The Gorgeous Tones of a Hybrid Backbeat Your backbeat tone just got a whole lot better! Enter the Starclassic walnut/birch snare drum from TAMA: a 6mm, 6-ply snare featuring two plies of birch, three core plies of black walnut, and a single-ply black walnut exterior veneer. This dichotomy produces remarkable sonics, highlighted by the birch's bright, hard-cutting attack and the richer midrange and low-end punch of black walnut. The Starclassic walnut/birch's premier tone performs equally well under the studio microscope as it does upon drum risers. This snare comes accompanied by a suite of exceptional hardware, most notably a pair of authoritative and rock-solid die-cast hoops to maximize presence and lock-down intonation. Aided by handsome Starclassic lugs, an ultra-dependable MLS30A strainer, and a 20-strand set of TAMA's super-sensitive hi-carbon snares, drummers at Sweetwater have found that this fantastic backbeat bites and tenors with true articulate precision in virtually any application.