snare drum issues (sounds like butt)

[Ethan Holdtrue]

So were doing sound checks (as I type) and the drumers snare has the worst overtones I have ever heard (think of a jet landing on your house), we have pulled the top head twice and reseated and tuned it and have messed with the bottom as well, to no avail.

Can any one recomend a quick fix or a nice way to say: "hey, let's use another snare, cause this one sounds like butt"?

Drum is:

Mapex 5 or 6 inch deep, wooden drum w/ remo emperor-X top head.

[jmoose]

Ask him if he likes that snare sound...if it's "his thing" or what they expect it to sound like when it's all said & done.

If the drum sounds like ass & they play you some clips of TOTALLY different sounding drums citing those sounds as the highwater mark, it's really easy to say something like, "Well, that's not going to happen with this drum. Here, try this one."

There's also the "This drum would sound MUCH better on this song" trick.

Sounds like maybe his strainer is bent or otherwise damanged. If you've swapped heads around & mucked around with tuning for hours, that's the only thing left.

[8th_note]

The other strategy is to dampen the overtones with moon gel or tape+cotton swabs and make the snare sound dead. I've done that a few times when the snare has a ska type pong sound and it doesn't fit the song.

[vsr600]

try a thinner head and some moon gel. Maybe an ambassador or even a powerstroke or whatever. Those Emporer X heads have that big dot in middle that has to be dampning the lower modes first.

[Ethan Holdtrue]

Thanks for the ideas everyone!! :]

We ended up using a Tama I have, which is sounding pretty good. Hopefully nothing magicly changes in the room overnight to change any of the sounds we got. This is poised to be the best project I have done in my life.

....cant wait....

[Dave Nutz]

its the emperor x. Despite being one of the thickest snare heads made, it has more overtones than any other head ive ever heard. The regular reverse coated dot, or an ambassador should do the trick.

[ckeene]

On a related note, how much time do you folks spend messing around with snare tension? I find that can make a big difference on whether a drum sounds choked or open. The trade off can be that you get more rattle, too. Boy, snares can really be a pain to get right.

[KilledByAlbany]

My two most often used snare fixes in that kind of situation are the old standby of gaff taping a wallet to the rim to kill some of the overtones, and to send the signal to a second channel, distort it (using a Boss DS-1 has surprisingly good results here), gate the hell out of it, so only the initial attack will open it, and bring this track up under the original. If none of that works, that's when I begin to look at different snares.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

On a related note, how much time do you folks spend messing around with snare tension? I find that can make a big difference on whether a drum sounds choked or open. The trade off can be that you get more rattle, too. Boy, snares can really be a pain to get right.

i try and keep an ear on it throughout a session. that and the tuning in general. while the band is listening to a playback or eating or smoking or whatever i'll go out and tappa tappa tappa on the snare and tweak if necessary. the snare tension does make a big difference for sure. and like everything else it totally depends on the player and the tune...guys who beat the hell out of the snare can have way looser tension and it still goes crack. i'm more of a reserved kinda drummer so i like the tension alot tighter when i play...

[mrclean]

I use an old snare head that I've trimmed the hoop off and made in to a ring. Just like those "ringers" they sell but cheaper.

If you have a few different weights of these, you can probably come up with a good tight sound.

And as mentioned - snare tension is important too. But yes - a bitch to get it just right sometimes.

[logancircle]

THe quick-and-dirty method is drape a sock onto the head and tape it there, or tape a light wallet or any number of things. Ringo taped a cigarette pack, but you should really quit smoking.

[LeedyGuy]

Moongel is a godsend in the studio. i use it for all kinds of things. sometimes, large toms get 2 of them and so does the front of a kick drum occasionally. the problem is that you can eat up a little top end by using them, but overall it wins over "BONG!" any day.

[drumsound]

On a related note, how much time do you folks spend messing around with snare tension? I find that can make a big difference on whether a drum sounds choked or open. The trade off can be that you get more rattle, too. Boy, snares can really be a pain to get right.

I like to vary the snare tension with the tempo of the song. A slower song can have a looser strainer so the snares fill a little more space. When I'm playing live its my way of "estimating" the snare drum changes made on the record.