Stave snare wood choices

GCDrummer

Member
Hello, I am starting to gather materials to build my own stave snare drum in my wood shop class, and I have access to a variety of hardwoods - cherry, white oak, maple, purple heart etc. I was wondering if combining two different woods would result in a great sounding snare, or if it would perform poorly! I was considering White Oak and Purple Heart simply because it would look cool, but I'm open to suggestions and opinions!

Please post your thoughts
 
combining two (or more) woods is fairly common with stave builders and it yields perfectly fine snares. as for white oak and purple heart, I'm not personally a fan of white oak, but thats all personal taste and honestly, pretty much anything looks cool and has contrast with purple heart ;)
 
A typical format is a full stave in the primary wood, with a thin stave (say 1/8" - 3/16") between each full stave. This offers a nice aesthetic whilst keeping a focus on the sonic properties of the primary wood species. Of course, you can mix stave segment thicknesses any way you want, but keep in mind the sonic advantages of stave. These shells feature the wood character far more than multiple ply shells, therefore a distinct & focussed tone aligned to the species has the greatest impact.
 
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