snare rattle

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coplinger

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Our drummer's snare rattles excessively whenever he hits the kick or toms. He has tried adjusting the tension of the snares and tuning the heads to no avail. Any advice?
 
The strainers should be in direct even contact with the head when engaged. If they're loose at one end, increasing tension won't keep them from buzzing from sound pressure.

Good luck and welcome to the site. :cool:
 
If the snare has a muffler you might need to tighten it.
 
Flip the snare over and tape down the ends of the snare.

cheers
John
 
You really shouldn't have to do anything special to get rid of the buzz. Usually when u use tape or other resourses you kill the tone of the drum. The drums' tuning, other drums tuning, and the position of the drums, all affect the buzz. You should be able to eliminate the buzz enough to be happy. You will never get rid of it entirely, but enough that it won't be noticed, even when recording. If u do any kind of muffling to the snare, only do a little to the top head, don't go crazy....and make sure that the snares lay flat on the head and are evenly tightened(as mentioned before). Keep working on it, it takes time...God luch.
 
I alway find that most drummers have their snare wires too tight. I have mine so they're just past the loose rattle stage. This give me the best results. The tighter they are, the more they buzz in my experience.
Mark
 
I just recorded drum tracks for my bands 3rd cd in Toronto's Metalworks. We do a cover of Bob Marley's Concrete Jungle, but we changed up the rhythm to a shuffley/ska beat. In the Choruses I play this 6/8 African rhythm on the toms while keeping a backbeat on the snare. The Producer was bothered with the rattle on the snares saying, "we can't use the bottom mic, cause the wires are rattling from the toms." The owner of the studio had this expensive Tama drum stashed away somewhere which I used. This drum refused to rattle.
I investigated and found a REMO Emperor snare head on the bottom, a strip of gaffer tape across each of the wires, and everything was cranked to the limit.
The moral of the story......the less sensative your snare head is, the less they will respond to sympathetic vibrations from toms and kiks. The drum will have to be hit substantially harder but they usually sound better that way in the mics.
I hope that will help. Happy Tracking....Hitman.
 
Markd is correct, loosen the snares. But also, you need to get used to the sound. People have been trying to get rid of snare buzz for many years, and nothing works, save for playing with the snares off completely...

I think the rest of the drums sound cooler with the snares rattling...
 
I don't know about playing with snares "off", but muffling the strainers is what most folks do in the studio to tailor the sound.

Experimentation is what it's gonna take.

Post a wav of what you've got and let us experts advise from there. :D
 
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