Before even recording be very certain that everything is tuned correct and you have the right snare/drumhead for the job. Evans Genera HD Dry is always a win for me, piece of moongel (or sometimes even 1/2 piece of moongel) and you're set. As far as tuning goes : I always start out with changing the head the night BEFORE a recording/gig/whatever. I tune it as high as i possibly can, i lay the snaredrum on the floor (soft floor ) with the batter pointing towards you. Now go on and stand on the head and bend through your knees a couple of times (and don't be afraid, the snarehead can handle it) so that you put some weight on it. This way the head adjusts to the snare drum, let it sit like this through the night. Next day you wanna tune it roughly the pitch you want it to be and then with your tuning key you'll tap near the lug and listen to the pitch that comes out of it, if you like it then tune the rest of the lugs EXACTLY like the one you chose. The trick here is not to follow the snare drum lugs clockwise or counterclockwise. You'll always tune the lug opposing to the one just tuned. Example ; If you like the pitch that comes out of the lug that sits at 12' o clock, you will tune the lug that is at the 6' o clock position, after that you'll go to the lug at 3' o clock for example, tune it in the pitch which is the exact as lugs 12 and 6 o clock, and then you'll go to 9 o' clock. Etcetera etcetera. During recording let the drummer check his tuning before recording a new song (just like a guitarist more or less) As far as pitch goes it doesn't go as far as tuning to a certain note to be in tune with the music It's more what fits the song and what you like. Also, if you have multiple snares at hand, check them out! A year and a half back with my old band we were recording our debute album, i had 3 snares at hand. My own Mapex 14X5,5 steel snare, a brass Ludwig Black Beauty 14x6,5 and a birch Tama 14x5,5. The thing i was not expecting that my own Mapex sounded better in our style of music then the Black Beauty! Which is a snare that i absolutely adore but it didn't quite fit in the musical image. Just use your ears! Also, it's very helpful too when the drummer knows his stuff, has a (correct!) opinion and is willing to adapt to the situation (which isn't very common ) For donations give me a PM 
i've done everything you said in this post when we recorded that snare.What everybody else says
I truly hope you guys can get some information out of this story
yeah we did that, took time to tune it, use a tune watch, broke it in, let it sit over night, retuned it, did the tuning properly doing the keys in the right order, using the tune watchyeah take some time tuning the drums, selecting the right mic for snare top etc.. An SM57 is a safe choice but very often there is a mic that will sound better.
Most of my snare EQ-ing is just a corrective EQ, like the logic channel EQ or digirack stuff, to do a high-pass and to reduce some unwanted ring. All the other EQ-ing is done with a musical EQ such as the Stillwell Vibe EQ or a linear phase EQ.
I rarely use reverbs on snares because they tend to sound really artificial. Most of my reverb comes from a blumlein ribbon pair a couple of meters in front of the kit. I use the snare top or a trigger as a key input to open the gates on them
Oh, and always compress the tail offcourse
