What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday, suffering with my chronic sinuses, I at least hoped taking my 'new' Star snare to church and trying to put it through its paces would make me feel better. However, I felt so horrible with my sinuses and the ever present shaky equilibrium that goes with it when this bad, I thought the little snare sounded just 'OK'.

However, after a week of rinsing with the dreaded neti pot, combined with it being my 47 birthday tonight, I hoped I had just been so out of it last Sunday I hadn't been able to make a truthful assessment. I was right. This little Star snare sounds much better than I had hoped for, very sensitive, tons of attack when needed, and best of all for me, needs no muffling!! I don't like many overtones on my snare drums for some reason, so normally use a wallet, handkerchief or a little moongel on them, but this baby really needs none of that since the overtones are very nicely controlled as is...cool!! I also hate internal dampening, so I removed it as I do on all my snares. On a train beat, it sounded very good, and on the heavy, fast 2 and 4 songs my church also likes, it kept myself and other musicians inline. All in all, another excellent addition to my slowly growing snare collection.