What about the actual snares? I've heard people say the bigger ones (42?) are better for that big rock sound. Do you guys mess with the snares much?

154 wrote:I currently have a 30 wire Puresound strainer. It definitely gives you a longer "pssssssh" and a little more responsiveness, but I wouldn't necessarily say it gives you a 'bigger' tone.Cool. I'm not a drummer, so sorry for my ignorance on the subject. Do you tighten or loosen those a certain way?On a different line of thinking: Are there any particular snare brands/models/sizes that are known for producing this type of sound?

My drummer has always had trouble getting the right snare sound. We really like the beefy, "wet" sound that Steve seems to get on alot of his recordings (In utero, JL, pixies, etc). That deep thwack with not alot of ring. He plays a 8x14 pork pie maple. I think he uses evans coated heads.

offal wrote:dontfeartheringo wrote:154 wrote:Tight on top... a little looser on bottom.. +1This is blowing my mind a little bit. When I was just a little shaver, I was told you pretty much can't have your bottom head too tight, and I have used that rule for 20+ years. The few times I've tried something else, I get disastrous results. Specifically, I can never get enough "crack". Weird. Now I'm curious.I'm pretty new to drums but have spent a lot of time tuning them in the past several months. I can say that I've had the best results tuning the batters tighter than the resonant heads on all drums, snare included.Thanks to a recommendation from 154 my previously shitty sounding Supraphonic now sounds awesome. I was trying to tune it lower than my Acrolite to have "more variance". Turns out his quote of "I find that those drums have a pretty narrow tuning range" was spot on. Not sure if it is in the B-C range, but to those of us with a drumdial I've got it tuned to approx. 90 batter (ambassador), 84 snare side (hazy 300).

offal wrote:This is blowing my mind a little bit. When I was just a little shaver, I was told you pretty much can't have your bottom head too tight, and I have used that rule for 20+ years. The few times I've tried something else, I get disastrous results. Specifically, I can never get enough crack. Weird. Now I'm curious.Me too. Next time I'm at the practice space and I can spend 5 minutes tuning my drums without my bandmates getting antsy, I'm gonna try this.

What kind of snare is it/what heads, etc?back to the original post: has your drummer ever tried diecast hoops? They aren't my thing, but that seems to be the direction a lot of heavy drummers are going, especially with huge snares. It controls the sound a bit more without dampening it. (They also seem to hurt my hands like fuck, but maybe you get used to it?)

first, have him tune the drum without the snares on. try to go for something with a good amount of resonance. once he's liking the initial tone of the drum, have him gradually tighten the snares on the bottom. a lot of people to go overboard with tightening their snares, which then "chokes" the drum and decreases the natural decay.

offal wrote:dontfeartheringo wrote:154 wrote:Tight on top... a little looser on bottom.. +1This is blowing my mind a little bit. When I was just a little shaver, I was told you pretty much can't have your bottom head too tight, and I have used that rule for 20+ years. The few times I've tried something else, I get disastrous results. Specifically, I can never get enough "crack". Weird. Now I'm curious.twelvepoint wrote:Me too. Next time I'm at the practice space and I can spend 5 minutes tuning my drums without my bandmates getting antsy, I'm gonna try this.Tried this last night. Holy crap. More body. More sustain. Richer tone. Increased stick rebound. More colorful dynamics. Drastically improved sound at lower volumes. Motherfucker. Learn something new every day.

Thanks for all the great input everyone. My drummer has been checking these posts all week and when we practiced last night his snare sounded way better. He's got his top head tuned to C and his bottom head tuned to B, so that definitely seemed to help. A few months ago another drummer suggested he tune his bottom head up real tight and ever since then it's been a struggle to get it sounding right.

Despite the clickbait title, this is an interesting approach to the snare:phpBB [media]