Poll: What most affects a snare's sound?

Which aspects of a snare drum's construction have the most significant affect on its sound?

  • Shell thickness

    Votes: 9 8.2%

  • Shell material

    Votes: 34 30.9%

  • Shell diameter and depth

    Votes: 44 40.0%

  • Bearing edges

    Votes: 11 10.0%

  • Number and weight of lugs

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • Hoop type and material

    Votes: 25 22.7%

  • Heads

    Votes: 82 74.5%

  • Snare wire material and number of strands

    Votes: 19 17.3%
  • Total voters
    110
ravenson said:
Weight of the stick , the area of the head it strikes and the players grip/technique .
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Me again,

This is very similar to us guitar.players, long-standing,
' tone is in the fingers!' ( vs. the guitar/gear).argument..Which I actually do agree with, to a large degree.

A good player knows how to create his or her.own sound/tone through the gear - it just seems to come out!

I bet the same is true with drummers?
Touch, technique; ability to emote through the equipment
 
I think people would tend to reply according to the most visible and frequent differences they observe. Head changes are frequent and a different head obviously changes the sound. More than different bearing edges? I have no idea because first of all I don't even know the bearing edges of my snares and second I can't tweak them and see what happens.
I know diameter and depth make a big change. My mate has a steel snare probably similar thickness as mine but 6.5" instead of 5". It sounds radically different. But again in theory it could be the bearing edges that make the bulk of the difference, if I knew what angles they were 🤣
It's hard to play around and vary only one parameter at once, with a limited amount of time and a limited number of snares. So the mystery will remain.

But the most important factor is probably decent tuning.
 
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I voted for heads. Type, weight, coated/clear, combination of batter/reso choices, tension/tuning. I’m kind of looking at it through the prism of acquiring a drum with cheap, poor quality heads. Even my cheapo Cat Clubs sounded 100% better once I launched the awful UT heads and replaced the with Emperors/Ambassadors.
 
I would have checked 'How you play it' as primary.

I give Steve Gadd as an example...i swear i can still hear the snare ringing on those songs where he used toms for a back beat.
 
To the point about not being able to easily change and understand bearing edges, it’s true except for people who go through a lot of drums and study the edges.

For one anecdotal example, I have owned a bunch of stave snares and disliked most of them. The sound was monotonous, lacking body and character and responsiveness, compared to my other drums. Most of them are very thick and they have a sharp inner 45 with a slight cut on the outer edge. The exception? An Angel with 5 mm of inner 45 and 7 mm of fat rounding on the outer. It sounds amazing, without the flaws I described.

I haven’t tried the Sugar Percussion stave snares yet but they get rave reviews—and they have a fat smooth round edge.

This isn’t to say a sharp 45 is bad, round is good—but that the shape makes a HUGE difference in sound and responsiveness, in my experience. Angel and Dunnett are a couple of brands that use different edges for batter and reso, for another example.
 
The venue/ space has an effect as well. On a wide open stage one night i will love my snare. the next very night, crammed in a corner the sound sucks.
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
i put, shell material, bearing edges and heads

I feel like everything on the list combines for an overall sound, but those 3 make the biggest difference to my ears.
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I'm in this Camp. But I Don't Know Nothin 'bout bearing edges (too much unkess they are damaged). I would add in my limited experience - Tuning Snares is an elusive Art to me. My OCD (Limited , Thank God) forces me to attain the "sound of Perfection" form the few Snares I have. Trying a number of different batter heads, tweaking and re-tweaking the head, re-adjusting wires, and fooling with the Reso head too, in my mission to get "That Sound". I've been influenced by watching too many You Tube videos about the this subject - now realizing how many use Miking that influences those sounds. I don't Mike up my drums - as simply playing at home in retirement as a "Hobby". I did stumble upon an excellent channel from Rick Dior! When I posted comments on a video by him unrelated to snare tuning, but expressing How Much I liked the Snare sound he had he returned a Link to his Drum Tuning videos - very thorough and informative. He didn't Mike his drums in the videos from what I could tell.
 
ravenson said:
Weight of the stick , the area of the head it strikes and the players grip/technique .
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Yes, but those aren't variable aspects of a drum's construction.
 
Croatian Man said:
I'm in this Camp. But I Don't Know Nothin 'bout bearing edges (too much unkess they are damaged). I would add in my limited experience - Tuning Snares is an elusive Art to me. My OCD (Limited , Thank God) forces me to attain the "sound of Perfection" form the few Snares I have. Trying a number of different batter heads, tweaking and re-tweaking the head, re-adjusting wires, and fooling with the Reso head too, in my mission to get "That Sound". I've been influenced by watching too many You Tube videos about the this subject - now realizing how many use Miking that influences those sounds. I don't Mike up my drums - as simply playing at home in retirement as a "Hobby". I did stumble upon an excellent channel from Rick Dior! When I posted comments on a video by him unrelated to snare tuning, but expressing How Much I liked the Snare sound he had he returned a Link to his Drum Tuning videos - very thorough and informative. He didn't Mike his drums in the videos from what I could tell.
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so it took me about 10 years to get "that sound"...and it ended up just really being a copy of Stewart Copland. But it wasn't something that I stressed out about not having, and actively pursued. I just started to hear thigns, and would tweak as the years went.

the. only drum sounds I have ever tried to actively copy are Joe Morello's toms and bass sound...and that has only been in the past 10 years b/c I play in a small jazz combo now, and have a 1955 Ludwig drum kit. I am not super close, but also not that far off either...
 
'drum alone makes no sound"
---Ipsifusius 1642
 
I voted for diameter/depth, heads, and wires.

While it's possible to tune a drum into an extreme range, diameter and depth create a "center" to the drum's usefulness that is hard to overcome.

Heads also play a big part in the sound, in the case of a snare drum the bottom head especially.

Wires define whether or not the drum is a snare drum or not, and every different option has a noticeable and often dramatic effect on the sound of the whole drum.
 
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