep’s wool, and then a bit more from the felt. Both did a great job of giving more pleasant tones to the snare.

The snare also has the Dual Glide system for the strainer and snare wires. It essentially makes turning the snares on very smooth and quiet, offering a premium feel to how those wires react when you adjust the throw off. 

This snare drum isn’t cheap by any means, but it’s a worthwhile investment for any drummer that wants a loud and popping drum with plenty of versatility.

PDP Maple Wood Hoop 14” x 6.5” Snare Drum Review

This PDP Snare Drum we have here is a stunning all-maple drum. This snare drum even features all-maple wood hoops for an authentic vintage look. Not every drummer will be a fan, but I definitely thought this was one of the best-looking snare drums I’ve had in front of me.

The all-maple design gives this snare a real crack and I find it sounds delightfully mellow.

Upon first inspection, I was really impressed with the quality of the construction of this drum. It has been made brilliantly and it possesses a deep and rich tone.

This snare drum sounds especially good in the low-mid tuning range, where the wood hoops really help draw out a vintage sound from the drum.

The model also possesses the innovative MAG snare throw-off. This is a really nice addition to this drum and allows for smooth transitions between having the snares on or off. The only downside of this drum is that it features 8 lugs instead of 10 which isn’t representative of a high-end drum.

This snare drum comes in a very nice and subtle natural wood lacquer finish that I think looks really attractive. The wood hoops complement the natural finish brilliantly, and the whole package looks and sounds superb.

Mapex MPX Maple 14” x 5.5” Snare Drum Review

Here, we have an affordable yet well-built Mapex MPX Maple Snare Drum. This is the upgraded MPX snare drum that is comprised of a 7.2mm maple/poplar hybrid shell that delivers a warm tone, with an open and resonant sound.

The drum delivers a clear attack and projection and I found that it performed especially well in the mid-high tuning range.

I personally find the high gloss ebony finish attractive on this drum, and it’s adorned with chrome-plated triple-flanged hoops and chrome-plated lugs.

This drum also features Remo drumheads and a 20-strand snare wire that delivers a lot of crack for hard backbeats. It also features 10 lugs for precise and even tuning across the drum.

This snare drum is a good option for a beginner or intermediate-level snare drum and its maple shell delivers a good level of performance across the board.

It’s got enough crack to sound good through most styles of popular music and it is constructed well to deliver solid, reliable use at a really attractive and affordable price.

This would be the perfect snare drum for anyone looking to upgrade from the one included with their entry-level drum set, and it would sound even better with an upgraded pro-level drumhead such as a Remo Ambassador head.

Mapex Black Panther Solidus 14” x 7” Snare Drum Review

The Mapex Black Panther Solidus snare drum is highly unique in that it has a seriously thick shell. With a total of 11 plies of maple, this thing packs a serious amount of projection. With it being so loud, it’s a fantastic snare drum for drummers that want a dominating snare drum sound on live stages. 

It also has a deeper-than-usual shell size, making it sound better in mid and low tuning ranges. 

With a deep and loud tone, it tends to work best in rock, metal, and country settings. It doesn’t sound too great outside of those styles, so it’s not very versatile.

The snare has Mapex’s Sonic Saver triple-flanged hoops. These offered strong rimshot sounds, giving the drum plenty of energetic crack.

The snare also has the brand’s popular SONIClear bearing edges. They make the drum a lot more sensitive than you’d expect, so you can easily play soft ghost notes and have them clearly heard. 

This is a snare drum that fits very specific purposes. A lot of drummers find it to be far too loud and aggressive. So, I’d only recommend getting it if you want a huge sound. 

It works best in live settings, but you can get great tones out of it in studio situations as well. It’s also quite affordable compared to many of the other pro options on this list!