Ludwig Snare Drum, 14-Inch (LM402)

A classic Snare with amazing tone options.

Great snare! This thing sounds just like the classic Van Halen and Led Zeppelin snares. I play mostly classic and hard rock like the bands mentioned previously, and it suits that sound perfectly. I have a Remo Ambassador on the batter side head and it sounds great with it. I didn’t like the P-85 throw off it came with, I replaced it with the P-86 which is much better.
This drum is very versatile, great for any sound and is just the best snare for rock and roll!

This drum is a timeless classic for a reason. It’s just gorgeous, and it exceeded all of my expectations. Based on reviews and accounts on various drum forums, I expected the stock strainer to be unusable, and I expected to have to change the stock heads immediately.

I like the stock heads and the stock snare wires quite well, while the mylar snare ribbons and stock strainer are serviceable. This drum records like a champ with a Sennheiser e604, and responds beautifully to sticks or brushes. With the stock heads, it’s a very ringy drum, but the rings are sweet, and add a lot of presence to the sound. This kind of drum is what is behind all the standing advice in the drum community to let a snare drum ring and sing free, instead of muting it to oblivion. This drum produces a wonderful rim shot, and a crisp cross stick. The best part for my money is the ridiculous sensitivity and expressiveness with a pair of sticks. The most subtle single ghost note almost sounds like a delicate buzz roll all by itself. The drum is responsive from ppp all the way to fff, and offers dynamic possibilities that dwarf any of the lesser snares I’ve played. The butter zone in the middle is large, and the tone is very consistent, fat, and you can just about taste that delicious sound!

I have never gotten sound out of a snare that even approaches this without using specialized batter heads, and it blows me away that I’m getting all this out of a head that’s equivalent to a Remo Diplomat. I play Ambassadors or thicker on every other drum, and never use Diplomats anywhere except the resonant side of toms. I had to go to deader and deader heads on my other snare to come anywhere close to controlling the horrible, dissonant ringing, while this drum sings a pure tone. I don’t want to get a Moongel or a power dot of any kind anywhere near this thing. I may very well end up continuing to run the Ludwig WeatherMaster heads, though I’m sure I will play around and try different options to see if there is anything better.

The stock strainer is probably the weakest link. While it’s serviceable, and I don’t plan to change it, I did have some issues getting the snares to turn off without a struggle. Substituting grosgrain for the mylar snare ribbons would probably go a long way. Even though it’s working now, it just feels cheesy, and that is something I might upgrade in the future. I’m giving the drum five stars anyway, because man oh man oh man, this thing is just the real deal. I would have been happy with less than I got. It was pretty expensive when you consider the 4,001 knock-offs floating around out there on the market, but I feel the money was well-spent to get the real deal, made in the USA by everyone’s favorite musical instrument conglomerate, Conn-Selmer. (Et tu, Ludwig? I wasn’t expecting the Conn-Selmer logo on the owner’s manual, but it isn’t surprising, since they bought pretty much everybody in the country.)

The snare drum was exactly what I was looking for for my replica John Bonham kit

This is the real deal. The responsiveness of the snare out of the box and with zero tuning was amazing. The lightest touch produces a great tone and the dynamics are mind bending from very soft buzzes and rolls at the rim, all the way to ear shattering snare cracks dead center. My last snare had 3 moon gels on it and a sound ring to make it sound good but the 402 rings like a bell in a good way. It’s the first drum I ever used that I didn’t want to gel or mute. Let it ring baby, let that drum ring and ping and let the tone speak for itself. You don’t bring an opera singer to the party and ask them to whisper after all.

I play mostly jazz and I find it’s versatile enough for brush work, and loud enough for rock. With a little tuning it can sound like anything from a tom, to a piccolo snare.

This drum is sweet. It looks amazing coming out of the box, a classic, beautiful design. I swapped the stock Weather Master heads for an Emperor Coated/ Clear Ambassador Reso. Also swapped stock snares for 42-strand wires. No complaints about sound from this beauty.

My only complaint to date is the strainer. The standard P-85 strainer would often get snagged when moving the snares from off to on. This sucks big time when you’re in the middle of a song, fighting with the strainer to co-operate. I got desperate and almost snapped the arm off it once. This may have been a problem on my end, seating it incorrectly or something. I’ll soon swap to a P-86 strainer.

Also, watch out for fingerprints on this! The chrome looks awesome when it’s clean, however fingerprints really stand out.. and drive me mad. Minor detail but thought it was worth mentioning.

Overall, very good drum. If mine got stolen or destroyed in a fire I would buy another.