Snare drum tuning

Z

Zeroquag

New member
I have a Sonor Force 3007 kit that I like a lot, except I can't get much out of the snare. What I'm going for is a higher/sharper crack sound, with minimal snare buzz. But I seem to lose the snare sensitivity at lower playing levels. Does anyone have a good method to tuning, or know of good sites which explain it?

Oh, and I have a REM-O ring for muffling.
 
Insted of the o-ring, try getting a piece of leather (maybe 2" by 3" or so) and duct taping it to the outter edge of the top head. That should take can of any residual over tones and dry out the snare quite a bit. you can tension the top head as much as you like at that point. If you want a bit more ring, use a smaller piece of leahter. Then adjust the tension of the snares to your liking. occasionally, excess snare buzz can come from sympathetic vibrations from toms but usually that is only noticable when you hit the toms. if that doesn't work you may want to try a different top head. Personally I like the Evans coated reverse dots with a bit of leather taped to the top center of the top head. Good luck.

Scott
 
it's relativly tight I guess, but unless I get a hole in it, I don't touch it much. The snares tend to do a good enough job muffeling it for me. I do like my snares almost as tigh as they will go though. also, I never really liked the factoy snares that come with most snare drums. I switched to a slightly heavier gauge snare years ago. I tend to focus more on adjusting my top head depending on the sound I am looking for at that particular moment. If you can't get it high enough, You may want to swich to a shallower shell. You may not have the cash for it now, but a selection of snares (especially if you are going to record) is a great investment. I have a 14x9" maple wrapaed in brass, a 14x5.5" mapel, and 12x3.5" steel.
 
Lots of possibilities..............

Most of the time with snare tuning issues, it has to do with how the snare wires are situated and how the bottom rim is positioned after tuning the snare head.
If the rim on the snare head is tightened too much and the rim is too far into the shell, the results will be constant buzzing of the snare even when the wires are thrown off. If it's not seated enough, you'll only get the wires to sound when you hit hard. There is NO ROOM for variation here. The snare wires MUST be positioned and tightened so that they engage with light hits as well as heavy and completely disengaged when thrown off. This is real difficult to achieve if you've already stretched the snare head too much. A quick fix for this,that sometimes works, is to back off all of the lugs on the snare head and pull it up so it is just loosely seated. Then get a hair dryer and put it on high and really warm the head until it tightens up. Let it cool down and when cool, retighten the lugs until the snare head is tuned and make certain that the rim is seated at exactly the right height so that the snares are engaged and are easily thrown off. If this doesn't work, then you may need to get a new snare head. Also play with the adjusting screw on the throw off and make certain that the snare wires are absolutely even and parallel to the snare head.
Tuning a snare drum is MUCH more complicated than tuning any other drum.
 
How old are your drum heads?
What drum heads are you using?

your drum head choice has a lot to do with the sound you getting.

if you are looking for a dry crack try out a evan genera hd dry.

play around with the tightness of the snare wires try them loose try them tight.
and follow what everyone else has said.
 
and as a side note, I was told to tune the snare head to a "C" and the batter head to an "A".
S'all I got...I'm still workin on my own tuning. :o
 
Thanks all! Some good ideas to work on. I have the Sonor heads that came with the drum, a coated head on top and thin clear on bottom. They're fairly new-ish. I've had the set a year or so but don't play it heavily.

Rimshot said:
The snare wires MUST be positioned and tightened so that they engage with light hits as well as heavy and completely disengaged when thrown off.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea. I hadn't thought if it that way, thanks.
 
I found a sorce of trouble with snare wires is the blue cable that Puresound ships with their product. It forces the wires off the head, causing both slow response/poor sensitivity and long decay. I use grosgrain ribbon now, which is great and also cheap.
 
Dogbreath said:
and as a side note, I was told to tune the snare head to a "C" and the batter head to an "A".
S'all I got...I'm still workin on my own tuning. :o
Click to expand...

Buddy Rich had a saying - you don't tune a drum, you tune a piano... you tension drums.
 
Dogbreath said:
and as a side note, I was told to tune the snare head to a "C" and the batter head to an "A".
S'all I got...I'm still workin on my own tuning. :o
Click to expand...

I see the point of tuning toms to a specific key, especially when recording. But a snare drum is white noise 99% of the time, tune it however you need to get the sound you are seeking.
 
I suggest trying a Remo ambassador coated batter head.



1) Get all the lugs on the batter side finger tight.
2) Start tightening each lug a half a turn.
3) Work your way around the rim in a star pattern. Do not tension one lug after the other in a circle pattern.
4) Once you get the head seated and close to medium tension -tap the head about a inch from the rim and work your way around the head in a circle. You want the head to sound similar when you tap. If it doesn't a slight turn (tighten or loosen-depending) of the nearest tension lug will be needed.
5) Repeat the same process on the resonant (bottom) head.
6) Now go back to the batter side head and work your way around it(star pattern) using only a 1/4 turn. Do the same on the reso head. Keep going from batter side to reso side fine tuning the drum making sure each lug has been tensioned equally. I always keep the batter side tensioned tighter than the resonant side. (For example- batter side= 85% reso side=76%)
7) Once you are close it could be as littla as a 1/4 turn on one or two lugs.(remeber the star pattern)
It never winds up that every lug is tensioned exactly that same as the others on a batter side or reso side when you are done tuning a snare. (at least it has never worked out that way for me) The trick is to keep the lugs tensioned as close as possible until you get to the fine tuning.

If you have a drum that has a little too much ring for recording etc. I suggest a small piece of moon gel-works great. Don't start taping toilet paper etc. to your heads with duct tape. It is 2009- not 1975.

This is how I go about tuning a snare. There are other ways(probably) but this is just how I do it.

Hope this helps out! :D
 
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