Antonio Drums

Antonio Drums is a small workshop located in the town of Duga Resa, Croatia. At the workshop, master drum builder Anton Šutej offers craftsmanship rarely encountered in the industry. Due to his background as a gigging drummer and his devotion to address drummers' needs for a perfect-sounding instrument he is crafting drums of deep resonance, clarity and high sensitivity.

Meet the Master

Anton Šutej (last name pronounced: Shoe-tey) has been a musician over thirty years. Ever since he was first introduced to percussion instruments, he was interested not only in playing, but also in the craft of making drums.

In the late 90s, Anton started making drums and experimented with various materials and methods. Over a period of time, making snare drums out of a single piece of wood became the focus of his work. He consulted experienced woodcraft masters. Through learning from them and studying literature, and above all through tireless testing and combining of methods, he came up with a unique procedure of manufacturing snare drums which unites the experience of old masters and his own innovations.

After a couple of years of successful production of solid shell snare drums, Anton embarked on new adventure. He started making steam bent solid shell drum sets. These drum sets made of maple, cherry, walnut or ash wood turned out extremely well.

Another step towards the perfect sound Anton was looking for was making true solid shell drums — drums hollowed out of tree logs, with no joint, no glue at all — at first snares, and later whole drum sets. A true solid oak set was presented at Frankfurt Music Fair 2012 and received a lot of attention and praise as a truly unique instrument. True solid drums continue to receive compliments from musicians and positive reviews in the media (Modern Drummer, Drum Heads, Drums and Percussion, Not So Modern Drummer).

The Art of Drum Making

What is a solid shell drum?

A solid shell drum is made from one piece of wood. A single plank of wood is cut, steamed, bent and glued. Matching reinforcing hoops are added at the top and bottom of the shell to stabilize and strengthen it.

True solid shell drum

True solid shells are cut out from tree logs. Their advantage is that there is no glue in them at all. There is also no strain in the wood, and that gives the instrument warm and natural sound.

History

All drums were made from one piece of wood before the development of multi-ply shell technique, which was introduced in 1930s and quickly spread to all major companies because it was much easier and quicker way of making drums. The idea of solid shell drums became popular again in 80s with the snare drums from Noble & Cooley and Johnny Craviotto.

Why is one piece drum shell acoustically superior to multi-ply drum?

In a plywood drum shell there is a layer of glue between each set of plies. Glue is a sound inhibitor. In the traditional solid shell construction there is almost no glue. That is why drums made in traditional way have noble sound and unsurpassed tonal characteristics.