Fucking Picolo Snares...

[reshp1]

I was listening back to some recordings I did with my band a couple years ago and just wanted to drive over to my drummer's house and slap him.
He'd just bought a picolo snare about a month before the session and insisted on using it. WE PLAY HARD ROCK!!!! WTF?
Anyway it just sounds god awful, like banging a 2x4 against a wall.

I guess this question is for future reference if, God forbid, I have to record another picolo....
Is there anything special you have to do for these drums? We just recorded by mic'ing the topside, would mic'ing the snares on the bottom give it a little more dimension?

[Farview]

It depends on the snare and the tuning. If he has it cranked up and ringing for days, you are pretty much screwed. If it is a good quality snare tuned properly, it should sound like a gunshot. If that is appropriate for the song, it will just work. If you are doing a slow power ballad, it won't.

[Cloneboy Studio]

I just had two run ins in a row with bands using a piccolo snare. Not that I have anything against them, but it was somewhat inappropriate for the music IMHO.

[Farview]

That is really the crux of the problem. Piccolo snares are not bad things. They just have a specific purpose. If it doesn't fit with the song, it is the worst thing possible. You really have to pick the right snare for the song (or style). No one 'perfect' snare drum exists at any price. You just need the right one for the job.

[reshp1]

Originally Posted by Cloneboy Studio

I just had two run ins in a row with bands using a piccolo snare. Not that I have anything against them, but it was somewhat inappropriate for the music IMHO.

It seems quite impossible to talk some drummers into changing their sets for the good of the song.

[mshilarious]

OK I confess it's me. I love those things!

Anyway, I don't think a piccolo should sound like a gunshot, that's the regular snare. OK, maybe a .22. But it needs that bright *ping* that's a skin sound not a wire sound. I keep two snares up on my kit at all times, one a regular snare tuned to "garbage can" and the other that pinging piccolo.

[Nate74]

As I was just getting my feet wet recording, the only drummer I had any experience recording used a piccolo on everything. I realize now that a lot of my misonceptions early on were because of him. I tried everything to get my recordings to have the "radio friendly" snappy snare sound, and never could. He finally quit my band and in came a guy with a 6 1/2" deep wood snare... it was like magic...

[darnold]

just give the guy a warning shot to the knees and tell him to buy a real snare or else. I had to put up with a punk rock band that used a picollo snare for their recordings and they always got pissed AT ME about me being incapable of making it sound like a real snare.

Pissed me off to hell.

So i shot them all and i dont have to worry about it anymore .

No, i wish. But i feel your pain man. Those things suck for anything hard. Its the drummers bad perspective that punchy thick drums punch is in the high frequencies so they get really bright drums and they sound damn thin when they play hard.

Pisses me off.

Danny

[Fletcher]

Yeah... those things ruined Steve Jordan's career... and frankly, I think that damn drum ruined the 'X-Pensive Winos' stuff.

If you mic them from the side you'll get a nice ratio of crack to ring... if you tune them properly for the song they can add a nice texture.

If you don't take the time to get any instrument to fit into the presentation then chances are that presentation will suffer from the lack of attention to detail.

[Cloneboy Studio]

Originally Posted by reshp1

It seems quite impossible to talk some drummers into changing their sets for the good of the song.

I tried.

If someone wants to use a piccolo in hard rock I usually tune it fairly tightly so we get tons of crack, and make up the beef with compression and EQ.

[Spaztic]

I like the Picolo snare.