Metal snare and sound!

[Breakdown0]

Hi there!
Just like many drummer I’m looking for my perfect snare sound! I’m playing metal but also sensitive stuff. So basically I already know what I’m looking for and got 3 samples of a snare sound. The problem is that I don’t really know how to get it and I also wanted to get a new snare (thought maybe bronze or copper), because I'm looking for a nice heavy sound like bell brass… I wanted to ask you guys for help :)
My problems:

1) How would you tune your snare to get these sounds.
2) What kind of role does the snare material and/or an EQ play.

Arch Enemy: Stigmata
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUzaJx0ItnY

Metallica: Fuel (Rock am Ring)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NALDa2rh6V4

Trivium: Ascendancy
http://myspace.com/trivium

Greetings Breakdown0 :)

[Jeremy]

All three of those guys use pretty deep steel or aluminum snares and a heavy batter head. Tune the top head to a semi-high tension, and the bottom either a 4th above or below. Both above and below give similar sounds, apart from pitch obviously, but the big difference is in feel. I prefer a 4th above because gives more bounce when not tuned crazy high. Keep in mind that on those recordings you're not hearing all the ring from the snare, since it's just contributing to the sound cutting through. When playing by yourself it will sound much ringier than those recordings. Aluminum will be better than steel if you really don't like ring.

You can't really judge any sound by a recording, because a gabiffiloonumum of things change the sound before you hear it, but with a mic and some decent EQ any snare can cut and sound good.