- Hey everyone, it's Jared and today I'm gonna give you
five tips to get a killer snare drum sound.
Now why do you wanna learn how to do this?
Well, if you learn how to manipulate
the sound of this drum, you can get one drum
to sound like 10, 20, 30 different types of drums.
So it's really important to understand
the limitations of your instrument.
See how far you can take it.
Now, I know I have a very, very nice snare drum here.
This is the six and a half by 14 Dunnett Titanium drum.
It's gorgeous and we were joking before the
start of this video where I, tip number one,
get a Dunnett snare.
Tip number two, get a Dunnett snare.
Okay, so obviously I'm very, very blessed.
I feel blessed to have this drum but there are ways
where this drum could sound terrible if I don't
tune it correctly or I don't set it up correctly.
So we're gonna go through those tips that I use
to kind of manipulate this drum.
So what I wanna first do is right now it's tuned up,
is I'm gonna loosen the drum all the way down
so the tension rods are loose.
And the reason I'm gonna do this is because I wanna start
right at the beginning and show you exactly
how I evenly tension this drum.
Now this is what I do as well.
I've seen people do other things where they have
a system and they basically will tune a certain amount
of lugs and then there's like this mathematical equation,
which actually, it sounds very, very good.
But for me, it's not something I've ever really done.
I just kind of tune it up.
Tighten it to how I want it.
Make sure that the tension is even
and kind of go from there.
So, okay so here we go.
The tension rods are almost at their loosest.
Okay, so the tension rods are off of the hoop.
Now some of them, they're, I can't necessarily
finger tighten 'em but I'm just gonna
bring them down until they're just touching the hoop.
Now you can do it finger tighten as well.
Off the snares.
Good so now that everything is (tapping)
it's all finger tightened the snare.
Ooh, it sounds killer.
Actually, it doesn't sound that bad.
Okay, so it's a little bit floppy
and it still sounds really, really
good actually.
But you see the head is basically finger tight.
So now what I wanna do is I wanna just do
a cross pattern on the drum and the tuning video here
is the same, you know, how to tune your snare
by just basically do a quarter to half turn.
Make sure I get each lug going around.
Sometimes there's a little bit of feel involved.
If you feel like one is a little bit looser
you can turn it a little bit more if you like.
Now I will say, a lot of the snare sound
depends on the drum head that you're using
and so I'd really encourage you to find a head
that works for you.
Here I'm using an Evans generic dry HD.
But I love the Evans UV1.
I think those heads great.
The UV2's are out, I'm not sure.
I haven't tried them yet but I'm sure they sound awesome.
This is a great snare because it has
this control ring underneath and these vent holes around it.
So it sounds very controlled.
So what I'll do now is I'll listen to the tone
of each lug and try and make them as close as possible.
So I'll use this as my control.
This one was higher so I'm gonna bring it down.
Okay, so it's pretty much even okay.
So now this is just my starting point.
So I haven't even showed you what I'm gonna do
with the bottom head yet.
So here we go, let's here how it sounds.
Already sounds incredible.
So how do we make this sound even better
or how did I get here to this point?
Well I wanna show you what I did on the bottom
drum head because I think it's really important.
So first of all, I have a wide set of snare wires,
which for me especially on the titanium drums,
I absolutely love the wider set of snare wires.
Now when it comes to the tension of the bottom head
I don't wanna wreck this (tapping) but you'll notice
it is what's called table top tight.
So I basically finger tighten it
just like I did on the top and then just
bring it up to a nice, tight tension.
Generally, tighter than the batter head
or you could do it even but really, it's up to you
how you want it to sound.
So I've got the wider snare wires on there
and when it comes to what I do with the tension
of the wires, I don't like them too tight.
If the wires are too tight, it's gonna sound
very, very choked and you're not gonna get
that nice kind of drop off of decay and that little sizzle.
So you know when you hit the drum and you hear
those snare wires just kind of rattlin' a tiny, tiny bit?
This is what I like to hear.
Let me play it for you and listen closely for that.
I hope it translates through the inter webs.
Hear those snares?
You could even try a little bit more.
A bit more.
So the first thing is we wanna make sure
that the top batter head is a nice even tension.
The second thing is we wanna get that reso-head
table top tight.
The third thing is you wanna make sure
that you're using snare wires that you
actually like the sound of, that really work with your drum.
On this drum, I have a wider set of snare wires
and I don't put those snare wires too tight.
A lot of new drummers especially, just crank it
they just crank it as tight as it can go
because they think that's the way it should be.
It doesn't not need to be as tight as it can go.
And the fourth thing I wanna talk about
is not over muffling your drum.
You might listen to this drum and think,
wow, it needs some drum tacks on there
so you don't hear that ring.
I listen to this drum, it sounds absolutely perfect.
So I got some internal muffling here the Evans HD Dry.
If I was using a UV1, it's likely that I would
put on a drum tack.
So the head does make a big difference but I never
over muffle the drum unless that's what I'm looking for.
So if someone's looking for a big, fat 60 snare sound,
I'll tune it really, really loose and I might add
a little bit of muffling to cut all the ring.
You can just throw a T-shirt over it or something too right?
Now the fifth and final tip and this goes out
to especially the new drummers 'cause you need to know this.
How you hit the drum makes the biggest difference
on how it sounds.
So I've been to people's houses before
and they said, "My drums sound like crap.
"What can I do to get them to sound better?
"They just don't sound good."
I sat down, I play it and I'm not saying
I'm the greatest drummer but I've been playin' drums
for 20 years, I know how to hit the drums.
And they listen to it and they go, wow.
It sounds great and I'm just playing a simple beat, right?
And that's because how you play them is so important.
Your dynamic limb control, making sure
you're not bashing the hi-hats and covering up
the great snare sound.
Making sure you mix yourself behind the drum set.
It's so important.
Learning how to do a rim shot on the drum set
is super important, right?
A rim shot, right, where is where you hit the rim
and the tip of the stick at the same time.
You wanna be able to do that every single time on command.
So, this makes such a big difference
and this is what you need to work on the most.
You need to play with conviction.
You need to play with authority.
You need to play with confidence when you
sit behind your drum set.
This is the most important tip
to getting a great snare drum sound.
So if you have any questions for me,
please feel free to always email me jared@drumhero.com.
You can find me on Instagram @jaredfalkdrummer.
You can please leave a comment below and tell us
how you get your killer snare drum sound.
Everyone has something different and I'd love
to hear your tips for myself.
I learn so much from reading all your comments
and talking to all of you so thank you so much
for watching the video and I'll see you again very soon.