Snare Wires On Drum Recording

[Dom Ostarig]

Hello guys,

Just to clarify, I just meet a "drum teacher" that told me something like this:
"...in a good drum tuning the snare wires must vibrate when we're hitting tons..." and more: "in a full record, we can't notice these wire sounds in the song"

What can I think about it???


thank you guys

 

[JamesNorman]

I dunno man, but on my kit i fucking hate it if it rattles when not being hit!

 

[soundsunderground]

overly tight wires will choke the snare no doubt. pretty common of noobs to over tighten.

 

[BLUElightCory]

It's pretty normal for snare wires to resonate with the rest of the drums on a properly tuned kit. It's part of the natural sound of a drum kit, like pick attack and finger squeaks on the guitar, or keypads clacking on a saxophone. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[KeithTidd]

you should tighten/loosen the wires depending on the amount of snare I need for the song. I could see them choking the snare's sound in an extreme case, but negligibly.

 

[lolzgreg]

I would say that your drum kit is tuned very poorly if there is an overabundance of snare wire rattle while you hit toms. That would mean that your kit is tuned sympathetically in regards to the snare, which is going to cause a lot of unneeded and unwanted noise while recording and playing. I could see snare noise being nice to make things sound more "real," but I wouldn't want it all over my kick drum or tom tracks, especially for compressed rock music, since I'd have to edit all of that shit out; this would make it nearly impossible to get fat, singing drums in the mix.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one, and some smell and look a lot worse than others.

 

[Ionei]

Yeah i fucking HATE sympathetic vibration too.
Do not dig it at all.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I actually like them really tight, I hate it when you hit the snaredrum and the wires are rattling longer than the snare itself decays.
if I get tracks like that sent I usually gate the bottom mic keyed by the top mic.
but I prefer to have everything really tight in the first place

 

[vespiz]

What sizes are you preferring? I was surprised when Jens Bogren mentioned that he likes the fat 10cm ones.. (oo-er..)

 

[Lasse Lammert]

What sizes are you preferring? I was surprised when Jens Bogren mentioned that he likes the fat 10cm ones.. (oo-er..)

I've just ordered a 42 or 44 strain, really looking forward to trying that, so far I used the standard ones mostly

 

[Trevoire520]

Any particular brand of snare wires that people prefer? I know Glenn likes Puresound Blasters.

Does changing snare wires make a big difference to the sound of the drum? I'm just using the stock wires on my Tama and MBP at the moment.

 

[jangoux]

I posted about this about one month ago but got no definite answer. I have a Pearl Ian Paice with 18 strand wires, but I dont like it too much. I am going to try Puresound's 30 strand wires as soon as I have money.

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Just grabbed a set of 42 strand 'hi-carbon steel' tama wires. Gonna try them out on my DW today.

As for the 'over tight' wires thing... yeah, that problem plagued me for ages. I made the mistake of listening to a drummer about it & was totally choking off the transient. I was cranking the wires to just touch the bottom skin with the throw off disengaged, then flipping it on. Waaay too tight. It's ok to let the snare breathe.
Only on recent projects have my snares been sounding like they should.... Hey, try to learn something every day, I always say!


If I get the time, I'll try a snare wire shootout.

 

[BLUElightCory]

I'm using 42-strand wires on both of my studio drums (6.5 x 14" Black Beauty and 6.5 x 14" Dunnett Steel) - I definitely prefer them to standard size snares. They add more of the high-end "snare" sound to the drum and to my ears it adds a more explosive quality to the overall snare sound.

I've tried the cheap Gibraltar wires, Puresounds, and Tama Snappy Snares, and prefer the Tama wires. The Puresounds are great but they're really mellow in comparison to the Tamas, which to me is defeating the purpose of installing the larger snare wires. For mellower music the Puresounds would be excellent, but for hard rock I'd go with the Tamas.

 

[soundsunderground]

+1 42 Tama wires

 

[Fragle]

related question:

do you usually go for the snare being "open" or "closed"....i don't know the proper term for this, i'm talking about that switch at the side of the snare which either let's the wires rattle or tightens them right to the bottom head.

i guess this is mainly relevant for blast heavy music...

edit: that's actually the reason for me asking, because i record lots of death metal, and some drummers are just way into that thud like sound you get from an open snare.

 

[Force666]

related question:

do you usually go for the snare being "open" or "closed"....i don't know the proper term for this, i'm talking about that switch at the side of the snare which either let's the wires rattle or tightens them right to the bottom head.

i guess this is mainly relevant for blast heavy music...

Closed. The switch is for turning the "snare" off. Once you take it off it's basically just another tom.