My quest for a perfect-sounding snare...

Okay, so I have been tinkering with my snare for a good amount of time now, cutting off snare wires, trying different tunings, etc., but I just can't get exactly the sound that I'm looking for. It may sound contradictory, but I don't want it to sound overwhelmingly
"snare-y". I thought cutting off snare wires would help this, but the difference is almost inaudible. Also, whenever I hit the head anywhere outside the center of it, I get an odd "twang" sound from my snares. If I tighten my snares to minimize this, I lose a lot of sensitivity from them and my ghost notes sound mediocre. I know I've made some threads about this before, but nothing is really helping, and I'm at the point where I'm seriously considering cranking down my heads and leaving my snares off. I don't really know where to go from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
You've tried different tuning combinations on your snare's top AND bottom heads? combine that with different tensions on the snares? Maybe you should get new heads, or just get a new snare altogether.
 
It could be a few things, but without knowing more I'll just rattle through some of my basic snare 101 issues.

Top head needs to be tensioned evenly, whether high, medium, or low. Any inconsistency here will only be magnified when the wires are engaged. The drum needs to sound good before turning the snares on, so focus on the drum's sound before worrying about the wires too soon.

Tone and snare response have a lot to do with the snare head. If you're looking for cleaner snare response you might need to tension the head up a bit more. If the higher tension still isn't getting a good overall tone (harsh or brittle sounding) it probably means the snare head has gone dead and needs to be replaced.

Once the drum sounds clear and open and has the stick response you're looking for bring up the tension of the wires while tapping the drum until you find the point between flappy and choked

After all the cutting on the snare wires it is possible one or more remaining wires are bent. If so you'll get some weird rattles because the wires aren't perfectly flush with the bottom head.
 
I think Winston said it nicely.
 
Along with Winstons advice yiou could try the Puresound EQ wires, they have no strands down the centre and cut down on buzz and along with a double ply head you should be where you want to be. I know this because when I was using different heads the double ply along with the Puresound created the sound you are looking for; this is on a 61/2 D snare.
The Evans EC2 and the Remo Emperor worked best for this.

Good luck.
 
Okay, so just a quick update: I tightened my heads and now my snare sounds exactly like I wanted it to! I'm ecstatic! Thanks for the help.
 
Okay, so just a quick update: I tightened my heads and now my snare sounds exactly like I wanted it to! I'm ecstatic! Thanks for the help.

Good to hear! Not everyone gets the sound they want out of their snare. What kind of snare do you have, by the way?
 
Okay, so just a quick update: I tightened my heads and now my snare sounds exactly like I wanted it to! I'm ecstatic! Thanks for the help.

Wait wait wait, so you were whining in your first post about not being able to get your "perfect" sound, and you couldn't figure out making the heads tighter? I gotta ask, is this your first time playing?
 
Wait wait wait, so you were whining in your first post about not being able to get your "perfect" sound, and you couldn't figure out making the heads tighter? I gotta ask, is this your first time playing?

An acoustic kit, yes. I've been playing on electronic drums for about 5 years. Sorry for my "whining"; I didn't mean to get on your nerves with my ignorance.
 
Good to hear! Not everyone gets the sound they want out of their snare. What kind of snare do you have, by the way?

A Tama Metalworks. It's not the best, but it gets the job done, haha. Thanks for your suggestions.
 
I am pleased the OP was able to get his snare to sound ok. There seems no reason for me to bother adding to this thread aside from mentioning there is no perfect sound. I just bought snare No. 40 and am still searching.........
 
I'm glad that you got a sound you are looking for.

This is a very good example of people not experimenting with their equipment. Tuning drums to achieve your sound is entirely up to the drummer. You can ask for advise but the main thing is that YOU need to take the time to get your drum and a tuning key and sit down and experiment with it. This is the only way you are going to learn how to tune your drums to get the sound that you want. It's time consuming but the rewards are very worth it. John
 
I searched for the perfect snare sound for years...get real close with my Supra..but get it dead on with my Roland set @ Steel snare tuned to -80 with 4 dampening and arena ambience up all the way..... the perfect hair band snare if I ever heard it!!! if you have a TDK4 its pretty close to the snare on kit 13
 
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