I’ve ALMOST always tuned the snare side head relatively high except the 4 lugs near the throw-off and butt plate. I tuned those down about 1/4-1/2 a turn. Not only does that decrease sympathetic snare buzz but it can also decrease unwanted overtones.
Ludwig Supraphonic is the perfect drum to choose for over tones and funny ringing. It can be a difficult drum to tune. Had many of them over the years they can be tricky even though I love them. Good job explaining how to tune it and others like them
Thanks for shining yet another light on the magic of good tuning. As you say, muffling is great in a pinch, but given ample time to work on things tuning can take you so much further. I've seen so many musicians and bandmates in all performance fields insist that muffling is the only real way to go and it always bums be out.
Hate to be that guy, but I wish you guys would show the actual tuning process in each video - especially with these kinds of tuning comparison videos. There are a lot of miniscule mistakes you can make when tuning up or down like this to find that perfect "medium pitch". Showing the tuning may not be as exciting and would certainly extend the length of the video, but it would make each lesson so much more educational if we could see it in real time, each time. You could simply remind the viewer to skip ahead to the next chapter if they don't want to watch the drum being tuned.
Great Info thanks. Additionally it would be great to hear you tapping the reso side isolated at each tuning example so we can get a real practical sense of what you consider too high or low.
FINALLY someone's telling that is NONSENSE to crank those reso heads super super tight! Everytime I hear that I just conclude that the person simply never tried to tune it differently before, and just go for it automatically
so was that the "point" i must say i got completely lost and at the end of the video could not tell you want i had learned. dont crank the snare head, but do what instead?
My go to Snare is my Ludwig Raw Copperphonic 6.5x14.....amazing in all tunings and I find it very easy to get the sweet spot for it at any tension. Highly recommend it!
I just had that issue no later than this week. My Protean snare drove me nuts with junk noises from the wires but caused by the snare head. I solved it using your "ol´good technique" to level evenly the tension rods and later checking the batter tuning.
What I noticed with Snare Drum Tuning, especially after recording, is that it's not the loudness that cuts through the other music but the range and fullness of the frequencies. I think the best way to achieve this is to use stable intervalls like a perfect fifth or fourth between batter and reso. I think experienced drummers sometimes do this unconciously and maybe even you did it in this video :) Somewhere between is the ring of the Shell.
Yeah it’s interesting the amount of snares some drummers have. I now personally own 4 and I think that’s enough. I often see on various sites guys with huge collections & wonder whether they are really getting the optimum sound out of each one.
I used to worry about the buzz almost neurotically for many years, now I just accept it as another resonate nuance of an acoustic instrument. Listen to old Eagles albums, if Henley's snare can hum and buzz like it does on I Can't Tell You Why..it's all good with me.
I own about 10 snare drums and stumbled across this method that seems to work in my experience the best for me. Drum dial numbers for snare side is 85 and 83 on lugs framing the snare wire. Batter I do 88 around the board on a new head and adjust after a week of practice. At this point I can go 86-88 on batter depending on he snare I use. I was using Emperors but recently changed out to Evans UV2’s. I do my side snares 90 on batter and reso the same as above. I like 12x5 as side snares thus far. I have the Portnoy side snare and other than the purple writing it cracks on 311 and Sublime stuff.
Been trying to figure this out for years. I've been disappointed and I started doubting whether my snare drum is actually a good model. Thanks for this! I'm excited to try it out.
I haven't used any muffling on my snare drum in over 40 years. I used to use a half circle very thin muffle ring..but I learned to tune without needing it. Tuning to me is the real key. The intervallic relationship between the two heads, wires used, head used and rims, edges all make a huge difference. But learning to know which changes does what is the real lightbulb moment in your quest to move away from external muffling. For a long time I used a single snare drum ..(plus a duplicate as a backup) but nothing more and that is still my base routine. Only recently did I pick up a 2nd snare that is a different model. I have never felt at a loss to achieve what I needed to achieve. This might help as well. I was trained classically first. So my first experiences were tuning snare drums for a classical application. They have to be clean, articulate and very dynamic. learning to do that from the beginning was a huge benefit. Then I heard players in all styles that had tremendous snare drum tone, range, crack and dynamics. Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Joe Morello, Carmine Appice, Ian Paice (my all-time favorite snare sound)..and others were all closely related to the orchestral/classic model. So I have always started there and then made adjustments ..in a controlled and relative way..to either raise or the lower the pitch of the drum but never losing the overall characteristics that I had in my original model. last point...you MUST learn to tune properly. It's a huge part of your skill set and training. Playing isn't the only factor. SOUND matters. FEEL of the head, rebound and such matters. It is hard work and takes a lot of trial and error and honestly I feel it has become a lost art. Tuning "tricks" ..tension "tricks" ..and a zillion muffling tools are all shortcuts that in the end might not really be the best choice both playing wise or sound wise. Take the time to understand as much as you can about tuning, projection, tonality, sustain, pitch, the relations between the two heads, types of heads, types of rims, the shells of the snare, the snare wires, material of them, how many you are using...ALL of this is important before you ever HIT the drum. RECORD yourself! !!! And at different distances so you can really hear how the drum sounds up close, medium distance or a further distance away. They are NOT the same across the board. Take the time and learn it!
Very informative comment. Have you tried the Masshoff tuning method? I use it on my one of two snare drums, the metal one and get great resource results. Barely have to touch it thereafter. Cheers happy buzzroll!
@@davidperez5089 Thanks. No I don't use any other method than my ear and feel. They haven't let me down yet. But if you have something that is working for you...stick with it. No need to change if it is giving you the results are you looking for.
take this from a guy who's been drumming for almost thirty years. if you're using more than one moongel on a snare then you need to take yourself back to school as far as tuning. unless that is a specific sound you are going for. my snare has like a million inches thick solid steel hahaha and it sings but not in a harsh way that steel snares are known to have. I have one moongel on the thing. tuning has a lot to do with that overtone. muffling should be the candle on the cake, not the icing.
That's my goal right now,trying to scale back on equipment. I'm just about there with my snares,Have a 6-1/2 × 14 Craviotto solid shell., 6x14 Tama Starphonic nickel over brass, and 6x14 starphonic plyed maple.All are totally different. Took a long time to find there sweet spot but once you do,very rewarding.Time to get rid of the rest,3 is enough.
Love your approach and it has resulted in meaningful improvement in my drum tuning. My one complaint is I want an isolated hit of batter and reso/snare side heads. When you say you’ve cranked a reso head up super high, I don’t know where it was or where it’s at now. Would be a big help so I can compare with my own kit. Thanks for your hard work!!
Overtones are literally what make drums sound different so, while some may say that they don't like overtones, they just might not like specific dissonance or how present the overtones are. As with EVERYTHING we cover here, context is what dictates the desired sound. Just like certain grooves/playing approaches work best for certain songs, the same can be said for drum sounds. Cheers! -Ben
I agree. I think this is a common misconception because often those overtones aren’t as predominant in a song mix even though it’s there if you solo the drum track
I had trouble with my snare sound for a long time (been playing about twenty years now) until I learned about the relationship between the batter and reso. The last several years I've had tremendous success with a very tight reso, 'table top tight' I've heard it referred to as. I tune the redo just barely on the tipping point of choking, this actually gives a nice natural reduction in overtones without additional muffling and dramatically increases sensitivity.
Really helpful video, thank you. Totally agree with the comment about how it sounds in the mix when recording. Once you get all the other instruments in there taking up frequency space, a heavily muffled drum just sounds like a weak "fft" and doesn't sound powerful. Sometimes that the right thing for the song, but for most blues/rock/pop/metal you need some life in the drum, and letting it be open and have some ring and overtones is really important. It's easy for a mix engineer to tame or cut out anything that's a bit over the top with EQ or gating, but it's impossible to put stuff back in if it's missing from the source sound without resorting to samples. Better to have a nicely tuned open drum and work from there if it needs to be tamed a little, rather than cranking& dampening the life out of it straight away.
Yeah, drummers always be killing the snare drum's sustain. In front of you, it sounds super ring-y because of our ear's limiting behavior, but in a mix, it actually needs compression to get the sustain loud enough to be heard. Let that drum sing!
I would love to see some DrumDial sample settings with your tuning videos. I'm trying to control the overtones of my Ludwig snares -- a Supraphonic, an Acrolite, and 1930's 6.5" "Super-Ludwig". I use thin, single-ply heads (Remo Diplomats). I'm not sure to what extent these thin heads contribute to the overtones or the relationship between the tension of the top and bottom heads. For DrumDial users, sample settings of what you demonstrate may help us get our drums in the same ball park more quickly. Love the videos, keep them coming!!
Took me a while to finally get the snare right but now I don't use any muffling at all. Only on the floor toms and kick drum and it's just to kill the sustain not overtones
Tuning is very subjective, but I always listened to the same advice. CRANK the snare reso. After listening to multiple vids on here I switched to a more moderate medium tension, I found that the snare sounded much more open and less choked. I got a good articulation and a throaty sound that just was not possible with the reso cranked. Thanks guys for the quality info and all the awesome vids!
Nice channel with fun content! If I find a particularly nice tuning range on a drum with a particular type of head, I sometimes write the note(s) on the edge of the head with a Sharpie. I often use the Peterson Strobe tuner app on my phone to find the pitch of each head and write it on top and bottom or just the top. Then, it is much easier to get back to that fat sound I liked when changing heads to the same type of head on that particular drum. This has worked so many times that I tend to keep doing it :-D I don't have to stay at that pitch, but it's a neat way to remember tunings that I liked on that drum, on that kit. Often, I may write more than one tuning that I liked that that drum also liked. I can write it on the top head for reference with the top note first and bottom head second, like "A/C#" or "G/G." Sometimes at different pitch ranges, the drum may like a higher or lower resonant head, or it kinda chokes out with a higher reso and needs a matched resonant head. It can also be useful knowing these pitches in relation to the interaction of the pitch of a chosen snare. Having this info right there is useful to me. It's great to see without trying to remember, especially if you have more than one kit or multiple snare drums. Handy!
This channel always have great drum information! Totally loving all your contents! Been following this channel since the ruler method video! So happy to see Sounds Like A Drum channel grow! ❤💛💚💙💜 As for the solution, I'll like to ask: Is the leveling (ruler method) used before or after we bring the snare side to the medium place? As in can the snare side tuned to the medium place first, then use ruler method to level? Or it's a must to level first, then bring to medium place?
If I use dampening gels, I put a small one on the snare side opposite where I hear the worst ringing on the batter side--at least I start there. I crank mine high but use wood shells for a warmer tone.
I had a snare that someone took the lugs off and didn’t tighten them after having many tries getting rid of the ring buzz found that the felts that go behind the springs in the lugs were missing. I bought some felt an cut to fit after removing all the lugs and putting back together. Wallah I also used vasoline on the tension rods so they went in smoother.
Great video, as always. One of my biggest regrets is selling my Keplinger (out of desperation) because I just could.not.find a usable sound, no matter how I tuned it.
This was great. What you said about arbitrarily going crazy high on the snare side as a rule is, agreed, ridiculous. I've been using these last few insane months on this planet to dive D E E P into getting my own snare tone. So much so, I've built two, One 'Baritone' maple Piccolo, and a 14 x 5.5 standard with a super-sensitive snare set up. Also Picked up a 73 Slingerland Zoommatic 14 x 6.5 COB which is my main beast.. and an LM402 (Lol... finally) . (Kick drum is a 1929 Ludwig Pioneer 26" African Mahogany monster.. It compliments the 402/COB nicely ;) I play mainly heavy down-beat rock style drums and need something that can finesse as well as sound great when hit Appropriately. (Not like a freaking cave man/Conan the SnareDestroyer/CymbalDestroyer/Eardrum Destroyer which irritatingly seems to be the norm for far too many ;) Lmao... Those "Zildjian Soundlab Cymbal demo" vids are a great example of "WTF?!" ((How a cymbal company of that stature can use someone who has zero concept of how to Musically hit a cymbal, No matter What the dynamics, is beyond me. May as well just use a hammer and get on with it. ... I digress.. -_- ) Actually, The 5.5 I mentioned has a completely glassed interior ( Super layers of lacquer to sort of simulate a metal shell.. but there's this Deep Ring.. Not overtones, that is basically a G no matter where I put the heads. It's infuriating. Lol.. >.< I've actually taken to putting boron soft rubber 1/2" rings around the inner shell to see if I can't negate it a bit. ( This snare was a complete experiment, so if I end up needing to put Honey-Encrusted Ant carcasses inside the shell, so be it. ;) It's just weird AF, as the shell by itself w/ no heads sings a very clear A flat. (Bottom head now is an Evans 300 clear and a Power Stroke 4 up top to try and help control that weird non-overtone ring. I had a 66 Ludwig 14 x 5.5 blue sparkle snare I sold to Tom Jones's drummer that I had from when I was a teenager. It was somehow perfect basically always. Lol.. So many records that was on.. and So many tones. Thank goodness for the Slngerland for having my back, as it were., but this other snare is making me want to hurl hammers. ( The point with the whole "Snare fest 2021" was to find a piccolo sound similar to that used on 'Presto'. Super articulate, really fun tone, and knowing how Neil played, laying into that thing still sounded awesome. I figure a minimum of three snares should do: the S COB, one of the piccolos and the 402 just because ;) WE HOPE YOU'VE ENJOYED THIS SHORT STORY! HAVE A PLEASANT DAY! ( and Thank you for your service :)
I guess my rule has always been that if I can't hear any overtone then that is a good thing. However you point out that what I hear may not be the same as what is heard out there. If I hear a little overtone from my snare it may not be heard by the audience and it could be getting soaked up by all of the other instruments while you're playing. I am at the point where I only use moongel on my heads so I'm not sure if I want to go any further with muffling. If anyone's ever heard U2 and the intro 2 bullet the blue sky, Larry has a lot of ring in his snare until the rest of the band joins in and it all gets soaked up. So maybe it's just a matter of experimenting.
First off I love that snare , gotta get one. For me personally I like Evans hydraulic heads,love the sound and they just seem to make everything easier. Tuning super high? No thank you. I'm a low as you can go kinda guy!
Some rock drummers tend to solve the overtone problems with different heads. F.e. Clear Remo CS is great head if you tune your deeper snare low to mid range and want cut with less overtones.
Great videos as always! Cody, How many snare drums do you own? You mentioned you have scaled down your number of snares. Also, I love how you incorporate the legendary Supra!
Yep I sure have! My collecting days are behind me :) Right now I have six and, with the exception of the Supra, they’re all drums I’ve had for years. -Cody
@@SoundsLikeADrum That’s awesome! Yes my collecting days are behind me as well. It’s funny , my early 60’s Supra is the only snare I own at the moment LOL!
Do you find once you've cranked the snare side head it never has the same tone when younthen tune it much lower, compared to a new head that hadn't been stretched? I got a new gum wood snare last week and had this very issue. Sounded amazing tuned low straight out the box, with just a few tweaks. Wanted to test the dynamic range and started to crank it up. Snare still sounded great at both mid and high tunings, the original low tuning had such depth I had to go back though. When I brought the snare side back down the snare sounded nice but had lost all that beautiful depth. I assume I overstretched the head. This seems really obvious, but its amazing how many things there are to learn when it comes to drums, if you have the passion it can he an endless fantastic journey. I'm in love with your channel.
Yep- that’s why we don’t recommend cranking the snare side down. There are few instances where we’ve felt the need to do it and we’re generally disappointed by the common recommendation of “just crank the snare side tabletop right” regardless of the desired sound. Keep in mind- your ideal snare side tension will allow you to achieve your desired dynamic range balanced with your ideal tonal response. Cranking the snare side *may* address dynamics but can significantly hinder tonal response.
At the moment, I seem to tune wood snares 2-3 turns below “tabletop tight”. But the 6.5 deep one, and the steel snares I have (14x6.5, 14x8) I tune maybe 1 turn down from tabletop tight - at least it’s tighter than the more shallow snare drum. I’ve tried tabletop tight, and I don’t like it, it sucks all body out of the snare drum and its just wires essentially.
lol - good question! I wrote this 3 years and about 2.000 practise hours ago. I think I meant 1 turn = 180 degrees, otherwise what I said makes little sense. Now, I would call 1 turn 360 degrees. :-)
Great vid dudes! I've been wrestling with this, especially with the 7.5 x 15 Beier snare I just got. Can you give me a sense of how wide those intervals were in relation to the batter head? I know that pitches and intervals are far from universal, but I just want a sense of how much lower the low was, how much higher the high was, and how close to unison the middle was.
So with all of this in mind, me just putting it into words that make sense to me, would you say that so long as it sounds good all around the drum but still has a lot going on that the specific drum is just lively?
Killer video as always, gentlemen! Question: I have the same Pearl kit that you guys are using (with die cast hoops) and I find that when I tune my rack Tom just above wrinkle, it’s still too tight and not pleasing to play as far as “feel” is concerned. I’m trying to find a method that works for me with making the drum feel good and sound good. How can I achieve that feel that’s just right and not too tight? I feel like that’s a slim range when it comes to tuning Toms.
I understand what you're saying and I totally respect that but in my humble opinion, a video this long is just overkill. I know you said the professional drummers and professional tuners do the snare side head super tight and then adjust the batter and wires from there and honestly that's been working perfect for me for over 26 years. if you think of the snare side head as just what your sensitivity should be and just use the top head for tuning, it is so much easier. yes the bottom head affects tone, but not that much at all. sometimes you do have to start with the extremes, my man. if someone comes at you with a knife, don't pull out a knife, pull out a bazooka. problem over. with that said, I LOVE your videos and will continue to watch. please don't take offense to me just having an opinion that differs from yours, I respect yours totally, because as long as ya get there to a sound where you are inspired and sounding good, then screw how ya get there.
I have two snares at home and two snare in my studio and i feel like I can get a range of tunings that make me happy in any context with those alone. I was not a fan of the overall overtones the snare in the video was producing though... too pingy, that would not fly in my recordings.
That for me is usually either an issue with the snare side hoop not being level or the wires being damaged - we have a few past videos about this issue! -Cody
That "correct" tuning toward the end sounds great, I'd still probably go for a little bit of dampening just to cut that overtone some more. It sounds good, and in a mix would probably disappear, but I am also not a drummer, I'm a guitar player and a sound guy, I really like to have flexibility with different reverb options to create a great sound, and I've found with too much overtone it stifles my ability to get the most out of the effects. Plus when there's a section with just drums and vocals I just really want those effects to shine, not that "basketball" sound. Maybe I've heard so many drum sounds from the 90s that had that and I hated it, that whenever I hear it even a little I avoid it like the plague lol.
I personally love unmuffled sound on drums just never liked muffled sounds especially on a maple drumset because your killing the best sound of a maple drumset
That’s actually the context that informs everything else. Imagine taking a lesson and interrupting the teacher to skip ahead to the demonstration. You may learn a snapshot of the thing but context is everything here. Otherwise it’s tasteless.
a lot of you guys want a completely flat tone that you unfortunately hear on so many albums. you're playing a musical instrument so make some music with it. introduce a little bit of freaking tone into your sound and quit choking it to death. honestly anything more than one moongel on a snare really bugs me unless you're looking for that flat cardboard kind of sound.... or if you're in 80's cover band because every snare back in the 80s had zero tone
we need to diffentiat between, beautiful overtones and satanic, nasally buzzing. You pros on here never seem to need dampening. Yer guys snares always have zero nasal buzz. Zero channels demonstrate the nasally buzz (although every sh1t drummer, AND many decent drummers) have a snare like this. Again, you pros, tune yer snare and the ring SOUNDS GOOD. Why am I not ever able to fix this… yes new heads, yes hoops, yes shell not beat on… if drum is not defective, wtf?
We're definitely frustrated when we see false information or information lacking context being spread by well known drummers/educators. All we can do is share and demonstrate alternative approaches.
The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/soundslikeadrum11201
Yep., Just give them your credit card ...
This guy is the Bob Ross of drums
Look at this happy little snare drum 🙂
This is quite the accurate comparison 😂
Best videos for drummers ever.
I dont even play drums, I just come here to unwind and listen to his calming voice
In his video lesson, "Not Quite My Tempo", his calming voice changes to a bit irate.
Very helpful, the right way is to go the middle ground !!! Many Thanks, und best greetings from Austria in Middle Europe 👌👌👌
I’ve ALMOST always tuned the snare side head relatively high except the 4 lugs near the throw-off and butt plate. I tuned those down about 1/4-1/2 a turn. Not only does that decrease sympathetic snare buzz but it can also decrease unwanted overtones.
Ludwig Supraphonic is the perfect drum to choose for over tones and funny ringing. It can be a difficult drum to tune. Had many of them over the years they can be tricky even though I love them. Good job explaining how to tune it and others like them
Thanks for shining yet another light on the magic of good tuning. As you say, muffling is great in a pinch, but given ample time to work on things tuning can take you so much further. I've seen so many musicians and bandmates in all performance fields insist that muffling is the only real way to go and it always bums be out.
Hate to be that guy, but I wish you guys would show the actual tuning process in each video - especially with these kinds of tuning comparison videos. There are a lot of miniscule mistakes you can make when tuning up or down like this to find that perfect "medium pitch". Showing the tuning may not be as exciting and would certainly extend the length of the video, but it would make each lesson so much more educational if we could see it in real time, each time. You could simply remind the viewer to skip ahead to the next chapter if they don't want to watch the drum being tuned.
I learn something from you absolutely everytime I watch your videos
Great Info thanks. Additionally it would be great to hear you tapping the reso side isolated at each tuning example so we can get a real practical sense of what you consider too high or low.
Brilliantly explained 👍👌👍
THANK YOU for calling crapolla on the super tight bottom head. Seems folks have no idea how much they lose when they do that.
FINALLY someone's telling that is NONSENSE to crank those reso heads super super tight! Everytime I hear that I just conclude that the person simply never tried to tune it differently before, and just go for it automatically
so was that the "point" i must say i got completely lost and at the end of the video could not tell you want i had learned. dont crank the snare head, but do what instead?
The snare in the beginning sounded just like mine at times. REALLY helpful vid. Definitely helped with my snare and its many overtones :)
My go to Snare is my Ludwig Raw Copperphonic 6.5x14.....amazing in all tunings and I find it very easy to get the sweet spot for it at any tension. Highly recommend it!
I just had that issue no later than this week. My Protean snare drove me nuts with junk noises from the wires but caused by the snare head. I solved it using your "ol´good technique" to level evenly the tension rods and later checking the batter tuning.
What I noticed with Snare Drum Tuning, especially after recording, is that it's not the loudness that cuts through the other music but the range and fullness of the frequencies. I think the best way to achieve this is to use stable intervalls like a perfect fifth or fourth between batter and reso. I think experienced drummers sometimes do this unconciously and maybe even you did it in this video :) Somewhere between is the ring of the Shell.
Otherwise known as the Joe Morello tuning,ie 4th,Check out Bravo Brubeck (recorded live in Mexico)for a great jazz kit sound.
Yeah it’s interesting the amount of snares some drummers have. I now personally own 4 and I think that’s enough. I often see on various sites guys with huge collections & wonder whether they are really getting the optimum sound out of each one.
I used to worry about the buzz almost neurotically for many years, now I just accept it as another resonate nuance of an acoustic instrument. Listen to old Eagles albums, if Henley's snare can hum and buzz like it does on I Can't Tell You Why..it's all good with me.
I own about 10 snare drums and stumbled across this method that seems to work in my experience the best for me. Drum dial numbers for snare side is 85 and 83 on lugs framing the snare wire. Batter I do 88 around the board on a new head and adjust after a week of practice. At this point I can go 86-88 on batter depending on he snare I use. I was using Emperors but recently changed out to Evans UV2’s. I do my side snares 90 on batter and reso the same as above. I like 12x5 as side snares thus far. I have the Portnoy side snare and other than the purple writing it cracks on 311 and Sublime stuff.
This useful because sometimes whilst recording, your drum's overtone is clashing with the key of the song.
I enjoy watching your videos.
Yes yes yes! This video solved all my problems! You guys are the best! ❤
Been trying to figure this out for years. I've been disappointed and I started doubting whether my snare drum is actually a good model. Thanks for this! I'm excited to try it out.
I haven't used any muffling on my snare drum in over 40 years. I used to use a half circle very thin muffle ring..but I learned to tune without needing it. Tuning to me is the real key. The intervallic relationship between the two heads, wires used, head used and rims, edges all make a huge difference. But learning to know which changes does what is the real lightbulb moment in your quest to move away from external muffling. For a long time I used a single snare drum ..(plus a duplicate as a backup) but nothing more and that is still my base routine. Only recently did I pick up a 2nd snare that is a different model. I have never felt at a loss to achieve what I needed to achieve.
This might help as well. I was trained classically first. So my first experiences were tuning snare drums for a classical application. They have to be clean, articulate and very dynamic. learning to do that from the beginning was a huge benefit. Then I heard players in all styles that had tremendous snare drum tone, range, crack and dynamics. Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Joe Morello, Carmine Appice, Ian Paice (my all-time favorite snare sound)..and others were all closely related to the orchestral/classic model. So I have always started there and then made adjustments ..in a controlled and relative way..to either raise or the lower the pitch of the drum but never losing the overall characteristics that I had in my original model.
last point...you MUST learn to tune properly. It's a huge part of your skill set and training. Playing isn't the only factor. SOUND matters. FEEL of the head, rebound and such matters. It is hard work and takes a lot of trial and error and honestly I feel it has become a lost art. Tuning "tricks" ..tension "tricks" ..and a zillion muffling tools are all shortcuts that in the end might not really be the best choice both playing wise or sound wise. Take the time to understand as much as you can about tuning, projection, tonality, sustain, pitch, the relations between the two heads, types of heads, types of rims, the shells of the snare, the snare wires, material of them, how many you are using...ALL of this is important before you ever HIT the drum. RECORD yourself! !!! And at different distances so you can really hear how the drum sounds up close, medium distance or a further distance away. They are NOT the same across the board.
Take the time and learn it!
Very informative comment. Have you tried the Masshoff tuning method? I use it on my one of two snare drums, the metal one and get great resource results. Barely have to touch it thereafter. Cheers happy buzzroll!
@@davidperez5089 Thanks. No I don't use any other method than my ear and feel. They haven't let me down yet. But if you have something that is working for you...stick with it. No need to change if it is giving you the results are you looking for.
take this from a guy who's been drumming for almost thirty years. if you're using more than one moongel on a snare then you need to take yourself back to school as far as tuning. unless that is a specific sound you are going for. my snare has like a million inches thick solid steel hahaha and it sings but not in a harsh way that steel snares are known to have. I have one moongel on the thing. tuning has a lot to do with that overtone. muffling should be the candle on the cake, not the icing.
That's my goal right now,trying to scale back on equipment. I'm just about there with my snares,Have a 6-1/2 × 14 Craviotto solid shell., 6x14 Tama Starphonic nickel over brass, and 6x14 starphonic plyed maple.All are totally different. Took a long time to find there sweet spot but once you do,very rewarding.Time to get rid of the rest,3 is enough.
Love your approach and it has resulted in meaningful improvement in my drum tuning. My one complaint is I want an isolated hit of batter and reso/snare side heads. When you say you’ve cranked a reso head up super high, I don’t know where it was or where it’s at now. Would be a big help so I can compare with my own kit. Thanks for your hard work!!
@Ronmeyers - good call/example on the intro to that U2 track! I'd a never picked up on that otherwise!🙏
I’ve realize that you really like that snare! It’s always good when you give it Feel! 👌👌👌
I really liked all tunings, personally, i looove me some overtones.
Overtones are literally what make drums sound different so, while some may say that they don't like overtones, they just might not like specific dissonance or how present the overtones are. As with EVERYTHING we cover here, context is what dictates the desired sound. Just like certain grooves/playing approaches work best for certain songs, the same can be said for drum sounds. Cheers! -Ben
I agree. I think this is a common misconception because often those overtones aren’t as predominant in a song mix even though it’s there if you solo the drum track
I had trouble with my snare sound for a long time (been playing about twenty years now) until I learned about the relationship between the batter and reso. The last several years I've had tremendous success with a very tight reso, 'table top tight' I've heard it referred to as. I tune the redo just barely on the tipping point of choking, this actually gives a nice natural reduction in overtones without additional muffling and dramatically increases sensitivity.
Absolutely beautiful snare sound, well done! I don't understand the people who say Evans can't sound good.
I love Evans drumheads. Off course Remo also sound great, but the people dissing Evans are just silly fanboys.
Really helpful video, thank you. Totally agree with the comment about how it sounds in the mix when recording. Once you get all the other instruments in there taking up frequency space, a heavily muffled drum just sounds like a weak "fft" and doesn't sound powerful. Sometimes that the right thing for the song, but for most blues/rock/pop/metal you need some life in the drum, and letting it be open and have some ring and overtones is really important. It's easy for a mix engineer to tame or cut out anything that's a bit over the top with EQ or gating, but it's impossible to put stuff back in if it's missing from the source sound without resorting to samples. Better to have a nicely tuned open drum and work from there if it needs to be tamed a little, rather than cranking& dampening the life out of it straight away.
Yeah, drummers always be killing the snare drum's sustain. In front of you, it sounds super ring-y because of our ear's limiting behavior, but in a mix, it actually needs compression to get the sustain loud enough to be heard. Let that drum sing!
I would love to see some DrumDial sample settings with your tuning videos. I'm trying to control the overtones of my Ludwig snares -- a Supraphonic, an Acrolite, and 1930's 6.5" "Super-Ludwig". I use thin, single-ply heads (Remo Diplomats). I'm not sure to what extent these thin heads contribute to the overtones or the relationship between the tension of the top and bottom heads. For DrumDial users, sample settings of what you demonstrate may help us get our drums in the same ball park more quickly.
Love the videos, keep them coming!!
Thanks mate! I’ll check out the your other tuning videos.
We’ve got a couple real-time tuning videos that go through every step.
Just scored a 70's 3x13" Ludwig Jazz Combo, the aluminum one, and had to come straight here upon playing it.
This is the video I've been waiting for
Took me a while to finally get the snare right but now I don't use any muffling at all. Only on the floor toms and kick drum and it's just to kill the sustain not overtones
This should be Tuning 101 for beginners and hobbyists.
Excellent approach
Tuning is very subjective, but I always listened to the same advice. CRANK the snare reso. After listening to multiple vids on here I switched to a more moderate medium tension, I found that the snare sounded much more open and less choked. I got a good articulation and a throaty sound that just was not possible with the reso cranked. Thanks guys for the quality info and all the awesome vids!
Thanks for taking a chance and experimenting! It's often hard to know what's possible unless you give it a shot. Cheers! -Ben
Fuck yeah. I have a super pingy sound coming from one of mine. I’m gonna fiddle with it now. Excellent video as always. 🖤
Nice channel with fun content!
If I find a particularly nice tuning range on a drum with a particular type of head, I sometimes write the note(s) on the edge of the head with a Sharpie. I often use the Peterson Strobe tuner app on my phone to find the pitch of each head and write it on top and bottom or just the top. Then, it is much easier to get back to that fat sound I liked when changing heads to the same type of head on that particular drum. This has worked so many times that I tend to keep doing it :-D
I don't have to stay at that pitch, but it's a neat way to remember tunings that I liked on that drum, on that kit. Often, I may write more than one tuning that I liked that that drum also liked. I can write it on the top head for reference with the top note first and bottom head second, like "A/C#" or "G/G." Sometimes at different pitch ranges, the drum may like a higher or lower resonant head, or it kinda chokes out with a higher reso and needs a matched resonant head. It can also be useful knowing these pitches in relation to the interaction of the pitch of a chosen snare. Having this info right there is useful to me. It's great to see without trying to remember, especially if you have more than one kit or multiple snare drums. Handy!
This was eye opening! Thank you Sounds Like A Drum!!!
🗣️say it again louder for the people in the back!
This channel always have great drum information! Totally loving all your contents! Been following this channel since the ruler method video! So happy to see Sounds Like A Drum channel grow! ❤💛💚💙💜
As for the solution, I'll like to ask: Is the leveling (ruler method) used before or after we bring the snare side to the medium place?
As in can the snare side tuned to the medium place first, then use ruler method to level? Or it's a must to level first, then bring to medium place?
If I use dampening gels, I put a small one on the snare side opposite where I hear the worst ringing on the batter side--at least I start there. I crank mine high but use wood shells for a warmer tone.
I had a snare that someone took the lugs off and didn’t tighten them after having many tries getting rid of the ring buzz found that the felts that go behind the springs in the lugs were missing. I bought some felt an cut to fit after removing all the lugs and putting back together. Wallah
I also used vasoline on the tension rods so they went in smoother.
Great video, as always. One of my biggest regrets is selling my Keplinger (out of desperation) because I just could.not.find a usable sound, no matter how I tuned it.
This was great. What you said about arbitrarily going crazy high on the snare side as a rule is, agreed, ridiculous. I've been using these last few insane months on this planet to dive D E E P into getting my own snare tone. So much so, I've built two, One 'Baritone' maple Piccolo, and a 14 x 5.5 standard with a super-sensitive snare set up. Also Picked up a 73 Slingerland Zoommatic 14 x 6.5 COB which is my main beast.. and an LM402 (Lol... finally) . (Kick drum is a 1929 Ludwig Pioneer 26" African Mahogany monster.. It compliments the 402/COB nicely ;)
I play mainly heavy down-beat rock style drums and need something that can finesse as well as sound great when hit Appropriately. (Not like a freaking cave man/Conan the SnareDestroyer/CymbalDestroyer/Eardrum Destroyer which irritatingly seems to be the norm for far too many ;) Lmao... Those "Zildjian Soundlab Cymbal demo" vids are a great example of "WTF?!" ((How a cymbal company of that stature can use someone who has zero concept of how to Musically hit a cymbal, No matter What the dynamics, is beyond me. May as well just use a hammer and get on with it. ... I digress.. -_- ) Actually, The 5.5 I mentioned has a completely glassed interior ( Super layers of lacquer to sort of simulate a metal shell.. but there's this Deep Ring.. Not overtones, that is basically a G no matter where I put the heads. It's infuriating. Lol.. >.< I've actually taken to putting boron soft rubber 1/2" rings around the inner shell to see if I can't negate it a bit. ( This snare was a complete experiment, so if I end up needing to put Honey-Encrusted Ant carcasses inside the shell, so be it. ;) It's just weird AF, as the shell by itself w/ no heads sings a very clear A flat. (Bottom head now is an Evans 300 clear and a Power Stroke 4 up top to try and help control that weird non-overtone ring. I had a 66 Ludwig 14 x 5.5 blue sparkle snare I sold to Tom Jones's drummer that I had from when I was a teenager. It was somehow perfect basically always. Lol.. So many records that was on.. and So many tones. Thank goodness for the Slngerland for having my back, as it were., but this other snare is making me want to hurl hammers. ( The point with the whole "Snare fest 2021" was to find a piccolo sound similar to that used on 'Presto'. Super articulate, really fun tone, and knowing how Neil played, laying into that thing still sounded awesome. I figure a minimum of three snares should do: the S COB, one of the piccolos and the 402 just because ;) WE HOPE YOU'VE ENJOYED THIS SHORT STORY! HAVE A PLEASANT DAY! ( and Thank you for your service :)
I find that if I loosen the 4 snare bed lugs a bit it helps control the wires. Especially with sympathetic buzzing.
I guess my rule has always been that if I can't hear any overtone then that is a good thing. However you point out that what I hear may not be the same as what is heard out there. If I hear a little overtone from my snare it may not be heard by the audience and it could be getting soaked up by all of the other instruments while you're playing. I am at the point where I only use moongel on my heads so I'm not sure if I want to go any further with muffling. If anyone's ever heard U2 and the intro 2 bullet the blue sky, Larry has a lot of ring in his snare until the rest of the band joins in and it all gets soaked up. So maybe it's just a matter of experimenting.
First off I love that snare , gotta get one. For me personally I like Evans hydraulic heads,love the sound and they just seem to make everything easier. Tuning super high? No thank you. I'm a low as you can go kinda guy!
Some rock drummers tend to solve the overtone problems with different heads. F.e. Clear Remo CS is great head if you tune your deeper snare low to mid range and want cut with less overtones.
Great videos as always!
Cody,
How many snare drums do you own? You mentioned you have scaled down your number of snares. Also, I love how you incorporate the legendary Supra!
Yep I sure have! My collecting days are behind me :) Right now I have six and, with the exception of the Supra, they’re all drums I’ve had for years. -Cody
@@SoundsLikeADrum That’s awesome! Yes my collecting days are behind me as well. It’s funny , my early 60’s Supra is the only snare I own at the moment LOL!
Do you find once you've cranked the snare side head it never has the same tone when younthen tune it much lower, compared to a new head that hadn't been stretched? I got a new gum wood snare last week and had this very issue. Sounded amazing tuned low straight out the box, with just a few tweaks. Wanted to test the dynamic range and started to crank it up. Snare still sounded great at both mid and high tunings, the original low tuning had such depth I had to go back though. When I brought the snare side back down the snare sounded nice but had lost all that beautiful depth. I assume I overstretched the head. This seems really obvious, but its amazing how many things there are to learn when it comes to drums, if you have the passion it can he an endless fantastic journey. I'm in love with your channel.
Yep- that’s why we don’t recommend cranking the snare side down. There are few instances where we’ve felt the need to do it and we’re generally disappointed by the common recommendation of “just crank the snare side tabletop right” regardless of the desired sound. Keep in mind- your ideal snare side tension will allow you to achieve your desired dynamic range balanced with your ideal tonal response. Cranking the snare side *may* address dynamics but can significantly hinder tonal response.
If you have recently thinned the herd of snare drums, would you please do a video on your current collection and the philosophy behind it?🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁
Hahaha, probably not a whole video but I can tell you it’s 3 wood and 3 metal plus a Baritone snare/floor tom and they’re all 14” diameter :) -Cody
PREACH!!
At the moment, I seem to tune wood snares 2-3 turns below “tabletop tight”. But the 6.5 deep one, and the steel snares I have (14x6.5, 14x8) I tune maybe 1 turn down from tabletop tight - at least it’s tighter than the more shallow snare drum. I’ve tried tabletop tight, and I don’t like it, it sucks all body out of the snare drum and its just wires essentially.
When you refer to 1 turn do you mean 1 360° turn of the key or 180° turn? Seems like 2-3 full turns would slacken the head right off.
lol - good question! I wrote this 3 years and about 2.000 practise hours ago. I think I meant 1 turn = 180 degrees, otherwise what I said makes little sense. Now, I would call 1 turn 360 degrees. :-)
Great vid dudes! I've been wrestling with this, especially with the 7.5 x 15 Beier snare I just got. Can you give me a sense of how wide those intervals were in relation to the batter head? I know that pitches and intervals are far from universal, but I just want a sense of how much lower the low was, how much higher the high was, and how close to unison the middle was.
My man said " quell " 🤣. Just joshing, love you Cory. Do alotta people say you play similarly to Chad Smith?
Ha! No they haven’t said that yet but I’ll take it :) -Cody
@@SoundsLikeADrum cody is the man. A great teacher and player and spreads most positive vibrations❤🎶
I like to get a fat spray sound out of the snare drum at a medium tuning at the batter and snare side.
So with all of this in mind, me just putting it into words that make sense to me, would you say that so long as it sounds good all around the drum but still has a lot going on that the specific drum is just lively?
Killer video as always, gentlemen!
Question: I have the same Pearl kit that you guys are using (with die cast hoops) and I find that when I tune my rack Tom just above wrinkle, it’s still too tight and not pleasing to play as far as “feel” is concerned. I’m trying to find a method that works for me with making the drum feel good and sound good. How can I achieve that feel that’s just right and not too tight? I feel like that’s a slim range when it comes to tuning Toms.
I understand what you're saying and I totally respect that but in my humble opinion, a video this long is just overkill. I know you said the professional drummers and professional tuners do the snare side head super tight and then adjust the batter and wires from there and honestly that's been working perfect for me for over 26 years. if you think of the snare side head as just what your sensitivity should be and just use the top head for tuning, it is so much easier. yes the bottom head affects tone, but not that much at all. sometimes you do have to start with the extremes, my man. if someone comes at you with a knife, don't pull out a knife, pull out a bazooka. problem over. with that said, I LOVE your videos and will continue to watch. please don't take offense to me just having an opinion that differs from yours, I respect yours totally, because as long as ya get there to a sound where you are inspired and sounding good, then screw how ya get there.
Have you ever played a Supralite? Am I crazy, or is that thing a sleeper?
I have two snares at home and two snare in my studio and i feel like I can get a range of tunings that make me happy in any context with those alone. I was not a fan of the overall overtones the snare in the video was producing though... too pingy, that would not fly in my recordings.
So question for anybody that sees this - how’s the quality compare of a stock remo snare side head to a USA made one?
Completely hit or miss regardless of overseas brand.
couldn't have picked a better snare to work with
How many snares do you have?
Current 6 that I’ve had for a while! -Cody
@@SoundsLikeADrum Thanks! I have 6 but 2 of them are my most favourite which I constantly use.
I find that my snare wires are choked when hit hard, but are too loose when playing softer/ghost notes. Any tips to prevent this?
That for me is usually either an issue with the snare side hoop not being level or the wires being damaged - we have a few past videos about this issue! -Cody
Controlling Tom Overtones Without Muffling???
That'll be another episode!
@@SoundsLikeADrum
Sounds like a drum!
It is a pity Skillshare wants Paypal data, I never do that untill I decide to subscribe for longer than the trial period.
Just to be clear, you won’t get charged until the trial period is over if you move forward with the premium membership.
That "correct" tuning toward the end sounds great, I'd still probably go for a little bit of dampening just to cut that overtone some more. It sounds good, and in a mix would probably disappear, but I am also not a drummer, I'm a guitar player and a sound guy, I really like to have flexibility with different reverb options to create a great sound, and I've found with too much overtone it stifles my ability to get the most out of the effects. Plus when there's a section with just drums and vocals I just really want those effects to shine, not that "basketball" sound. Maybe I've heard so many drum sounds from the 90s that had that and I hated it, that whenever I hear it even a little I avoid it like the plague lol.
I'd still muffle that one. Klang. Klang. Klang.
I personally love unmuffled sound on drums just never liked muffled sounds especially on a maple drumset because your killing the best sound of a maple drumset
anyone else hate the uv coating and prefer the old coating?
No
I love my Evan G2 coated heads
3:26 without tuning.
It actually starts at 0:00 😉
@@SoundsLikeADrum haha i know but for me.. i try to soak up as less side information as possible
That’s actually the context that informs everything else. Imagine taking a lesson and interrupting the teacher to skip ahead to the demonstration. You may learn a snapshot of the thing but context is everything here. Otherwise it’s tasteless.
I like focus.. so no ill stick to one video at the time
Why couldn’t drums be like cymbals, you open them up and play them and they sound good
I need a snare that has wood in it!!!!
Just be careful ...hitting a sensitive snare
a lot of you guys want a completely flat tone that you unfortunately hear on so many albums. you're playing a musical instrument so make some music with it. introduce a little bit of freaking tone into your sound and quit choking it to death. honestly anything more than one moongel on a snare really bugs me unless you're looking for that flat cardboard kind of sound.... or if you're in 80's cover band because every snare back in the 80s had zero tone
I know this is about snares, but can we talk a second to appreciate the number of days that floor tom rings?
we need to diffentiat between, beautiful overtones and satanic, nasally buzzing. You pros on here never seem to need dampening. Yer guys snares always have zero nasal buzz. Zero channels demonstrate the nasally buzz (although every sh1t drummer, AND many decent drummers) have a snare like this. Again, you pros, tune yer snare and the ring SOUNDS GOOD.
Why am I not ever able to fix this… yes new heads, yes hoops, yes shell not beat on… if drum is not defective, wtf?
What the hell is snare side head? I’ve been playing drums for 40+ years. It’s either batter side or Resident side come on
No need to get all flustered. “Snare Side” is simply how Evans has their snare reso heads labeled.
You mean "resonant" side...I've also been playing 40+ years and have heard it both ways.
I don't like "Metal" snares. They always tinny
Sound tinny!!!
You seemed genuinely angry that people crank their snare side heads as a starting point 😅 us casuals need a step stool and that’s one less variable
We're definitely frustrated when we see false information or information lacking context being spread by well known drummers/educators. All we can do is share and demonstrate alternative approaches.