Gretsch is one of the leading brands in the drum kit industry, and they offer some top-tier snare drums for drummers of all levels. While their high-end snares are the best, the brand also offers a few affordable snares that won’t set you back by much.
One of those snares is the Blackhawk Mighty Mini Snare. It’s a little firecracker snare drum that’s meant to be used as an auxiliary option.
In this review, we’re going to see how it sounds and explain who it would be good for.
The Blackhawk Mighty Mini snare drum has a shell size of 10” x 5.5”. It also has a mounting bracket that allows you to attach it to one of Gretsch’s mounting arms. It’s too small to rest on most conventional snare drum stands.
It has a 7-ply poplar shell, and it has 30-degree bearing edges to optimize the amount of response you get when striking the shell.
The snare comes equipped with 1.6mm triple-flanged hoops, along with Gretsch’s standard snare drum lugs.
This is a popcorn snare drum in every sense of the term. You get a tight, high-pitched, and punchy sound. It sounds very quick and effective when playing rimshots too.
It sounds best when tuned high, as the small shell caters to that tuning setting. If you tune it low or medium, you get overtones that don’t sound too great.
We were surprised at how responsive it was in higher tunings. You’ll easily hear all the delicate ghost notes that you play.
This snare drum has excellent build quality for something so affordable. It’s made the same way as Gretsch’s intermediate snares, with the unique part being the bracket to mount it somewhere.
Unfortunately, you don’t get a mounting arm when buying the snare, so you’ll need to buy that separately. If you have a Gretsch drum kit, you can place the snare on one of the tom arms.
Most drummers will end up mounting this snare drum to a hi-hat stand.
The snare drum works best in jazz, hip-hop, and pop settings due to the high-pitched cracking tone. It also fits well with drum & bass music. The sound cuts through the mix, giving you an effective backbeat when you need it.
We love how the snare wires respond too, as they tighten up the tones.
Unfortunately, this snare isn’t versatile enough to be used as a main snare drum. It just doesn’t have enough range, but you’ll love using it as a secondary snare in your setup.
The price-to-value is the best thing about the Blackhawk Mighty Mini snare drum. It’s so affordable that any drummer could pick it up without their pockets getting affected too much.
You don’t even get beginner snare drums at this price. It’s the size that makes it so expensive, but it’s great to have the option of getting a good piccolo snare drum without breaking the bank.
This snare drum would only work well in studio settings if you needed a piccolo snare sound. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a need for it, and it would take up space in your drum kit setup.
Piccolo snares tend to work better in live settings, as they create a nice amount of variety in your grooves. So, this snare would work wonderfully at a live show.
The Gretsch Blackhawk Mighty Mini snare is a great drum to have in your collection. It provides unique tones that work wonderfully when you need a bright and punchy groove sound, and it’s affordable enough for anyone to get it.
The downside is that you need to buy a separate mounting arm, but those aren’t expensive either.
Drum Teacher
Brett Clur has a Drum Performance Diploma from Trinity College London has been playing drums for over 20 years. He is passionate about advanced concepts and uses his years of experience to teach his students about them. While he is a full-time drum teacher, he is also working on growing a YouTube channel where shares his insights. You can see him playing there, or on Instagram where he posts daily videos.
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