Tama Artwood Snare drums (info, help please!) (2025)

what can people tell me about the Tama Artwood snares? I'm curious about them as I've been looking into deep snares lately, preferably 14X8". I found out that Dave Grohl used a 14X8 tama artwood in nirvana. From what I understand by looking at the Tama website, they don't go further than 6.5 these days. there's a few new ones on ebay though.

anyone have any experience with these snares? any other 8" depth that would produce a similar sound?

I bought my Artwood 14" x 5 1/2" snare about a year and a half ago. I think it sounds great. It does have triple flanged hoops and comes with an Evans Power Center Reverse Dot batter head and an Evans Hazy 300 resonant head. I'm using it now on my vintage kit. If I needed another snare, I wouldn't hesitate getting another Artwood.

Dennis

larsforfaen said:

what can people tell me about the Tama Artwood snares? I'm curious about them as I've been looking into deep snares lately, preferably 14X8". I found out that Dave Grohl used a 14X8 tama artwood in nirvana. From what I understand by looking at the Tama website, they don't go further than 6.5 these days. there's a few new ones on ebay though.

anyone have any experience with these snares? any other 8" depth that would produce a similar sound?

Click to expand...

You will probably have to go back to 1992 or 1993 to find the 8" depth. mostly in the Artstar or Granstar lines.

Mike

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The Tama website has a link for the "History of Tama Catalogs". You can find info on all their older product from there going back to the 60's. I was on it today and I saw 14" x 8" snares offered in both the Artstar II and Granstar II lines. I think I was checking out a 1991 or 1992 catalog, but I'm sure they offered that depth in many other model years...especially in that late 80's-early 90's era.

Hope that helps.

My 8x14 Artwood is from 1987 and is a great rock snare, it's my #1 'big' wood snare to record with. I think was considered pretty high-end judging by the piano black lacquer. I don't know the specific differences, but the newer Artwood drums are definitely not the same, and definitely not as desirable.

It's also interesting that it's the only Tama drum that doesn't incorporate their legacy Star name (such as Superstar, Imperialstar, Rockstar, Fibrestar, Starclassic, etc etc.) It makes it seem like the Artwood was a standalone drum back in the day.

Bermuda

Skitch said:

You will probably have to go back to 1992 or 1993 to find the 8" depth. mostly in the Artstar or Granstar lines.

Click to expand...

Not true. There's quite a few 8" deep Artwood snares on eBay for cheap right now. Limited run, they say.

Hey! New to the forum.

I'm interested in those Lt Ed Artwood snares seen on ebay, I've been eyeing a deep snare for a while but could never swallow the price tag. These on ebay are only $250. I'd like to see if anyone has any input on the specific model offered,

Tama drums 8 x 14" Ltd Ed Artwood MAPLE - This model is offered in desert burst

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tama-drums-8-x-14-Ltd-Ed-Artwood-MAPLE-snare-drum-NEW_W0QQitemZ220541129560QQihZ012QQcategoryZ38095QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D4%26ps%3D63

Additionally, as a newcomer, I have two questions (when I get pics uploaded I'll post a new thread for the slingerland)

1. Anyone know anything about a 1965 Slingerland snare with black wrap that has very sparse purple glitter and just a few pieces of silver glitter. By sparse I mean it's mainly black. Looks like someone just sprinkled purple glitter. And by few, I mean like maybe 10 silver pieces on the entire drum.

2. Anyone had any trouble registering for the Pearl Drum forum. I've tried like 4 times and it never works. Frustrating...

Thanks!

There are two different Artwood lines.

The first is late 80s to early 90s and were Tama's proper professional wood drums in birch, maple and a couple of rosewood drums too, in depths up to 9". Many of these were sold as accompanying drums to Granstar and Artstar II kits. Some of these existed as exotic or signature drums and the 11 lug top head snare is an example of this range, along with a maple drum with bell brass hoops that Myron Grombacher endorsed. Edit to add[ There were also some Gladstone lugged models that allowed you to tune the bottom head from the top via complex lug system and special drum key that worked on the two different diameters of tension bolt. Tama come back to this system periodically and while it works well, it's cumbersome and a bit over-complicated as all Gladstone mechanisms are!

The Artwoods that are available now are mid range drums. Still decent but not the same quality as the earlier drums.