Snare Demo Videos: What's Good, What's Bad

cornelius said:
I see a lot of low, medium, high tensions, which is great, But I often wonder what the bottom head tension is - that would be good to know.

Also, a benchmark would be helpful to have in the same room next to the demo drum. For example, going back and forth between a 5x14 Supra and the drum that they're selling, would be helpful to me.

Now that I think about it - that would probably hurt a lot of potential sales... But I would enjoy it.
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You just won the lotto--well my praise anyway. I know my writing style can sound a bit contentious, and curmudgeonly. My reason for this thred was just to stir up some ideas that maybe would find their way into future demos. It's a long shot, but hey.

Direct A-B compares to a reference snare with a specified reference set of tunings might be really helpful. Methinks it is a step in the right direction anyway. I don't drive, so for better or worse, YouTube is my Modern Drummer and my local drum shop. As I've said before, I appreciate, enjoy and am informed and entertained by videos produced by DCP, Memphis Drum Shop, 2112 &c. That also includes the independents who post reviews and demos. I appreciate all the time, effort and expense that must go into making these video demos. I have no clue how expensive or labor intensive it is. I won't say these videos have NO influence on what piques my curiosity, but I can say that what I get from the audio samples has very very little at all to do with the selection I ultimately make--if any.
 
bongoman said:
I also have a particular axe to grind with demo guys who just recite the most basic and incurious specs and marketing lines as though that was helpful or insightful in any way. Some of these dudes have zero idea how anything works, so they say the most embarrassingly ignorant stuff, with a big smile like they are Presenter of the Year, when clearly they are just on the clock “making content” for their store’s channel.
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This is one of mine as well.
I get what they're trying to do, but those of us who've been around the instrument for a good minute can see right through it. He may get the click credit, but not the Like.
 
Cmdr. Ross said:
This is one of mine as well.
I get what they're trying to do, but those of us who've been around the instrument for a good minute can see right through it. He may get the click credit, but not the Like.
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Rick Dior has sold me ON more snare drums than any of the vendors' videos have. In part that is because he isn't selling me one, and in part it is because most of the stuff he plays are time-tested cream of the crop stuff that has been around for a long time. Its more what he says than how he makes it sound. That guy could make a Quaker Oats can sound good. Forums like this sell me ON (or at least pique serious interest) on other drums I would not have known or considered. Maybe I find demos online; maybe I don't. I recently snagged a PDP Aluminum snare off Amazon for just over $200. This isn't the higher end model with the 3mm shell. At reg street price it might have met expectations. At $212 it exceeded expectations even with what I believe to be Asian Remo heads. I don't think I ever found a demo that was conclusively that snare. They were all the 3mm version. Never would have seen it had a forum member not pointed it out to me.
 
PDP snares / drums are good FVM.

While on my drum break, I sold a PDP snare - and still regret it.
Just the DW MAG strainer costs almost as much as for which I bough and sold the entire drum :(
 
eric_B said:
PDP snares / drums are good FVM.

While on my drum break, I sold a PDP snare - and still regret it.
Just the DW MAG strainer costs almost as much as for which I bough and sold the entire drum :(
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I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The Throw is quite nice. First time I'd seen one of those. It tuned up quickly and easily with no fuss or muss even with what I am pretty sure are Asian Remo heads. Never could ascertain exactly what it came with. Sounds good to my ears, and I am in the camp that aluminum might be just the End ALL Be ALL when it comes to shell material for snares. Course that could my predilection having grown up playing Acros and Supras as a youth. I've a late '70s Supra minus snares and tension rods, a project piece. One these days I will get it assembled and A-B them. I suspect they might be pretty close. At $212 new, I am pretty pleased with this. I can make about any snare drum sound horrible, but I have to work at it with this one.
 
charliedrummer said:
So many drummers chase after snare drums in that way that weekend golfers are always looking for the next great putter or driver. There are several iconic snare drums (Supraphonic, Acrolite, Sensitone, N&C maple) that IMO can do it all, given the right heads and tuning/muffling. I would stick with one of these rather than relying on YouTube demo of the next best up-and-coming snare.
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Great analogy. I've a load of putters and drivers, and frankly about any of them could do anything I might want them to do with only other drummers being more or less impressed with one over the other. I cured my cymbal addiction only to pick up snare drums in its place. Half or more are vintage though.
 
Going with known winners (like the three musketeer snares from Ludwig) is one approach to make it easy to decide without even depending on demo videos. This is what I learned from reading many posts here in this forum. I remember I opened a thread not long ago asking about Yamaha Recording Custom Brass. In that thread there were several posts suggesting that I may want to reconsider and go with Ludwig Black Beauty or even cheaper versions of Black Beauty from Ludwig instead.

In my experience If one has untrained ears (like mine), figuring out what "sounds good" from those videos will be very difficult.
Now, to make it even more difficult is when you listen to those "blind test videos" of expensive verses cheaper OR expensive verses expensive trying to figure out which is which. Here is an example video. Those videos totally throw you off the rails in your decision making. Of course the cheaper snare is built in that country, and uses cheaper material and hardware.

At the end I went with the brand name more expensive snare that I trusted from a previous purchase. Good sound, quality build and hardware all in one.

 
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striker said:
Going with known winners (like the three musketeer snares from Ludwig) is one approach to make it easy to decide without even depending on demo videos. This is what I learned from reading many posts here in this forum. I remember I opened a thread not long ago asking about Yamaha Recording Custom Brass. In that thread there were several posts suggesting that I may want to reconsider and go with Ludwig Black Beauty or even cheaper versions of Black Beauty from Ludwig instead.

In my experience If one has untrained ears (like mine), figuring out what "sounds good" from those videos will be very difficult.
Now, to make it even more difficult is when you listen to those "blind test videos" of expensive verses cheaper OR expensive verses expensive trying to figure out which is which. Here is an example video. Those videos totally throw you off the rails in your decision making. Of course the cheaper snare is built in that country, and uses cheaper material and hardware.

At the end I went with the brand name more expensive snare that I trusted from a previous purchase. Good sound, quality build and hardware all in one.

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Figuring out what's what from those videos unless you have either extensive hands-on experience with a lot of snare drums and/or have a pretty decent understanding of everything that goes into recording from room and its treatments through to all the signal chain and processing permutations is a daunting challenge.

Drum Candy has done some of those blind snare tests with pretty well-known drummers, and they are interesting and revealing.

I've seen those blind tests, and even those that aren't exactly blind, are still blind tests for me. I can often tell one drum from another, but I can't reliably, consistently and accurately ID any of the drums in question by sound. With the blind tests I've watched (listened to) there is far less processing, and the move from one drum to another is quick enough to be an A-B comparison.
 
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Just as an aside, there was a big project recently about mixed dog breeds, where anyone around the world could flip through a hundred different dog photos and try to identify their mix of breeds. Each set of photos included different angles and some video to show how they move. And there was a simple question “are you a professional in the dog industry?”

Turns out nobody can get it right more than half the time, regardless of professional expertise. Even the dogs that looked for all the world like “just a German shepherd” or “just a cattle dog” turned out to be way off that mark.

Not a direct parallel to snare videos… but people (including me) *think* they can tell more than they actually can, at least half the time.
 
bongoman said:
Just as an aside, there was a big project recently about mixed dog breeds, where anyone around the world could flip through a hundred different dog photos and try to identify their mix of breeds. Each set of photos included different angles and some video to show how they move. And there was a simple question “are you a professional in the dog industry?”

Turns out nobody can get it right more than half the time, regardless of professional expertise. Even the dogs that looked for all the world like “just a German shepherd” or “just a cattle dog” turned out to be way off that mark.

Not a direct parallel to snare videos… but people (including me) *think* they can tell more than they actually can, at least half the time.
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The blind tests are interesting, but the viewers still know what drums are involved. If that is just a couple, it is a 50/50 shot or whatever. Just knowing what drums are compared is one hella advantage especially if you have extensive experience with ione or the other.
 
opentune said:
What’s bad with some snare demos are the inability to play the drum without cymbals or incessant rim shots at only high tunings.
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I get wanting to hear them in context of a groove or even a fill. My beef is it seems to always be in a rock context with really low tuned drums, and as you point out, with snares often tuned high. Maybe that helps mitigate excessive snare buzz. Most don't really make much use of dynamics. You got your obligatory Bonham-type press rolls and a bunch of hard hits and rim shot back beats. Pianissimo buzz rolls, edge to center hits and back, Philly Joe type stick on stick shots, more finessed demos are usually not a part of these unless it is a demo of a bop kit. And please give more time with minimal processing. I think I said this before, but most these videos are not really letting us hear the drum; we are hearing a drum composition edited and polished. I want the rough-draft. DCP gets closer with the room and overhead mics, but those are just a few seconds at a time, and they are always in context of set play. I suppose the bulk of buyers are looking for rock purposes, but I'd like other contexts as well.
 
charliedrummer said:
So many drummers chase after snare drums in that way that weekend golfers are always looking for the next great putter or driver. There are several iconic snare drums (Supraphonic, Acrolite, Sensitone, N&C maple) that IMO can do it all, given the right heads and tuning/muffling. I would stick with one of these rather than relying on YouTube demo of the next best up-and-coming snare.
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I meant to drop this in this thread yesterday and spaced it off. Not aimed at you but seemed an apropos point nonetheless.
 
Tamboreter said:
Actually, not hard to do... I open two tabs and cue up video at the appropriate spots; listen to one on the first tab and then the other tab side by side.
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I get your point, but that still doesn't work so well for me. I am blind. I like the videos where they tag the play window. That is far easier for me to see what's being played since I can't tell by looking at the drum. Switching play windows as you suggest does get closer, but it isn't as easy as a mouse click for me and involves speech synthesizer chattering if I want to know where I am and what I am doing. Better, but still not ideal. Pretty much any extraneous noise in ears between A and B is enough to leave me questioning.
 
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BrokenStick said:
I get your point, but that still doesn't work so well for me. I am blind. I like the videos where they tag the play window. That is far easier for me to see what's being played since I can't tell by looking at the drum. Switching play windows as you suggest does get closer, but it isn't as easy as a mouse click for me and involves speech synthesizer chattering if I want to know where I am and what I am doing. Better, but still not ideal. Pretty much any extraneous noise in ears between A and B is enough to leave me questioning.
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Sorry, I had forgotten your visual challenges. Thanks for being patient to explain that. (y)
 
Tamboreter said:
Sorry, I had forgotten your visual challenges. Thanks for being patient to explain that. (y)
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No worries. I actually hadn't originally thought of that until I reread your post. I gave it a shot. I've pretty much got to leave speech on to tell what window I am in, and that little bit of chatter is enough to throw me off. worse if I have a bunch of tabs open. That's impossible without using speech.

What I have done is snag the videos from YouTube and edit out extraneous stuff and get the portions I want either side-by-side or in separate files. That's what I did when picking out my last kit as I was deciding on which Gretsch USA to go with.
 
BrokenStick said:
I actually hadn't originally thought of that until I reread your post. I gave it a shot. I've pretty much got to leave speech on to tell what window I am in, and that little bit of chatter is enough to throw me off. worse if I have a bunch of tabs open. That's impossible without using speech.
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I must admit that when I do the side by side comparison, I'm using two separate monitors. I don't know if that would work better than tabs for you or not.
 
Tamboreter said:
I must admit that when I do the side by side comparison, I'm using two separate monitors. I don't know if that would work better than tabs for you or not.
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LOL. My kids are all into that dual monitor thing.
Mine sits unplugged and only fired up if I have a crash I can't clear on my own. I think they are crazy for needing those giant monitors in pairs; they think I am crazy for wanting upgrades in DACS and headphones. We'll just be crazy together in our separate ways.
 
BrokenStick said:
Rick Dior has sold me ON more snare drums than any of the vendors' videos have. In part that is because he isn't selling me one, and in part it is because most of the stuff he plays are time-tested cream of the crop stuff that has been around for a long time. Its more what he says than how he makes it sound. That guy could make a Quaker Oats can sound good. Forums like this sell me ON (or at least pique serious interest) on other drums I would not have known or considered. Maybe I find demos online; maybe I don't. I recently snagged a PDP Aluminum snare off Amazon for just over $200. This isn't the higher end model with the 3mm shell. At reg street price it might have met expectations. At $212 it exceeded expectations even with what I believe to be Asian Remo heads. I don't think I ever found a demo that was conclusively that snare. They were all the 3mm version. Never would have seen it had a forum member not pointed it out to me.
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Well said.
I'm here because I value the experience of those who've been playing A LOT longer than I've probably been alive (I'm 53) and it's invaluable.

That goes for gear, playing advise and just the overall drumming experience. Something I don't take for granted.
Ever.
❤️
 
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