RCI Snare Drums

A few years ago I wrote an article about acrylic drums. This was around the time such drums were becoming popular again and subsequently becoming more visible on TV shows, live gigs and in the drum media. Writing this review some time later, acrylic drums are now widely available from many manufacturers and are very common in the aforementioned situations. Interestingly, the one thing that many of today’‘s acrylic drums have in common is RCI.

Whether or not you’‘re actually aware of it, if you buy acrylic drums from companies like Tama or Orange County, you’‘re buying shells made by RCI. They also have relationships with companies like Ludwig and DW amongst others. Surprised? You really shouldn’‘t be. It’s common practice and many big manufacturers have been outsourcing the production of their shells for decades. Anyway, enough waffle – to the drums.

One of the old problems with acrylic drums made in the 1970s was that the glue separated and subsequently, the joints failed. I’ve shamelessly lifted this from the RCI website (since I wouldn’t have put it any better anyway) which details how the new acrylic shells are made and designed:

“Manufactured by RCI International, hardened acrylic polymer engineered by RCI and made in the USA. A more improved Transparent & Pattern shell design with these key features:

*All seams are acrylic welded and sealed (Engineered at RCI International Patent Pending).

*These shells do not have a support tab or thin strip of plastic holding the seam together.

*The RCI Starlite shells stand second to none due to the fact they are made for the percussion industry.

*RCI Starlite shells (Solid transparent colors, or Pattern colors) are “acrylic welded” at the seams thus making them air and water proof.”

I was provided with three RCI snare drums to try out for this review – one 14×6½ in coke bottle green, a 13×6½ five band pattern and a red and white striped 14×6½.

All of the drums had quite sharp bearing edges and fairly shallow snare beds. The snare mechanisms [GS007] and butt plates are all made by Trick and the 24 strand wires on the 14s were by Purecussion. They also had triple flanged hoops. None of the drums had badges per se, however, they all did have small RCI ‘watermarks’ on the inside of the shell next to the seam.
RCI Coke Bottle Green

Coke bottle drum.

The first obvious thing about this drum was its weight – it’‘s wasn’t light and there’‘s quite a substantial feel about it before you even play it. The reason the drum is so heavy is because the shell is half an inch thick. This in itself actually surprised me as I wasn’‘t expecting that since the other two shells I was given were half this.

Playing the drum was fun. I couldn’‘t get a tremendously high level of tension on the top head, a la Steve Jordan, but it was still tight enough to give a good crack, even when struck without much force. The overall sound was full bodied and cutting with a dry ringing in the centre which became a bit more uncontrolled (but not unattractively so) towards the edge. Rimshots made the drum just stand out more; not the sort of drum you’‘d take on an acoustic or jazz gig, more something for an outdoor rock gig – not subtle, but full of subtlety and sensitivity all the same.

Cosmetically, the drum turned a few heads when I took it out, actually, they all did, and that included those from other drummers; in fact, one of my friends wanted to buy it. It looks quite conspicuous sat on a stand with the ten offset tube lugs and shining chrome work.

This particular drum came with RCI clear ‘Super Duty’ heads which appeared to be an equivalent of the Remo Emperor head, although I am happy to be corrected on that.

The Red One…

From a specs point of view, this drum wasn’t too different from the coke bottle drum. The main difference is the shell – it was only a ¼” thick and was deep red with three solid white bands in the middle in a thin, fat, thin configuration.

This drum was shipped to me with a coated Evans Power Centre Reverse Dot on it. Unlike the other two drums, I don’t know what it sounds like with a clear head on and to some degree, I don’t want to either – I loved it as it was.

It had a big wet fat sound with a blanket amount of ring across the head straight out of the box which I didn’t want to change and it was perfect as alternative sound source on a theatre gig I did which involved playing a diverse collection of songs behind different singers.

With the head tighter, the sound became more focused while still retaining that overall wetness and ring while becoming a bit more generic and general purpose at the same time.

The Small One…

This drum was 13×7” and came in pattern B – 5 band rainbow.

Like the larger drums, it had the same Trick hardware, slightly offset tube lugs (8) and triple flanged hoops. The wires appeared to be a fairly generic ‘Pearl-type’ 20 strand model.

Sound-wise this drum was higher in pitch and had more of fundamental crack to it than the larger drums, but that was to be expected due to the size. It still had the depth and presence of the other drums when struck hard though and the sensitivity was there too. There was some ring out towards the edge and this was different to the larger models. It wasn’t quite the same ‘musical’ ring either – again, not bad, but not so much of the big fat ringy snare drum sound that can be quite useful sometimes and was characteristic of the other two.

The heads that were shipped on the drum were again the RCI Super Duty models. However, this was the only drum where I actually changed the batter head for a coated single ply model. To be honest, this head thinned out the sound and the drum kind of lost its spark for me to some degree. It wasn’t a bad sound at all, far from it, but it sounded more ordinary after the change.

With the bottom head cranked a little more, it did liven up and the sound was more appealing to my ear, but it just wasn’t the same. It did make the drum sound more general purpose, with more of an overall ring to it and there was still some crack and depth to the sound – it just wasn’t as punchy as with the clear head. When I cranked up the batter head as about as much as I dared, the sound was really dry and the crack slightly more pronounced. It’s amazing what a change of head will do to one drum…

I don’t know if it was just the way they were all respectively set up, but all these drums sounded different to my ear, which is obviously a good thing. I mean, you wouldn’t really expect the 13 to sound the same as the larger drums, obviously, but the two 14s, although they were the same size, appealed to me in a separate ways and for different reasons and I’m not convinced it was just because of the head choices. I think it was more of a vibe thing.

The shells have been well made and I couldn’t see anything really wrong with them. I took the heads off two of them and the edges were smooth and seemed quite true. You do get a choice of lugs – tube (single or long), oval and the older Ludwig ‘Classic’ type are all available, as is the choice of finish on the hardware; brass, chrome or black and shell thickness. You can also have vents (aka big holes) drilled in the shell for extra cost.

I used all three drums out with bands, on gigs and in rehearsals, and they all performed well and were met with a positive response from the people I was playing with.

Obviously, these drums have a more apparent visual appeal than most as well. For me, they were all fun to play on and take out, not to mention they sounded great as well. They won’t be for everyone, nothing ever is, but you may well be surprised at how good they do sound – I was. I had an original yellow Ludwig Vistalite which I sold because I could never get a sound out of it I liked. On that basis, I kind of was wary of these drums to begin with, but once I’d tried them they really grew on me to where I did consider actually buying one of the review drums.

www.rcidrums.com

David Bateman