All user reviews of 5/5 for the Mapex Black Panther Machete

Mapex's Black Panther Machete snare drum is a steel shell drum that is 14 x 6.5 in size. The snare drum is sold on it's own and not in any specific kit that I know about. I'm not a drummer, but as an engineer and musician playing with a drummer, I recently recorded this snare drum. We didn't use it on every song, but only one or two that we felt it really worked best on. It's a really thick snare drum, as it's got a very deep shell to work with which gives it it's ultra deep and fat sound. We didn't end up having to tune it all that much as we were pretty satisfied with what it could do from the get go, although of course you can tune it to get some different tones from it. While the sound of the Black Panther Machete is deep, it's also quite crisp and cuts through a mix very well. We used this snare drum on a couple of the songs that called for a slightly darker timbre, while using more traditional cracking snares for the lighter and poppier songs. Since I'm not a drummer I don't know too much about the specifications of the drum in terms of hardware, but I do know that the drum sounds pretty damn great! I don't think that I'd recommend it as an all purpose snare drum in an ideal situation, but it could certainly fit this need if you wanted it to. Rather, I think it's best as an extra color to have in the recording studio since it does have somewhat of a specific type of sound in my opinion. Either way you decide to use it, Mapex's Black Panther Machete snare drum is quite a good one for the price...