The BONE "Carbcutter" - Carbon Fiber Maple Hybrid Snare Drum

The ultralight, supremely versatile, and absolutely thwacking snare of the future

BONE: Changing games, one high-tech layer of carbon fiber at a time.

BONE’s Carbutter, the carbon fiber and maple hybrid snare of the future, in action.

BONE’s new Carbcutters are premium snare drums, crafted out of warm maple shells with a high-tech ply of the finest-grade carbon fiber. Light as a feather, punchy, thwacky, and booming, and brilliantly responsive to even the subtlest of chops, the Carbcutter is the versatile, durable, stunningly gorgeous, and deeply booming snare drum you’ve always dreamed of.

BONE’s vision has always been focused on taking drum shell technology to the next level, taking the craft a step further with every snare, tom, and set produced. The Carbcutter is the result of a 5-year R&D cycle and we’re super pumped to be sharing the results with you. Read on to see why we’re so excited and why you need one of these snares under your sticks.

A third of the weight, but with even more thwack and responsiveness. How is that possible, you might ask? Sonic carbonic magic, that’s how.

The Carbcutter was designed to address everything a drummer needs.

Musicality – The supreme goal of any innovation in drum-making must be a better-sounding drum before all else. Tricked out with a slick layer of carbon fiber, the shell produces a punchier and more focused attack that sings no matter what the tuning and musical aim. Gone are the days of messy gel pads, as the carbon fiber sucks up unwanted overtones, giving you unrivaled sensitivity whether playing lightly near the rim or thwacking it dead center. Thriving in any genre, the Carbcutter will become the one go-to snare you need for any and every gig. Just listen to Mike Dawson of MD testing it, getting a staggering 5 different tunings out of it:

Transportation – Next on the list of possible drum improvements is weight. The Carbcutter’s shell is a staggeringly slim 12 ounces/340 grams. That’s right, the snare of the future weighs less than a can of soda. Watch on in delight, cackling as your guitarist struggles to haul his Marshall stack out of the van while you run up the stairs to the gig, the Carbcutter casually floating in your hand, as Eye of the Tiger blasts in the background. Checkmate, gear wars.

The Carbcutter’s shell is lighter than a swig of (add age-appropriate beverage here).

Studio and stage-ready – The technology used removes any need to let the wood plies age and mellow (those pesky overtones we talked about above). While traditional concert and studio snares need upwards of a year sometimes for the tone to settle down and become recordable, the Carbcutter is just itching for you to start laying tracks. In the video above, Mike Dawson is playing a drum that saw just 2 short weeks from final assembly to him taking it home from PASIC2021.
Aesthetics – Ok, call us biased, but just look at the options below to see how beautiful this thing is. Say goodbye to boring snares and bring in some premium shells with just a few microns of bold yet classy paint and a high-gloss lacquer, so the wood shines through warmly and naturally.

A 6.5” Carbcutter in luxuriant, smokey Charcoal Burst with brilliant gold hardware, spinning its way into your heart

The Carbcutter comes in your choice of 14×5.5”, 14×6.5”, or 14×8.5” shell (the 8.5” depth is an add-on, so don’t forget it when you pledge). The color combinations you can choose from are Ocean Blue Burst with nickel black hardware and Charcoal Burst with gold hardware:

Two 14×6.5” Carbcutters featured at PASIC 2021: Blue Burst with nickel black, Charcoal Burst with gold – they go together like peas and carrots.

As shown above, other specs include a premium throw off (we’ve been using Trick Throw Offs for a couple years now), 3+1 maple+carbon fiber plies, BONE’s trademark chunky air vents, 10 tube lugs, and a high-gloss lacquer finish on top of your color of choice. The 6.5” shell weighs a staggeringly slim 12 ounces/340 grams. Finishing off your Carbcutter are BONE branded Remo heads. Nothing but the best.

We’re offering something for everyone, even if all you want to do is grab a pair of sticks or a practice pad (or both!) just to show some love.

If you pledge in the first 3 days, you’ll be able to get your Carbcutter for a stunning €475, a whopping 50% off the retail price. The base pledge of the Super Early Bird, Early Bird, and regular Kickstarter price will get you a 14×5.5” or 14×6.5” Carbcutter (we’ll send out a questionnaire when the campaign comes to a close to and you’ll tell us which you fancy). To get your Carbcutter in its massive 14×8.5” version, don’t forget to click the additional shell depth add-on when pledging.

First, check out talented jazz drummer Tomi Purich coaxing sounds out of the Carbcutter that we didn’t even know existed: “We have, like, 10,000 sounds out of it.”

Then, have a demo of the Carbcutter’s versatility in a musical setting, as BONE team member Luka Čadež walks it through three different styles:

Then have a demo of its shockingly light shell as team member Josh Rocchio threw drums at eager passersby during PASIC2021:

When BONE makes a prototype, the result is still a concert-ready masterpiece. The carbon hybrid prototype kit we produced during R&D for the Carbcutter was picked up at NAMM 2020 by Alex Gerst of Empire Sound Studio out of Dallas, Texas. Since then, Alex has tracked over 200 sessions with it, saying it’s the only kit he’s ever played that was studio-ready on Day 1. His enthusiasm for the sound produced and the tech behind the kit speaks for itself:

Also check out Modern Drummer’s Chief Creative Officer, Michael Dawson, mincing no words and calling it like he heard it: “a game-changer”.

Our founder Nejc made his first snare in 2005, going on to officially found the company BONE Drums a few years later. Specializing in premium, custom, one-off snares and drumsets, BONE made a name for itself over the next decade, hitting up NAMM 7 times through the years.

Just some of the many drums BONE has produced and taken to NAMM throughout the years

Defying the conventional wisdom that drummer and academic excellence don’t exactly go hand in hand, Nejc earned his academic degree in Composite Drum Shell Analysis in 2016, producing BONE’s first maple/carbon fiber prototype in the process.

Since then, R&D efforts have been heavily focused on running with that concept, playing with innovative composition that drastically reduces shell weight and sings out warm and punchy tones. Prototypes were produced in all combinations of numbers of plies, woods, and finishes. We even tried sandwiching carbon fiber between wood plies. Of course, along the way, we couldn’t resist trying our hand even at a full carbon fiber snare:

The BONE Full Carbon. If you’re simply obsessed with carbon fiber, there’s still one left in our store 😉

Each new iteration was taken, among other places, to NAMM and PASIC to see what people thought. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, leading to the final production-ready model that we’re introducing here, the Carbcutter, with three choice plies of warm maple and a ply of premium carbon fiber.

Warm maple shells decked out with their ply of high-tech sonic carbonic magic.

Our aim with this project is simple: to get the Carbcutter under your sticks at the best possible price. To do this we need to order the wood and hardware to make your drums perfect in sufficient quantities from our suppliers. Only when ordering material for about 30 drums do procurement prices work out to be able to offer you the Carbcutter at Kickstarter prices. Our goal covers this, and every additional snare pledged gets us closer to being able to offer the extra options in our stretch goals.

It’s of utmost importance that you know exactly what our plans are after this campaign ends. After finishing the Carbcutter in Q3 of 2021, it made its debut on the exhibition floor at PASIC2021. Q4 2021 and the first weeks of 2022 were spent taking the Carbcutter around to stages, studios, and shops. This campaign will last through Q1 2022. We will immediately order the materials needed to make your snares and get to work making them in late spring/early summer. You will be getting your sticks on the perfect, polished snare of the future in Q3 and Q4 2022. Please feel free to ask us anything else about our project.

Tell your drummer friends about our campaign and we’ll get to some killer options for making your Carbcutter a dream come true.

When we reach Stretch Goal #1, you can choose whatever color hardware you want. Mix chrome or nickel black with Charcoal burst, or put gold on your Ocean Blue burst. We’re not here to judge.
Stretch Goal #2 gives you two additional choices of shell color, namely Blood Red and Grass Green burst.
At Stretch Goal #3 you’ll be able to customize your snare with an engraving up to 50 characters. We work with a master calligraphist who will use a wood-burning pen to stylize your shell with the name, caption, or short quote of your choice (this option will come at a surcharge of €50).

Since we appreciate everything you’re doing by helping us launch the Carbcutter to serial production, we wanted to give you the option of picking up a few accessories at a sweet discount. Just add them to your pledge, and we’ll be more than happy to include them in your reward.

BONE sticks – The strongest bow is but a paperweight without a quiver full of arrows. Get a pair of classy BONE-blue sticks along with your Carbcutter and arm yourself with the tools you need to make it sing.

A pair of fresh BONE-blue sticks to help you practice your #*&$% off.

BONE Practice Pad – your Carbcutter might be the sweetest snare you’ve ever heard, but still your family and neighbors might nonetheless prefer a few hours a day without the commotion. Do them a solid and pick up the BONE practice pad to keep your chops tight even into the wee hours of the morning.

BONE Snare Travel Bag – You’ve seen how shiny the burst finish is on the Carbcutter. It would be a real shame to get it dinged or scratched. Put your worries to the curb and add on BONE’s travel bag to your pledge and keep your shell as pretty as the day it was painted.

Carry your Carbcutter in true BONE style.

BONE Stick Holder – All carbon fiber to match your Carbcutter. This is the quiver for your portfolio of drumstick arrows. Keep your whole arsenal at arm’s length while you’re sitting at your kit with this classy and functional solution.

A carbon fiber quiver for the sticks you’re gonna need for the Carbcutter.

BONE Throne – Be the king of your percussive castle and keep your spine straight and cushioned with our luxurious drum throne. This is a stool that’ll keep your butt nice and padded so you can keep wailing on your set for hours and hours.

A premium BONE throne for any Carbcutting king or queen

To make sure the Carbcutter was the real deal, we decided to take it for a test run at PASIC2021 in Indianapolis in November 2021. Hundreds of people over 3 awesome days came by the BONE booth to try out the future of drum shell technology.

Josh explaining drum tech of the future on either side of PASIC’s youngest Carbcutting ace.

Two happy customers taking home their Carbcutter. On the right is Mike Dawson of MD with the drum from the review at the beginning of this campaign.

Just for fun, watch the video below to see the BONE team arriving at the PASIC2021 exhibition hall and setting up 🙂

December concerts were seriously limited in Europe last year for the same obvious reasons that have been canceling concerts for the past two years, but we nonetheless got the Carbcutter onto a few stages. Check out BONE team member Jaka Šinko rocking the Carbcutter for a low-tuned monster sound alongside his custom BONE kit on stage with his heavily grooving jazz-rock project:

We also got the Carbcutter tracking in a few studios this winter. Matej Pecaver of Cosmosonic Studios chose the Carbcutter to record a new single for the Slovenian rock band Ice on Fire. Their drummer Alex Zorko is a hard hitter, and the snare’s carbon fiber ply channeled that energy into a real chest thumper of a track. Check out a clip of the song here and hear how the snare, as Matej puts it, cuts through the mix:

The Carbcutter got to taste a bit of Californication in February, as Nejc and Luka took her on a trip to LA. The goals were simple: to show the snare drum of the future off to active drummers and musicians and get feedback, to take it to some serious drum shops and get their feedback, and to escape the Slovenian winter and put on some t-shirts for a week. Mission accomplished all around 😉 An exciting result of the trip for you backers is that we left 3 Carbcutters of various depths and colors at the Hollywood Pro Drum Shop, so if you’re in LA, feel free to go see them for yourselves during the campaign!

Outside the iconic East West studios (left), then inside with Frank Zummo as he laid down tracks with the Carbcutter!

The Carbcutter looking more iconic than the Hollywood sign (left), down in Hollywood with ace composer Anže Rozman at Hans Zimmer’s studio, recording the Carbcutter for posterity.

Stopping by the famous Hollywood Pro Drum Shop and dropping off some fresh Carbcutters with the owner Stan. Go check ’em out if you’re in LA!

And for fun, because what’s drumming without fun, catch the Carbcutter’s one-shot tour around LA:

All together the BONE team working to bring you the Carbcutter has over 100 years of experience drumming, 50 years of making drums and other composite products, and a wealth of business ventures behind us. If you’d like to know anything else, just ask.