- 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.
