Overview
This is a slightly strange one. It was released in 2005 and only appears in the 2006 catalogue, listed with the Deep Forest Walnut Series. However, there already was a 14" x 6.5" in that series, albeit with the same black chrome hardware as the other models.
I originally thought that this one didn't have the Deep Forest badge on it. The one catalogue it's in shows all the other Deep Forest Walnut snares with their Deep Forest badge visible; this model just shows the Black Panther badge (see the excerpt below). However that assumption was totally wrong as can be clearly seen from the shots of Cory Kottick's example. So...a full Deep Forest then, rather than a close cousin.
Still not sure why the change of hardware for just one model though... 🤔
Nikolas Georgopoulos whose Premium Series badges version is shown here, provided this useful information about it...
I got this snare in 2017 and it had already had a past life with potentially more than one other owner. I unfortunately am not able to pin point it's manufacturing date...(my edit - I think it was made in September 2005 going by the 05/9 date on the internal label).
(...) Mapex had the Deep Forest line that was made of a specific walnut timber. They were received so well that when the timber ran out they used another walnut timber but retained the same manufacturing process and hence they called it the Premium Series. It's basically identical to a Deep Forest with another walnut timber.
It has a super thin shell with really sharp bearing edges making it very resonant for a wood drum. The chrome hardware is very heavy duty making it over all quite a heavy drum. It's very sensitive with loads of dark overtones. Quite loud too. I recommend a single ply batter head like a Evans UV1 to allow for all those lovely walnuty overtones to be heard, if you want to tame them, then a tiny bit of gel will do the trick. It sits really nicely at a mid tuning where you get alot of body and at a high tuning to really acccent that woody sound. I have mainly used it in situations where I would like to add a little reverb such as slow power rock and lo-fi beats. The dual point snare strainer allows for very easy positioning of the wires.
Photos of the Deep Forest badged version, courtesy of Cory Kottick from Canada - cheers Cory!!
Photos of the Premium Series badged version, courtesy of Nikolas Georgopoulos - thanks a million Nikolas!
