“I don’t shoot blood out of my bass drums nor do I worship Satan!”
The thought may race across your mind before reading the review but this snare is too funky to have been forged within the Bowels Of Hell! The Joey Jordison Signature Snare Drum is a really versatile drum that fits within a lot of musical genres outside of Metal. The 13×6.5 (1mm) black steel shell is fixed with flanged Super Hoops and has the Slipknot ‘S’ logo silkscreened between the lugs. The nice thing about having black rims and a black shell is that it will blend with almost any finish. It ships with a Remo Coated Batter Head, which is fine, but a thicker head would definitely reduce some of the overtones. The logos may be a turn-off but I wouldn’t imagine most audience members would know what they stand for or that they would even be able to see them.
I first played the JJ snare drum with a 9-piece funk band and it found a nice tonal space between the horns and guitar. The stock batter head was tightened a little past a middle tuning range, which gave it the quick articulated sound, needed for that musical setting. I then used it on a 4-piece Country gig but had it tuned a bit under the middle tuning range. Surprisingly, the 6.5” depth kept the timbre low and breathy, which would have been accentuated even more with a 2-ply head. By the end of the show, I had tuned it back to normal as it fit better for the music, but it’s good to know that it will go lower than other power piccolos. The cross-stick sound is what you would expect from a flanged hoop. Die-cast hoops would improve the overall sound of the drum but would also knock it out of its comfortable price range.
If you need a Rock snare drum ala’ Muse or Them Crooked Vultures, this is not the one. However, it would greatly compliment a wood model as an auxiliary snare. The 13” diameter may be weird if you’re used to bashing a 14” snare. Don’t forget to check if your snare stand can comfortably accommodate a smaller diameter drum.
Although this was designed to appeal to Metal drummers and Slipknot “maggots”, it is a great snare drum to have if you land the drum chair for Maxwell… but you might want to spray paint over the logos just to be safe!
– Derek Wayne