Growing Region: Brazil and Central America.

Availability: Available with FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) certification. Our Santa Maria and Maple sample drums use FSC certified wood.

Weight/Hardness/Density: Santa Maria scores 1500 on the Janka hardness scale. Maple scores 1450, Hickory/Pecan 1820, and Bubinga 1450.

Cost: The wood for our sample drum was 75% of the cost of our wood for the maple comparison drum.

Habitat concerns:

Comments: The tree reaches 50 feet in height with a trunk diameter of 2 feet, and a spread of 40 to 50 feet. Santa Maria has been used in shipbuilding and cabinetry. The ping pong ball sized fruit is poisonous.

Timbre/Tonal Color: Slightly lower fundamental pitch. It has strong mid-range frequencies with good high-end “pop” and nice attack.

Dynamic Range : At a volume of mf (medium loud) to f (loud), there was more head ring giving the drum a slight “drone” effect with fast playing. This could easily be removed for clean backbeats.

Tonal Range : The sweetspot is comparable to maple. The sounds were predictable from center to edge, similar to our maple drum.

Tuning Range: Santa Maria has a smaller tuning range than our maple drum, about ½ the tuning range. It did not go as tight or as loose. Like Mahogany (see August 2005 issue), dropping the bottom head opened up the drum and gave us a sound we liked more than with a tight bottom head.

Resonance/Decay: Very similar to maple, but with more head ring.

Cross Stick: Woody sound with a richer texture than maple. Santa Maria has a slightly larger cross stick area, with more sounds. Rim shots accentuate the mid-range giving us a bigger, richer sound than our maple drum.

Volume: Very similar to our maple drum.

Sensitivity: Good all around the drumhead. We had no problems or issues with the drum.

Feel: Santa Maria feels very “fluid” to play. It responded well all around the head and gave good feedback no matter where it was played.

Comments: RB said that the drum would be good for Now Orleans second line and even for swing playing because of its strong mid-range. Be sure to tune this drum down from maple to open up the sound.

By Greg Gaylord & Robert “Tree Hugger” Bowler.