Snare side head issues

MediocrityMaster

Senior Member
so a while ago, i got new heads for every drum except my bass drum, but now my issue is my snare, the top head tunes nice and fat without any muffling, but the snareside has an issue with flattening out.

in between the lugs where the snare lays the head dosnt flatten out, it stays wrinkled between the lugs, and its a real frustration, because i end up having to tune extremely tight which dosnt give me the snare sound that i want.
whats the fix for this?
are my bearing edges out of shape here?
or do they cut the bearing edge more here so that the snares lay correct?
am i tuning it wrong?

im going to buy a new snare after the summer, but for now i wanna figure this out.

thanks,
 
They usually (and should) cut out a bit where the snare lie - it's known as the snare bed so the snares make better contact with the head. If it's wrinkled, that means you probably have the bottom head too loose, which you say it isn't (should feel like a soccer ball according to most people), or the snares are pulled way too tight. Try seeing how loose you can get them and still get the sound you want, and see if it's wrinkled then. What kind of snare is it? Other than that, I can't be much of a help!
 
its just the snare that came with my set, PDP Z5,

i have the the tension rods turned tight enough to where it usually wouldnt wrinkle, but with my last set of heads i tried to get rid of the wrinkles by tightening to a similar tension, but the last time the head stretched weird over the snare beds and so im afraid to do that with my hazy ambassador
 
A few things come to my mind here. Problems with the snare reso head itself. There might not be even tension on each and every tension rod on the snare side head or maybe the bearing edges or snare bed is not perfectly cut.

Dennis
 
so a while ago, i got new heads for every drum except my bass drum, but now my issue is my snare, the top head tunes nice and fat without any muffling, but the snareside has an issue with flattening out.

in between the lugs where the snare lays the head dosnt flatten out, it stays wrinkled between the lugs, and its a real frustration, because i end up having to tune extremely tight which dosnt give me the snare sound that i want.
whats the fix for this?
are my bearing edges out of shape here?
or do they cut the bearing edge more here so that the snares lay correct?
am i tuning it wrong?

im going to buy a new snare after the summer, but for now i wanna figure this out.

thanks,

"because i end up having to tune extremely tight " which probably means you pulled the head out.

Take it off, look at it from the side, if there's 'more plastic' visible from the hoop (of the head itself) to the top playing surface in that area than around the rest of the head, you've 'pulled out' that area. 'If' that's what happened, the head is no longer useable... its toast.

Its hard to spot, you gotta look close. Snare heads can pull-out and not separate/break from their hoop, when this happens the head is not tunable. Danger when you don't crank evenly, or you crank too hard on the tension rods overall.

Bottom snare heads are weak compared to batter heads, go easy.
 
thanks, but i dont think my head is pulled out.

i checked the head multiple times, and i dont see any signs of that.

it might be the beginner level of my snare that makes it not sit correctly.

thanks again.
 
I know that I have to crank the snare side pretty tight to get rid of the wrinkles. It sounds like a normal thing to me. Most people say to tune that snare reso tight for best snare response, and I agree for sure. But it's OK to have a slight wrinkle if that's the sound you like.
Plus the snare side really has to be tensioned very evenly, they're easy to ruin, because the film is just so darn thin.
 
I've found no problems with my reso head. As far as I've heard, because the reso side is so much thinner, it can stretch more, giving you the possibility of really cranking it.

A while ago, I brought my snare into my local Five-Star Drumshop because I truly did not know how to tune the reso head. The manager, a long-time drummer (and well-known locally), cranked up all of the lugs and the crackling was horrendous. I thought the head was about to break, but he said not to worry because the thinner the head, the more it can stretch. I recently went to a Stanton Moore clinic and he said the same thing.

Indeed, this is the best snare sound I've had, and after about eight months of heavy hitting, I haven't had a problem yet. As long as you check if the head is in tune pretty regularly, you shouldn't have a problem. MediocrityMaster, I suggest picking up a new reso head and seeing what someone at your drum shop suggests. :)
 
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