What do the gretsch COBs sound like?

I've only played the COB versions a few times sitting in at jazz jam sessions and I thought they sounded great.

The Wood round badge, that is another story entirely. Of all of my 12 snares, the Round Badges are without a doubt the worst sounding. A lot of people say that it is the diecast rims, but I personally don't think that is the case. I think the sound comes from the snare beds, which as someone mentioned earlier, are cut extremely deep.

I also own a new Gretsch Free Floating Snare with diecast hoops and it is a very good snare for the money. It sounds great, and has a very large tuning range. I'd like to think that over the years Gretsch has perfected their sound.

As for the drumsets themselves, we had a stop sign badge 13/16/22 kit at my university which we all loved playing. Of course it had a supraphonic snare which I don't think I need to say sounded great.

I really think the problem people have with Gretsch is their round badge era snares. The rest of their drums sound great.

Back in the day, in my circles, Gretsch was at best, considered 3rd class behind "The most famous name on drums", Rogers , Slingerland ,Premier and then Gretsch. Nothing personal, that's just the way it was .

My first Professional kit was a natural maple lacquer Gretsch 18/12/14 with a matching 5 x 14 wood shell snare drum.I picked one with the 42 strand snares as I thought it would add some articulation and crispness to the sound.The toms and bass drum sounded great and I never had any problems with them.The snare on the othr hand was a dog! I grew to really hate this snare drums it was boxy and the throw off would release at the most inopportune time.I ended up trading it in a few years later.The funny thing about it was I met the guy that bought it a few years back and he told me he had to get the bearing edges and snare bed recut and even then the snare didn't sound great. Go figure.

The only 'real' Gretsch kits I've played, I didn't own. I didn't like them. They were kind of boring. I did own several pseudo Gretsch kits. Among these, I had a Catalina Birch and a Blackhawk kit. They were pretty cool. Neither one was 'great'. I did some work on the Blackhawk shells and they began to wake up and sound out, but they were never 'great'. So, I'm not much of a fan of the drums. I prefer something that's got personality and makes a statement. There is no particular brand that accomplishes this. Currently, I like my vintage Ludwig kit and my vintage Slingerland kits. I've also liked the sound that the Pearl African Mahogany shells made. They were quite exquisite. My favorite snares have been my custom Remo, a DW, and a Yamaha Birch Custom with wood hoops. That's really about it. Oh wait...there was a Premier snare I had years ago. It was a brass shell with wood inside. That one was kind of neat. Oddly enough, I never liked my Ludwig chrome snares. I've owned quite a few. My first kit was a 1964 Red Sparkle Ludwig with 'that' chrome snare. I was too young and too stupid to be able to get a good sound out of it. So, year after year I purchased Ludwig snare after Ludwig snare (all chrome) and never really liked them. I guess I'm a wood snare guy. I've played for about 45 years and still don't like them. Strange. I'm that .001 percent, I guess. Geez! Did I get that far off topic? Sorry. ummmmmm......oh yeah. I don't like 'that great Gretsch sound'. There.

LOL @ my earlier reply! Geez! Burger Kin I actually really like the way Gretsch sound -especially the tom tom sound when applied to jazz. I think I'm starting to "hear" the sound of a time gone by. I'm hearing the look and the cigarette smoke -lots of things that made things look and sound the way they did. Life was in "Chromacolor"

Please pardon me if I contradict myself from time-to-time. I'm getting old and my mind is....is...is...what was I saying again?Sailing2

The Gretsch round badge snares I've played on all sounded really bad. I thought the cheap $40 student snares next to them sounded much better.

What a trip. The round badge kick and toms are still great sounding, though.

Yes. I still don't like the Gretsch snare sound. But I have grown to really like the tom tom and some of the bass drum sounds I've heard in recent months.

Would the sound be attributed to the bearing edge? I thought Gretsch used a 30 degree edge that was kind of the reverse from the other drum companies. It went from the outside of the shell towards the inside, correct? And the diecast hoops I am sure played a big part.