DW black nickel over brass snares tuning

DrumWhipper

DrumWhipper

Member
For anyone that might have a DW black nickel over brass snare how are you tuning yours? I recently picked one up and have been playing around with tunings. I'm trying to find maybe a middle ground tuning that doesn't have a lot of extra snare buzz with it. If you have tunebot or drum dial settings I'm certainly open to trying those, as well.
 
Here are some things that work for me on nickel over brass snares .
Batter head - use a Remo CS white or black dot batter tuned medium tight

Snare head - use a Ludwig X-thin resonant head - tuned high

Keep the snare tension rods tuned as follows:
The two tension rods in either side of the snare wires (at both ends) tuned looser (half turn) than the rest of the wires (very tight) - this will help with the snare buzz issue .
 
RickP said:
Here are some things that work for me on nickel over brass snares .
Batter head - use a Remo CS white or black dot batter tuned medium tight

Snare head - use a Ludwig X-thin resonant head - tuned high

Keep the snare tension rods tuned as follows:
The two tension rods in either side of the snare wires (at both ends) tuned looser (half turn) than the rest of the wires (very tight) - this will help with the snare buzz issue .
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Thank you!
 
DrumWhipper said:
For anyone that might have a DW black nickel over brass snare how are you tuning yours? I recently picked one up and have been playing around with tunings. I'm trying to find maybe a middle ground tuning that doesn't have a lot of extra snare buzz with it. If you have tunebot or drum dial settings I'm certainly open to trying those, as well.
Click to expand...
I have this drum 14 X6.5 and for some time as poor Drum tuner have difficulty getting to my Sweet spot. I've tried a variety of Batter heads UV1 & UV2s, Remo Powerstroke 77 and an Evans HD dry. I bought mine used in 2021. It came delivered form the previous owner via Reverb. It came in excellent condition with a HD Dry batter head. It sounded wonderful out of the delivery box. Since I replaced that batter head with new HD Dry ( and all the others) I just can't get that sound when i got it. I'm going to try RicP's suggestions. BTW, I dislike that buzzy sound or too much overtones. The HD Dry is good for eliminating that but can sound too chokes :(:(. I'll keep trying. I did stumble upon a "weird" hack by accident in my disgust over this. When I placed my DW snare atop my PDP concept Maple 16 X 14 Floor Tom and hit it for the helluva it, Bingo - That was the great sound.... Ludwig Supraphonic like. I posted that here and elsewhere - no answers as to why other than one posted telling me that I may have invented a new Snare stand! Another fellow said that I was actually playing two drums at the same time. Doing this does remove all Snare Buzz from the rack Toms. Lastly, I tried a different Floor Tom - a cheapo Gammon that is `16 X 16, it sounds different than on the other ??
 
I had the nickel-over-brass version of this drum and it’s an awesome instrument. But after having several DW Collectors snares, I found that they all sound really good when you crank the bottom head a lot tighter than normal, and then tune the the batter head for the amount of phatness that you may like.

I know it’s standard to have the bottom head a bit tighter than the top but on DW snares this seems to be extreme. On my Ludwig Supras, I can get away with more of a slack tuning on the bottom, so this is one case where I think DW designed their snares to be this way. It was weird when I had the snares side-by-side and discovered the DW sounded nice when the bottom was more cranked up than on the Ludwig. YMMV though.
 
Bo Eder said:
I had the nickel-over-brass version of this drum and it’s an awesome instrument. But after having several DW Collectors snares, I found that they all sound really good when you crank the bottom head a lot tighter than normal, and then tune the the batter head for the amount of phatness that you may like.

I know it’s standard to have the bottom head a bit tighter than the top but on DW snares this seems to be extreme. On my Ludwig Supras, I can get away with more of a slack tuning on the bottom, so this is one case where I think DW designed their snares to be this way. It was weird when I had the snares side-by-side and discovered the DW sounded nice when the bottom was more cranked up than on the Ludwig. YMMV though.
Click to expand...

All the orchestra guys I know tune the bottom head lower. I wonder what the difference is? I’ve never tried having the reso head cranked higher
 
I have that snare and absolutely love it. It's a toss-up between that one and my Supraphonic for favourite snare.

My go to head is a Remo CS black dot up top. Bottom lugs are tuned to 400 Hz and batter side is around 308 Hz I believe. I aim for around a 3G or 3G# overall pitch. Nice bark and ping at that note - a good general-purpose tuning in my experience.
 
If my snare had too much snare buzz and tightening the wires didn’t solve the issue, I would tune the bottom head differently. I’d guess it’s maybe a bit too loose and needs to be tightened but it could also be excited by the pitch of one of your Toms.
 
Duck Tape said:
If my snare had too much snare buzz and tightening the wires didn’t solve the issue, I would tune the bottom head differently. I’d guess it’s maybe a bit too loose and needs to be tightened but it could also be excited by the pitch of one of your Toms.
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I definitely get some snare Buzz on my DW Nickel over Brass Designer Series 14 X 6.5 Snare. I've tried almost everything to control it (watched a Ton of YT videos about it).
 
Coated Ambassador over Ambassador Snare Side
Bottom head-392hz
Batter-293.7hz
(TuneBot settings)
 
Bo Eder said:
I had the nickel-over-brass version of this drum and it’s an awesome instrument. But after having several DW Collectors snares, I found that they all sound really good when you crank the bottom head a lot tighter than normal, and then tune the the batter head for the amount of phatness that you may like.

I know it’s standard to have the bottom head a bit tighter than the top but on DW snares this seems to be extreme. On my Ludwig Supras, I can get away with more of a slack tuning on the bottom, so this is one case where I think DW designed their snares to be this way. It was weird when I had the snares side-by-side and discovered the DW sounded nice when the bottom was more cranked up than on the Ludwig. YMMV though.
Click to expand...
I agree in my experiences and ownership as well. I think for the DW snares (wooden ones in particular) it has to do with the way the bearing edge is cut on the snare side. They are very wide beds. I watched a video of John Good explaining how they like to cut the edges.
 
Push pull stroke said:
All the orchestra guys I know tune the bottom head lower. I wonder what the difference is? I’ve never tried having the reso head cranked higher
Click to expand...
I think the bottom head lower gives a crispier sound with more snare definition, and the reso much higher gives more body from the drum. I'm certainly not expert, and I haven't played orchestral music since college, but my experiences tinkering with my own snares has led me to this conclusion.

So, maybe the orchestral players want to hear more snare, and the kit players want to hear more shell? That would be my guess.

Hosting an open jam gave me the opportunity to hear a lot of different snare drums tuned a lot of different ways, all played in basic rock/blues/pop style. What I noticed was that people who tuned the reso lower got a "chk" sound on the backbeat, while those who cranked the reso got a more solid "TOK" sound. They also tended to have more overtones sometimes, so the drum sounded "ringy" from the audience.
 
Stroman said:
I think the bottom head lower gives a crispier sound with more snare definition, and the reso much higher gives more body from the drum. I'm certainly not expert, and I haven't played orchestral music since college, but my experiences tinkering with my own snares has led me to this conclusion.

So, maybe the orchestral players want to hear more snare, and the kit players want to hear more shell? That would be my guess.

Hosting an open jam gave me the opportunity to hear a lot of different snare drums tuned a lot of different ways, all played in basic rock/blues/pop style. What I noticed was that people who tuned the reso lower got a "chk" sound on the backbeat, while those who cranked the reso got a more solid "TOK" sound. They also tended to have more overtones sometimes, so the drum sounded "ringy" from the audience.
Click to expand...

Yeah, orchestral players are generally going for a drier overall sound, both to maximize articulation on fast/quiet passages, and to keep the overall volume low.
 
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