Phat snare sound ...

hey!

Do you know how I could get a really really phat snare sound??? Do you know sounds of Meg White, Max Weinberg or Brad Wilk, for example?

Is a compressor the key?? Micing position???

thanks

bye

michael

Meg White has a phat snare sound? I always thought it was rather craptacular. Oh well, to each their own.

have you ever listened to Seven Nation Army or Black Math ??? THIS SOUND IS THAT HUGE .... phat. Might have something to do with her tuning, maybe.

BUT I'd like to get to know one of your recommended phattest snare sounds. thanks

bye

michael

http://www.effingham.com/bishop/JeffPorcaroInterview.htm

"As far as snare drums go, I recently hit upon something that's a little hard to talk about, but you have to hear it on records. A lot of them like that big, fat, meaty snare drum like you hear on Fleetwood Mac. That real thick sound. I use a 6 1/2 metal snare with the bottom head pretty tight and the snares going all the way across. I put the top head on and use a splicing block, like those used for splicing tape, or something about that size. I put it together with some foam, and I wrap a piece of leather around and lay it so the foam is resting against the head. I don't like any internal muffling, or cloth with tape. A wallet sounds good on top of the snare. The top head is tuned loose, to where each lug is about to fall off. Start hitting it with the snares real loose and raise the pitch of the head from that position, tightening the snares slightly. Within about three rotations, you've got yourself a nice sounding snare drum. I keep the top heads loose and the bottom heads tight on my toms to get the ptich to bend a little."

Fat is spelled with an "F", ya phreakin' Phish head!

F(ph) = Lt + Sdp^Sdi

where:

F(ph) = fat snare sound

Lt = low tuning

Ddp = shell depth

Sdi = shell diameter

wait a minute... you're comparing brad wilk's and max weinberg's snare sound? uhhh, they are totally opposites. wilk has a 14x8 brass snare he uses for audioslave. weinberg (i'm assuming) has the dw maple series snare; must be about 5.5 inches i'm guessing.

basically, any snare can give a fairly low, warm, phatty sound. still, keep the bottom head higher than the top--about a 2 or 3 step interval is a good place to start.

get an Aquarian New Orleans Special snare batter, use the tuning tips as mentioned above, hire the studio engineer that those people used.

The Aquarian "New Orleans Special" is a GREAT head!! I'm currently touring with a country-rock group called Lonesome Road and that head performs GREAT night after night. I barely ever have to tune it, and it responds to sticks, brushes and Whips equally well. I'm using a 1980's Gretsch chrome-over-brass snare with die-cast rims... 6 1/4x14... Loud as hell, but it sounds tremendous!

Kid

That head really works well with the deeper-shelled snares ... on a 14x6 Tempus it's ridiculous. I also assembled a 14x5 acrylic snare - 1/4" thick shell, loud as hell but not much resonance ... the NOS head really fattens it up.

Wanna know how they did it on the records?

The "fat" machine.

Or possibly:

Tell me more about this NOS head. Is it a thicker head? One or two ply? Internal muffling?

Aquarian's website

I first heard about this head on another forum. Someone asked what was the "loudest" head and the NOS and the Hi-Energy were both mentioned. I've tried them, and the NOS has a bit more resonance, to my liking. As I mentioned above, it gives a fuller sound to the drum.

It's single-ply and has "powerdot" (looks a sort of fiber) material covering most of the head, leaving about 1" margin around the rim. When I first saw it, it didn't look like it would give the response that it does - looks are decieving in this case. You will hear a very definite difference with this head compared to others. They're lasting very well for me.

Thanks! Sounds pretty odd but I might just go ahead and check it out when I need a new snare head.