Duct tape on Snare Head

[ido1957]

The drummer I played with on Saturday had tons of duct tape on his snare. It was all around the edge and layered/folded over itself.

What's the purpose of this duct tape?

 

[Seafroggys]

To make drums sound like shit, and to compensate for horrible tuning.

 

[SuaveRecords]

To make drums sound like shit, and to compensate for horrible tuning.

yup. so true. duck tape on the head means they cant tune or would rather by a roll of tape rather than a moon gel.

 

[Greg_L]

I third the sentiment. I've never heard a snare sound better with tape all over it.

 

[DayOfVengeance]

i never understood this either, one piece of moon gel makes a huge difference in tone, i wonder what duck tape all over my snare would do

i think the extreme for me would be Nick Mason's dampening in live at pompeii

 

[JuliánFernández]

Come on guys... So Benny Benjamin or Al Jackson were unable to tune their drums?

The only thing that matters is the sound of your instrument... If you need to tape the hell of your snare to suit the venue your playing, that´s fine...

That being said... there´s tons of ways to achieve your sound (from shell material to different drumheads...) and tape indeed ruin heads...

Do your thing and be happy!

 

[Rimshot]

To each their own.......

I don't like anything on my batter head other than my sticks and brushes. Speaking of which, it's real tough to play with brushes when your batter head has moon gels or tape on it

 

[RawDepth]

The duck tape is usually aimed at eliminating drum ring. If you put it close to the rim it deadens that ring. Too much, though, is overkill and deadens the entire drum. Some drummers prefer this remedy and some are against it, pointing to correct tuning instead.

Sometimes live soundmen will ask the drummer to do this for the benefit of the house PA system.

 

[Seafroggys]

Ring is good....

,....head choice and tuning can go a LONG way to reducing any 'unwanted' ring.

I used ambassadors for years and never felt I had any ringing issues.

 

[Greg_L]

Snare ring has it's place. Live, I like some snare ring. I'm up against a lot of guitar wattage when playing live, and a full sounding snare definitely helps to cut through. I use no dampening when playing live - or maybe a half-piece of moongel on the snare up against the rim just to kill the highest overtones.

Recording is a different story. I want a dry, meaty crack with no ring whatsoever when recording, so I'll use a full moongel usually on top of the head logo - which is about an inch in from the rim.

 

[gdavi1]

i use the tiniest piece of gorilla tape on my snare to take out a little ring for recording.

but i will never ever cover the whole snare drum with it.