Snare drum enquiries

J

Jameister

Junior Member
Hey there, forumers.
I have the Gretsch Catalina maple kit which came with a 14x6 inch maple snare drum.
However I have two enquiries for you...
1) What is the best snare drum batter head??
I recently have decided I want to get a new head but with all these different heads out, I'm having difficult deciding. At the moment I am deciding between the Evans Genera HD Dry and the Remo Emperor X. But are these the best you can get?
2) My snares give off a LOT of buzzing and ringing and I do not know how to get rid of this? I have tightened them as much as I can, and I have also tightened the resonant head as much as I can. But should I loosen one of them or what??
Many thanks,
Jameister
 
I'm not sure which head is best for the snare drum, but I do know that I play the Aquarian Texture coated with power dot for the batter head and it's coating seems everlasting and the sound is nice and focussed. (I prefer it over the Coated Ambassador I put on my other snare.)

As for the buzzing and ringing, tightening your snarewires might help. But what might help more is lossning your snare heads. The tighter they are, the more overtones you'll get.
I'd suggest tuning your batter head to what stick rebound feels right and tuning your reso head to get the tone you want.
If you Still have too much overtones, you can put a piece of moongel or tape on the side of your batter head for further muffeling.
Good luck!
 
I've got the same kit mate. I never use the snare, but must admit it sounds a hell of a lot better after I swapped out the stock heads with an Emperor batter and an Ambassador snare side reso.

The ugly overtones you are hearing will be a result of your tuning. Try this tuning method here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxm3QunDjUs ......the rest comes down to practice (and plenty of trial and error).
 
Ye Gods, do not tighten your snares in the attempt to reduce snare buzz. You'll ruin the snare response of the drum, choke the drum, and possibly damage the snare wires.

You don't say if your snare wires buzz all on their own or when you hit your toms. Snare buzz is most often caused by the snare resonating sympathetically with other drums; the solution is tuning either the offending tom or the snare or both, usually away from each other in terms of pitch. You often don't have to change their tuning by much. If the snare buzzes all on its own, it's often the result of bent or poorly installed snare wires.

For a rundown on snare buzz and solutions for it, see here and here.

There is no "best" snare batter. The large number of models available all give you a different sound. Do you know what kind of sound you want?

The most popular snare batter is a single-ply coated such as the Remo Ambassador or Evans G1. Any good snare deserves at least to be tried with such a head.

Other snare models involve varying degrees of built-in muffling. 2-plies, rings, dots, etc. are all attempts to reduce the characteristic ring of a snare drum. They also remove tone to one degree or another. Your choice.

If you still have the stock resonant head on the drum I highly recommend you replace it with a hazy Ambassador snare-side or an Evans Hazy 300. This will make the drum sound better and will also make tuning easier.
 
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