Help me with that 80's snare sound

B

buzzbuzz

Member
I just bought a Mapex Black Panther Big Cat Snare. Here are the specs:
14-inches in diameter and 8-inches deep. The 6-ply, 5.1mm shell composition is similar to Mapex's popular Saturn Series 2 inner plies of walnut and 4 exterior plies of maple.

The Black Panther Big Cat Snare is equipped with Mapex 2.3mm Powerhoops and Remo Ambassador drumheads.

It's kinda high and ringy. I play in an 80's rock/metal band and would like to re-produce those deep snare tones as much as possible. Any advice?
 
buzzbuzz said:
It's kinda high and ringy. I play in an 80's rock/metal band and would like to re-produce those deep snare tones as much as possible. Any advice?
Click to expand...

Tune it down a shade. Both batter and reso. If that's still not giving you a tickle, then perhaps opt for a more focused batter head. A 2 ply like and Emp....or you could go one further on the "focus scale" and check out one of the Controlled Sound heads.
 
Tune everything loose and leave the snares loose and eq the hell out of it lol
 
1) Grow your hair to shoulder length
2) Perm your hair
3) Before every gig spend 2 hrs getting your hair just right and keep it there with lots of hairspray
4) Wear spray-on pants and keep the top 2 shirt buttons undone to show off your hairy chest
5) Use at least a 2 ply batter head, preferably use hydraulic heads
6) Tune reso head looser than batter

PS. wearing a headband will also assist in achieving that 80s sound. But don't mess up your hair when you put it on.
 
Last edited:
Great snare at a great price...I however had a hard time getting the lower sound from it and still having the sensitivity I require which would be expected from any snare over 6 1/2" . it has thin walls for a wood snare and resonates alot... tune both heads pretty low...then add moongel to get rid of any unwanted ring.this may require more then 1 piece...one thing I have noticed trying to achieve this sound is it really test your tuning ability the lower you tune the heads it can get frustrating so be patient you will get it. I use a evans power center reverse dot head..to me it has a thick sound without loosing all the senitivity....if you mic the snare and go thru a soundboard do what was also suggested (eq,reverb)...something else you want to do before tuning it way way down is if you can have someone else hit it while you stand 10' in front of set...I was suprised once with this exact same snare doing this and once I did it I ended up tighting up the bottom head a bit more.
 
madidus said:
1) Grow your hair to shoulder length
2) Perm your hair
3) Before every gig spend 2 hrs getting your hear just right and keep it there with lots of hairspray
4) Wear spray-on pants and keep the top 2 shirt buttons undone to show off your hairy chest
5) Use at least a 2 ply batter head, preferably use hydraulic heads
6) Tune reso head looser than batter

PS. wearing a headband will also assist in achieving that 80s sound. But don't mess up your hair when you put it on.
Click to expand...
Lol! Superb------------------------
 
braincramp said:
Great snare at a great price...I however had a hard time getting the lower sound from it and still having the sensitivity I require which would be expected from any snare over 6 1/2" . it has thin walls for a wood snare and resonates alot... tune both heads pretty low...then add moongel to get rid of any unwanted ring.this may require more then 1 piece...one thing I have noticed trying to achieve this sound is it really test your tuning ability the lower you tune the heads it can get frustrating so be patient you will get it. I use a evans power center reverse dot head..to me it has a thick sound without loosing all the senitivity....if you mic the snare and go thru a soundboard do what was also suggested (eq,reverb)...something else you want to do before tuning it way way down is if you can have someone else hit it while you stand 10' in front of set...I was suprised once with this exact same snare doing this and once I did it I ended up tighting up the bottom head a bit more.
Click to expand...

I think your're pretty close to what I should do here. I removed the Ambassador on top. I had a Remo Control Sound laying around so I put it on the top and it is much better. I also put a half piece of moongel on it and covered it with a small piece of duct tape to keep it on the head. After a bit I cut the moongel down even further so now it just has a hint of a ring. The moongel is about the size of my thumbnail.

The guy who sold me the snare old sold me some Pearl snares - he said they don't have to be quite as tight (or something, can't really remember) but he said it would help with the sound I am after. So, I've got it sounding pretty good now but when I got my daughter to whack on it a while (after standing about 10' away) it sounds different - LOL.

If I made a YouTube video of it could you guys give any input? Or would it not really help because the saund would just be coming from the camera - nothing fancy? Anyway, I've taken all the suggestions and I am a whole lot closer.
 
buzzbuzz said:
I just bought a Mapex Black Panther Big Cat Snare. Here are the specs:
14-inches in diameter and 8-inches deep. The 6-ply, 5.1mm shell composition is similar to Mapex's popular Saturn Series 2 inner plies of walnut and 4 exterior plies of maple.

The Black Panther Big Cat Snare is equipped with Mapex 2.3mm Powerhoops and Remo Ambassador drumheads.

It's kinda high and ringy. I play in an 80's rock/metal band and would like to re-produce those deep snare tones as much as possible. Any advice?
Click to expand...

Which 80s snare sound - lol?

Hope this helps

Mike

http://www.mikemccraw.com
http://www.dominoretroplate.com
http://www.patentcoachmike.com
http://www.youtube.com/drummermikemccraw
http://www.myspace.com/drummermikemccraw
http://www.facebook.com/mike.mccraw
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemccraw
http://twitter.com/mikemccraw
 
You would need a noise gate, lots of reverb, EQ and Compressor!

I use to play in a really good 80's style band and I used a piccolo snare. With a EQ and mic'd top and bottom my sound guy made that thing sound like a 8" deep drum.

your other option is to just trigger your sound that would be 80's to me.
 
buzzbuzz said:
What does 'gate' mean?

Also, where can I find an 8x14 bag for the snare that's not real expensive?
Click to expand...

I got my bag from this site.. you'll have to call them for the 8x14 like I did. The bag is of extreme high quality.
http://www.steveweissmusic.com/product/1108504/snare-drum-bag-case

A "gate" referring to "noise gate" it allows only the strike of the drum to enter the mic. Makes a nice tight and clean sound, more common on 80's type snare sounds. I tend not to gate because of ghost notes on snare only. Alesis make a nano verb processor that has a simulated gate that I like on the snare. By doing this and adding reverb and some low end EQ you should get a nice fat sound.
 
Kg_lee said:
I got my bag from this site.. you'll have to call them for the 8x14 like I did. The bag is of extreme high quality.
http://www.steveweissmusic.com/product/1108504/snare-drum-bag-case

A "gate" referring to "noise gate" it allows only the strike of the drum to enter the mic. Makes a nice tight and clean sound, more common on 80's type snare sounds. I tend not to gate because of ghost notes on snare only. Alesis make a nano verb processor that has a simulated gate that I like on the snare. By doing this and adding reverb and some low end EQ you should get a nice fat sound.
Click to expand...

Just bought one from them - called em up just like you said - thanks for the tip!
 
Now, if you're recording and have that gated reverb on your snare, you're going to get the same effect at noticible levels from your hi hat and kick drum. It's not so bad on the kick drum as that is also a common 80s sound, but on the hi-hat it's going to sound messy and blury. This is why the snare gets gated separately. So there's only the initial strike. Anything quieter, like the hi-hat, won't trip the gate open and doesn't get into the snare channel. Then you can put the reverb on the snare channel only. You can either use a gated reverb program, or do it the old fashioned way with another gate set to chop off the reverb after some pre-set period of time.

As kg mentions, gating the snare so that you can process it discretely cuts off subtler things like ghost notes. Setting the gate to pick up only what you want on the snare without tripping open on other things is tricky. There are gates that have frequency selectivity. I have a nice BSS dual gate that I mainly use on kick drums in live sound. You can adjust them to cut off either the low end or the high end so that the kick drum doesn't trip the snare gate, or visa-versa. But since the hi-hat and snare are in the same range, you are only left with the sensitivity or threshold setting.

Probably why you don't hear much fancy ghost note work on those 80s recordings with "that" snare sound.
 
Aeolian said:
Now, if you're recording and have that gated reverb on your snare, you're going to get the same effect at noticible levels from your hi hat and kick drum. It's not so bad on the kick drum as that is also a common 80s sound, but on the hi-hat it's going to sound messy and blury. This is why the snare gets gated separately. So there's only the initial strike. Anything quieter, like the hi-hat, won't trip the gate open and doesn't get into the snare channel. Then you can put the reverb on the snare channel only. You can either use a gated reverb program, or do it the old fashioned way with another gate set to chop off the reverb after some pre-set period of time.

As kg mentions, gating the snare so that you can process it discretely cuts off subtler things like ghost notes. Setting the gate to pick up only what you want on the snare without tripping open on other things is tricky. There are gates that have frequency selectivity. I have a nice BSS dual gate that I mainly use on kick drums in live sound. You can adjust them to cut off either the low end or the high end so that the kick drum doesn't trip the snare gate, or visa-versa. But since the hi-hat and snare are in the same range, you are only left with the sensitivity or threshold setting.

Probably why you don't hear much fancy ghost note work on those 80s recordings with "that" snare sound.
Click to expand...

kinda like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5rDQbH1g38
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top