It does everything really well. I have a Black Beauty, a Supraphonic, a boutique stave walnut, a Pork Pie brass, a Carl Palmer 3 1/2, and half a dozen more. If I bring only 1 snare to the gig this is it. The BB is great too but at more than twice the price of this aluminum TAMA SLP, the BB stays at home in the studio and this one goes out and gets a lot of compliments. It's versatile with a nice smile curve and a lot more bottom than you expect when tuned middle or low tuning. It can also pop when tuned up. Just enough ring to not sound choked. Highly recommended.

I purchased this just under a year ago, and have been nothing but impressed with it.
- It maintains a consistent sonic palette between low and high tension tunings.
- It has a great, dry sound at low volume, perfect for ghost note work, but a good throaty bite when struck with a medium to high amount of force.
- It records really well. Great sounds with and without dampening, very versatile.
Great snare for the money.

I have a thing for the SLP line of snare drums and nearly own them all. I only use the snares for recording with my 60s rogers holiday kit so I do not know how they sound live but I would assume just as good. This is now my main goto snare drum for recording indie rock, blues, etc. The demo video done by sweet water is good but the snare is hollow and ring sounding to me and not as good of a representation of how good this thing actually sounds. I use evans hd dry heads for recording and this just owns! One moon gel and this thing sounds fat, warm with just enough top end bite to lay beautifully in the mix. sounds amazing through both an sm57 and audix I5 and a sennheiser 441. This has now been bumped to the top 3 all time favs for me. Its funny how often I was told to but a supraphonic or a black beauty or a high end brady, etc. Yes I have owned them and tried them all and could not hear enough of a difference in the recording to justify the price of some of the classic high end snare drums, not when these slp drums exist and exist at these prices. if you tune well it will sound like a million bucks!

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