Tuning Your Drums - Part III: Snare Drum

Finally, we tune the most important drum in your arsenal. The Snare Drum is easily the drum you will use the most. It is also the most expressive drum, and it can be tuned many different ways for a plethora of snare sounds. The snare drum's voice is often the "signature sound" of its drummer. I made this the final entry of my drum tuning series because I'd like to cover the many different aspects of this drum.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of snare tuning, a quick word about the snare wires themselves. They must first be removed before you can remove the snare-side head. These wires are held in place by cords that clamp to the side of the drum (usually tightened down by two small Phillips-head screws). Mark the position these cords are clamped with a Sharpie, or red nail polish before removing them, to facilitate reinstallation.

Snare drums are made in many different sizes, styles, and materials, it would be impractical to cover them all accurately for a discussion about tuning, but it is still important to apply tuning techniques differently towards different snare drums. I like to break different snare sounds up into 3 basic categories: Pop (tight snare sound full of overtones), Crack (flat, explosive sound with no overtones), and Boxy (loose snare sound with a "wet" texture).

Wood snares between 5-6 inches deep are best tuned for a Pop. Metal and acrylic snares (especially piccolo snares) make better Cracking sounds, and wood snares from 6 to 10 inches deep make better Boxy tones. Truthfully, any kind of snare can be tuned for any of the above sounds, but these combinations usually yield the best results.

THE POP SOUND

To make your snare "Pop", tune the top head very tightly, so tight that you can barely push down the center of the batter head. With the throw-off engaged, it should sound like a timbale. Use no muffling of any kind, because for this sound, you actually WANT overtones. Like any drum, you must tap the head lightly at each lug about an inch away from the hoop, and adjust each tension rod until the head sounds the same at every tuning point.

Next, install the bottom head. On all snare drums, you needn't tighten the bottom head too much, because its only true function is to give the snare wires a vibrating surface to rattle against. But to achieve the "pop" sound, use the star pattern to make the bottom head slightly tighter than normal, to where it will give less than half of an inch when you push down in the center of the head.

WARNING: Be very careful when testing the tension of the snare-side head this way, as they are VERY thin, and may retain dents, creases, or other deformities caused by careless handling.

Finally, after you reconnect the snare wires, use the tension wheel on the throw-off to adjust their tension to where they rattle rather loosely. They should continue to vibrate for about a half second after the drum is struck.

This kind of tuning gives a wood drum (especially maple) a natural woody sound, almost like a bowling pin, and a metal drum a bell-like sound. A piccolo snare will sound high, round, and sharp, and a deep snare will sound like a distant gunshot.

RECORDED EXAMPLES: Brad Wilks ("Evil Empire" - Rage Against the Machine); John Bonham (Led Zeppelin 4); Keith Moon ( The Who circa 1965-1967); John Steel (The Animals); Dave Silveria (Korn); Lars Ulrich ("St. Anger" - Metallica); Gar Samuelson ("Peace Sells, but Who's Buying?" - Megadeth).

THE CRACK SOUND

This sound is achieved by using the techniques to get the "pop" sound, but leaving the bottom head loose enough to give when pushed in the center between 5/8 to 3/4 of an inch.

The important part here is to dampen the overtones made by the batter head. An old jazz drummer's trick from the 30's was to lay your wallet on the batter head, but I personally would rather use an aftermarket dampening device, such as RemO's or Evan's E-rings. Moongels are a relatively new product that is rapidly becoming popular with drummers for dampening drumheads, and they work exceptionally well on snares.

Keep the snare wires at about the same tension as you would on a snare set up to "pop". The snare sound will be much tighter, though, because with the batter head dampened, the "after-rattle" will be minimized without any overtones echoing through the shell.

This method really makes piccolo snares sound like an M-80 or a cherry bomb. Of the standard 5-6 inch drums, the crack of the wood snare is a real attention-getter, and a metal snare sounds like a large-bore rifle firing. A deep-shell snare tuned this way reminds me of a car or motorcycle backfiring inside of a tunnel; very loud and with a lot less treble than piccolos or shells of standard depth.

RECORDED EXAMPLES: Steve Adler (Guns n' Roses); Neil Peart (Rush 70s-early 80s); Stewart Copeland (The Police); Bill Ward (Black Sabbath); Hermann Rarebell (The Scorpions); Dave Holland (Judas Priest); Chuck Behler ("So Far, So Good...So What?" - Megadeth).

THE BOXY SOUND

This sound could be described as the sound a corrugated cardboard box makes when struck with a stick. It was pretty big in the seventies, because its power and lack of overtones made it rather studio-friendly.

This sound is achieved by tuning the batter head relatively loose compared to typical snare head tensions. Using the star pattern, the head is tuned uniformly to the point where the center can be depressed about 1/2 to 5/8 of an inch down (some drummers prefer it looser still!).

The downside to such a loose batter head is that the stick action isn't as lively as on a tighter head, requiring more effort to play fast fills and rudiments. An old trick to remedy this condition is to make one side tight and the other loose, and use the tighter side for stick contact.

The resonant head is tuned about as loose as would be needed to achieve the "pop" sound. Remember, to get this sound, the word to watch head-wise is LOOSE!

The snares, on the other hand, need to be adjusted TIGHTER than usual; so that they stop rattling IMMEDIATELY after the stick makes contact with the batter head (should sound kinda like "BOOF!").

Please, don't waste time trying this technique on a piccolo snare; the very shallow shell depth does not handle the lower frequencies of loosely-tuned batter heads well at all. With a standard-depth shell, it has a flat, atonal sound with ultra-tight response, but tends to be a much "slower" snare drum. To me, at least, I cannot even distinguish any nuances at all between metal, acrylic, or wood drums tuned this way.

The deep-shell snare drum really gives a huge, powerful sound with this tuning, like a marching band snare (which classically uses this tuning method and also have even deeper shells). Since there are so few overtones (but they exist nonetheless), batter-head muting is an option, and is done or not done purely according to the personal tastes of the drummer.

RECORDED EXAMPLES: John Panozzo (Styx); Dennis Elliot (Foreigner); Jeff Porcaro (Toto); Phil Ehart (Kansas); David Robinson (The Cars); Lars Ulrich (Early Metallica).

Well, now you are armed with the knowledge you need to achieve the snare sound that will become your trademark as a drummer. Remember; these three sounds are only your "primary colors"; starting points, if you will. You have learned that, when it comes to snare drums, there are a multitude of different factors that mix and match to influence the sound of your main drum.

The shell diameter, shell depth, shell material, tension and number of snare wires, tension and type of drum heads, and whether or not to muffle or mute all play a role in developing your own sound. You can tweak and tap all of these techniques into your own signature sound, which is why the snare is easily the most versatile and expressive drum in your entire kit.

I hope this series on tuning was a big help to any aspiring drummer wanting to know where to begin, and that it took a lot of the mystery and confusion out of the art and science of making even cheap Wal-Mart drums (like mine) sound like a million dollars (also, LIKE MINE!). Until next time, God bless, and happy bashing!