Snare Question??

[Dogman]

I swapped my top head to the Genera, and it helped with the ring I had before.

 

[PhilGood]

I totally disagree. Ringing is a result of a drum that IS tuned evenly. It is a harmonic overtone (which occurs at even intervals above the fundamental tone) like a guitar string has at certain points. They are the result of the vibration of small sections of the head, perhaps at the half, quarter, or eighth distance from the center.

Do you even play guitar? You don't get the overtones by striking the fundamental. Only at certain points with certain technique. I tune my drums very well and never have this problem. I find the opposite to be true. I get overtones when the lugs are slightly out of tune with each other and also get 'flutter'. Doesn't bode well for your theory. If you tune it completely to sympathetic resonances of the drum/heads then I can see it being a problem, but that's only certain pitches.

If you use a coated or a thick heavy head, then that coating serves as a dampening layer which stops those finer overtones. It is the same fix as we are discussing but done internally instead of externally.

Ring tends to be made more apparent (or amplified) by the shell vibration. You could approach the problem with shell muffling as well.

That would be a very bad idea. One which I tried about 20 years ago with horrible results.

If you tune the drum head so that the head tension is very uneven, then yes, that stops the overtones from surviving. However, it also ruins the head faster.

I tune it very even, following the most preferred methods and again, I don't have the ring problem on any of my snares. Still doesn't bode well for your theory.

What you are fighting here is the natural behavior of a body under tension. In part, it is what gives the drum volume, sustain, and character. Some drummers embrace that ring sound and enjoy it as being uniquely "their sound."

I can abide some ring if I get it. As I stated before, some gets absorbed into the recording. Tuning the bottom head, as Farview stated, in a method that counter-acts the top seems to get the most out of the sound of the drum.

 

[MascisMan]

I've always been taught to tune my snare reso lower than my batter head. I've never been taught to tune both *snare* heads to the same pitch.

Now toms is a different story.

Personally I like a little snare ring.

 

[Greg_L]

I tune my snare batter tighter than the reso.

Toms are opposite.

 

[Gherkin]

If you are actually using a G1 on the bottom, that's the problem.

You need a snare-side head, which is thin enough. A G1 is 10mil thick. I think your average snareside head is .3mil thick.

I'm just going to repeat this... There's no way that you could tune, or dampen the ring out of a G1 on the bottom of a snare and make it sound good.

 

[Supercreep]

Also, keep in mind that the drums are part of a larger arrangement.

In the mix, with all post-processing done, will removing the ring remove some of the character of the snare? It may sound great without radical EQ or dampening. I know that compression can drastically alter the source sound. Make sure you actually have a problem before you go fixing it. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.