I've always heard the Radio King was the most recorded snare.

A couple of things to point out here.....most of the Mowtown hits were recorded with Gretsch drums. Stax/Volt.....Acrolite and Dynasonic. Stewart Copeland when with the Police....a Pearl COB Jupiter snare......

Now with that said, I can name quite a few others that WERE recorded with a Supra that were NOT studio guys: Ginger Baker with Cream and Blind Faith. Mitch Mitchell. Bill Bruford with Yes. John Bonham. Steve Gadd (ok he's a studio guy too, but hey.....steeley dan?). Keith Moon (he prefered a Supra over the Premier 2000). Ian Paice. Jim Gordon. Sib Hasian. Charlie Watts. Carmine Appice. Mick Fleetwood. Nick Mason. Joe Morello. Buddy Rich.

The list just goes on and on. The supraphonic is the most recorded snare hands down. Radio King a close second.

It has a pleasing sound to the ears and it looks good too. The 68 I own is just as sensitive as a super-sensitive or dynasonic. And yes, it has been recorded as well.......so add me and my late father to the list.....

So I'm not following the hostility in the original post........ :confused:

The Ludwig Supra is a great snare. It does not surprise me one bit on how many classic songs that snare was played on. For me..

Supra

Acrolite

Dynasonic

You can't go wrong with any of those snares. To be fair, I have never owned a Radio King.

I should probably state that I'm not down on any person. I'm not even down on a snare. I'm just venting about a bad piece of marketing that the drumming community has adopted and has continued to perpetuate. It just bugs me. I know I'm being petty and I will live longer if I just let it go. That's why I'm venting. I'm purging. I will get it out of my system and all will be right with the world. Whoo-Hoo!!

With that said...

QUOTE:

Now with that said, I can name quite a few others that WERE recorded with a Supra that were NOT studio guys: Ginger Baker with Cream and Blind Faith. Mitch Mitchell. Bill Bruford with Yes. John Bonham. Steve Gadd (ok he's a studio guy too, but hey.....steeley dan?). Keith Moon (he prefered a Supra over the Premier 2000). Ian Paice. Jim Gordon. Sib Hasian. Charlie Watts. Carmine Appice. Mick Fleetwood. Nick Mason. Joe Morello. Buddy Rich.

UNQUOTE:

I was referencing Stewart's kit - the Tama Imperialstar kit. Bad sound.

Actually, Keith, Charlie, Joe and Buddy all used other snares. A Supra made it in the mix occasionally, but they had others they used more. Keith used several different snares. I used to have lots of Keith pics on my walls. He was a Premier man, a Luddy man, and "whatever Jim or Ringo happened to be playing" man. Joe was all over his Jazzfest. Buddy was all over the snares of many different makers. He loved his Fibes. Steve played several different snares on his way to the Yamaha line. And guess what? We can all name drummers that played other snares. Dave Clark, Mickey Dolenz, Keith Thibodeaux, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson, Sammy Davis, Charlie Callis, Phil Collins, etc etc etc. The point is this:

To use the number of recordings as a basis for saying this is the Best Snare = is faulty. It doesn't wash. It's just something that has bugged me for years. I felt I needed to vent. The snare is very cool. It's the marketing thing that has been kept alive by drummers through the years that bugs the heck out of me. It's bad stats.

And here's a pic of the actual kit Motown used. It's a Luddy. And a shot of one of Keith's many snares. Yes, he played a Luddy Supra. No, it was not his only main snare. He "played the field" quite a bit.

Pound for pound, ANY Ludwig spun , seamless shell is a superior drum in terms of construction, in my opinion. Sound is as subjective as the hands of the players who made those hit recordings. Any of those hit maker drummers could have made hit recordings with any of the available snare drums of that era -and there weren't that many to choose from!

Even the most expensive boutique drums don't stack up to the beauty of a Supra or an Acrolite or a Super Sensitive. A rolled, welded shell just can't compare. And that's exactly how many of the much more expensive modern drums are made. Talk about marketing hype! You can pay a lot more and get a lot less. Now, if one buys into that scheme, then the marketers have won.

There is nothing "generic" about a vintage Ludwig snare drum. The throwoff, lugs, tone control knob, shell and badge (and sound) are all Ludwig. There is nothing "off the shelf" about one of these Ludwig drums -even though it's commonly available for a comparatively low price.

Like it or not, sometimes a design just ends up being "the" one. In my (and many other people's) opinion, Ludwig Supra qualifies.

Hit records have been made using the Linn drum, too. It just goes to show that hit records do not define the value of music. The drums of the time are used to make the hits of the day.

As a supraphonic lover (I fell in love with Bonhams sound on the zep tracks), I have to say that I think the point is being slightly missed. Nobody is slating the validity of the the class of the supra, I think all is being pointed out is that, whether or not it was or wasn’t the most recorded drum, that does not make it the best drum?

In my humble opinion, "best" drum is a flawed statement in itself. From a production perspective there are hundreds of different sounds out there achieved in all manner of ways from all manner of drums, what I am suggesting is that there is no "best drum" just simply the right drum/s for the right song. Perhaps Stewart Copeland found the sound of Entry level Tama drums exactly what the production called for? Just like Darrell Abbott (Dimebag) tracked with solid state amps as opposed to tubed for their sound and how it would fit into the production.

But that’s just my :2Cents:

I was going to throw in that factoid to this discussion. IIRC, there were also some Rodgers drums as the other house kit at Hitsville USA.

Other than that, I'm pretty much with JWG there. Best is relative and your best and my best might not be the same. (I gotta admit, I do have a predisposition to Ludwig snares though. Maybe because I snagged a Black Beauty early on and never felt the need to change, but they've always done me right.)

I think everyone is missing the point here....no one, including Ludwig, ever claimed the Supra to be the "best" drum.....just the "most recorded". Big difference.

BTW, I don't think I've ever seen Joe Morello play a jazzfestival.....every photo, video, recording I've seen/heard....its a super-ludwig, then later a supraphonic......last time I checked, they didn't make chrome 10 lug Jazz festivals......also, yes Keith was a Premier player, but like Steve Gadd....the snare was almost always a Ludwig supra.....he just prefeerred the sound of it....check your pic archives....you will see a supra there 9 times out of 10. And speaking of Steve Gadd, while yes, he endorses Yamaha, he prefers the Supra as his main snare....again check the pic archives.

As far as Mowtown having a "house set"...not true in the later years. each of the three main drummers that made up the basis of the funk brothers usually brought in there own kit. One played Ludwig, one Rogers, one Gretsch....so its all in those records. In the very early days Mowtown did have a mixed house set made up of many brands, but by the end of the 60's, the drummer brought in his own kit. It was whatever Berry Gordy could afford at the time from the local pawnshops.....

And lets not forget about Hal Blaine.....yes he was on soooo many hit records, so why wouldn't you count these towards the most recorded snare title?

I still don't get what all the fuss is about in the starting of this thread. Again, nobody ever claimed the Supraphonic to be the BEST snare......just the MOST RECORDED.

Firstly, I think Ludwig-dude's comments are spot on.

Look at it the other way around.

The recording engineers of the time did not use the Supra because it had the reputation of being the best drum. They used it because it provided the sound they were looking for and I'm willing to bet that most of the drummers using Supra's were using them for the same reasons. No one was going for the record or trying to make the Supra the "best" or ""most recorded" drum. The reputation came later after someone looked at the numbers and decided to use it as a marketing tool. At the end of the day that's all it is, a stat that can be used as a marketing tool.

The definition of "best" is purely subjective and listener driven. You can't determine it by one stat. You can infer some things like it's a damn good drum but you can't say it's the best.