The 1920s Black Beauty is the holy grail of vintage snares. This rare and collectible vintage Black Beauty snare drum features a 5×14 flower engraved heavy brass shell, brass clips and rims and 10 tube lugs. 100% full-bodied vintage tone!

The snare was recorded at the Tiny Tape Room in Nashville, TN. Engineered and mixed by Kyle Monroe and played by drummer Daniel Sousa. With over 200 individual samples, each mix was recorded with multiple hits at each velocity with additional variants such as; side stick, no snares, flams, rim shots, and layered percussion, ghost notes so your samples are as natural and versatile as possible.

Each signal chain was specifically chosen to compliment this old snare and give the recording a vintage sound that competes in the modern world. My personal favorite was the stereo RCA-44bx that was used as the room mics. Or maybe the AEA R88 overheads into a pair of 1073s and UREI 1176 Rev Fs. You will just have to decide what your favorite sound is as the close mics and room mics can be separated so you can decide the best sound for your song!

The Mixes
“Tight” mix includes the top and bottom snare mics on their own.
“Natural” mix is the top snare, bottom snare, overheads and room mics mixed to be an even album ready sound.
”Big” Mix is the top snare, bottom snare, overheads, room microphones, and an additional hallway microphone for a larger sound with a longer decay.
”Room and Overhead” is exactly what it sounds like. The room and overhead mics only. We made this mix so that you could combine this mix with the “tight” mix and control how much of the room sound you want in each song.

The Sound
This sample pack is split into three main sections. The first is the “Open” section. This recording is the snare in all its glory! No gaffers tape, moon gels, tea towels or the drummers wallet on the snare… no dampening of any kind. The second section is the dampened section. We used various dampening devices to bring that fat sound at each of the different velocities. The dampened snare hits still have the charm of a vintage brass snare, but with a shorter decay, less overtones, and a punchy attack. The last section is the “vibe” section. This is a collection of mixed snare hits using our favorite EQs, compressors, analog reverbs, delay, distortion, fuzz and of course a handful of different prints to tape.

All files are stereo WAV files and will be downloadable immediately after purchase.