GCRoberts
Member
I've heard from numerous sources that you should strive to tune your drums so you don't need to use any mutes or dampeners to minimize snare buzz. I've been attempting to reach this goal with limited success so far. For reference, I have a DW Performance Kit with a 14"x6.5" snare, 22" bass, and 8", 10", 12", 14", 16", 18" toms. I've been doing all my tuning using the tune-bot studio, but I do own a drum dial as well. I'm also using the accompanying iPhone tune-box app. Using the drum set calculator on the app, I enter my 6 tom sizes. For resonance, you can choose minimum, maximum, and two levels in between. I've chosen minimum. I don't do any pitch adjust. You can chose bottom head higher, top head higher, or single head drum...I've chosen bottom head higher. The app tells me to tune (supplying top lug and bottom lug frequencies) to the following: 8" - 3G, 10" - 3D#, 12" - 2B, 14" - 2G, 16" - 2D#, and 18" - 1B. I can supply the frequencies, but that's probably more information that needed for this question. For the 14" x 6.5" snare drum, I chose a pitch of "A". I picked that because it's midway between G and B. Not sure if that's a good decision or not. It's usually the 10" or 12" that wants to create snare buzz. I've tried adjusting the snare wire tension which works but you end up deadening the snare too much. Any advice would be appreciated. If the answer is you'll always have snare buzz, I can live with that...I just don't want to totally miss something obvious.