kevlar snare head

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antichef

antichef

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A few months ago, I got a Scottish marching drum for my son for his birthday (he's a bagpipe player and celtic music freak), and noticed it has kevlar heads. My son's band's drummer and my son are in the habit of replacing the snare on my kit with that marching drum, which is kind of strange - it has a loud sort of chalky sound. It's a pain in the ass for me, too, because they lower the snare stand to accommodate the depth of the marching snare, and then I have to raise it back up.

Today at the music store on a lark, we picked up a 14" Remo kevlar head that's for a marching snare (black in color, this one) and put it on a regular snare drum that wasn't really impressing us (leaving the bottom head alone) - wow - instant dramatic improvement in crack sound and it's a lot louder. I haven't tried to record it yet. Anyone else try this?
 
Did you buy the Black Max?

I've never tried kevlar heads on a snare, but I played them in marching band obviously. They need to be tightened really tight to be effective.
 
antichef said:
A few months ago, I got a Scottish marching drum for my son for his birthday (he's a bagpipe player and celtic music freak), and noticed it has kevlar heads. My son's band's drummer and my son are in the habit of replacing the snare on my kit with that marching drum, which is kind of strange - it has a loud sort of chalky sound. It's a pain in the ass for me, too, because they lower the snare stand to accommodate the depth of the marching snare, and then I have to raise it back up.

Today at the music store on a lark, we picked up a 14" Remo kevlar head that's for a marching snare (black in color, this one) and put it on a regular snare drum that wasn't really impressing us (leaving the bottom head alone) - wow - instant dramatic improvement in crack sound and it's a lot louder. I haven't tried to record it yet. Anyone else try this?
Click to expand...

The only experience I've had with that was a guy that used those heads on a piccolo snare. Total ass.
 
I personally have no use for a piccolo snare and can't say that I like any band that uses one that I know of. If you want all tight pingy crack with no balls or body, get you a piccolo. If you then want it to sound even worse, slap a marching band head on it.
 
There was a huge picollo craze in like 2004-2006, so many drummers I knew got one and I'd see one at half the local bands I saw. There was this crappy ass metal one where the guy tightened his so tight, it was like banging a coffee table with weird pitch changing properties. Most annoying drum sound I've ever heard.
 
My current drummer uses a piccolo snare and it actually sounds pretty fat. I don't normally like piccolo snares but for some reason he is able to get a nice usable to great sound out of his.
I once recorded a band that used a piccolo snare and I really struggled to get it to sound right in the mix. No amount of eq and compression could tame that POS.
 
When I was in high school, we had some leftover kevlar heads after marching season (we had tried them but decided against using them due to sounding like we were hitting formica) and we got to each grab one. So I put one on my Pearl Export snare and cranked the crap out of it to get a piccolo-ish tone.

A few days later, I woke up at 2am wondering what the hell that weird pinging noise was that woke me up. When daylight came, I found that 3 lugs on the snare had literally ripped apart from the tension on the kevlar head.

And like Greg noted, it sounded like ass anyways.
 
I use kevlar heads for rehearsals. They really do have a great 'crack' to them. But they are a one trick pony. If you want to do anything but beat the crap out of it, it doesn't work very well.

I tune mine relatively low. You don't have to tighten it like a marching drum. If you do, you might break your snare. Marching drums are made to handle that kind of tension, normal snares aren't.
 
Russtopher said:
A few days later, I woke up at 2am wondering what the hell that weird pinging noise was that woke me up. When daylight came, I found that 3 lugs on the snare had literally ripped apart from the tension on the kevlar head.
Click to expand...
Farview said:
Marching drums are made to handle that kind of tension, normal snares aren't.
Click to expand...
oh. uh oh.

It's not nearly as tight as on our Scottish snare (like a marching drum), but I think I'll loosen it some more. Thanks!
 
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