Do people actually like the “ring” of metal snares?

Jml

Senior Member
I usually play gigs with a wood snare or my Acrolite. I’ve read so much about having a different voice with different metal snares, so I tried a Ludwig Raw Brass and Ludwig Pewter Copperphonic. Both have a loud, distinct metallic ring when hit, so I used a snareweight to kill some of the overtones. They sound better to my ears now. So maybe I like a drier sound, but do others really enjoy that metallic ring on a metal snare? And if you put a moongel or some other dampening product, is it really worth spending top dollar on an expensive snare? My uneducated guess is no. Which has me thinking a Ludwig Universal Brass snare would be a wiser, less expensive choice. What say you about dampening metal snares? Is the answer in the tuning? I’ve seen plenty of videos by pros using metal snares and they don’t seem that ringy to me.
 
It depends on the drum itself. My Slingerland Krupa snare is drier sounding and very throaty and doesn't need dampening, but some other metal snares may need it. I've had three or four chrome Krupa snares, and this is the only one I have liked. The rest were sold.

Do some people like a ringy metal snare? I'm sure they do. Fellow band members, soundmen, or recording engineers may think otherwise.
 
Yes they do for the reasons mentioned in post 2, although there are a lot of snare sounds that aren’t these days. The ring does get eaten up in a mix, but enough of it is left to where you can still hear it. That said, my only snare that I like is maple With diecasts, so while I like a little ring, I’m not Stewart Copeland!
 
I guess I don't dislike the ring, though different metals ring differently, and I like some more than others. I definitely prefer brass shells that have been black nickel plated to ones that are clear lacquered or use other metals. I'm not sure what it is in the black nickel, but it makes a big difference to me.

I've played a ton of aluminum snares, and raw, chrome, or enameled I like them all.

Bronze has a sweeter shell ring than brass to my ear, and I can't get enough of that tone. I try to run my bronze snares with as basic of a 1-ply coated batter as I can get to maximize the shell tone.

In general I try to get all of my metal snares to be open and ringy though. It's easy enough to drop a Zero Ring or whatnot on there if that ring isn't working, but that bit of ringyness is what gives each metal its characteristic sound. To always dampen it out does defeat the purpose of a metal snare I think.
 
Depends on the situation/environment/room…etc

In the studio it’s a no (unless the song calls for it) but live I love the bite a little ring (still slightly dampened) gives me to cut through.
 
I've said it before, I'll say it again, and at twenty years in I'm pretty sure I'll never change this opinion: I'll take a cheap low end steel snare over a fancy high end wood snare any day. Any wood snare drum I've ever played (besides the one below) I always find myself overplaying the drum, metal responds better to my wrist-based playing.

The only wood snare I ever really enjoyed playing was my Tama 12x5 birch with sound arc hoops.

I am one to crank my snare reso almost to the point of choking so even on a thin steel shell I don't experience as much of that ringing 'whiney' overtone.
 
It's funny. I spent a lot of time reducing the ring, overtones, sympathetic buzz, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum and you find if you eliminate it all it doesn't sound like much of a snare drum. I guess like being human, and our character flaws make us unique, and we often learn/adapt to our idiosyncrasies and use them in novel ways. IF all snares, drums sounded the same-it would suck!!!!!!!! Sometimes it's the imperfections that make the magic. Shit like that boggles my mind because I'd wager the opposite. I use to go round and round with this orchestra conductor on the sound of my snare. I put on one of those Evans HD dry-suck the life out of it heads, added rubber spacers my cords would lie on to reduce buzz, tighten both heads to choke it, etc and it didn't sound like a snare drum to me-no character, no flavor, just in and out. I'm still breaking myself of choking my snare tuning-I don't even notice till I record it and think damn I did it again (hey that would make a good title for a song LOL). Despite more overtones with a deeper snare shell I really prefer deeper shelled snare-just have more character to me. But that's me-and I'm usually wrong.
 
It depends on the drum itself. My Slingerland Krupa snare is drier sounding and very throaty and doesn't need dampening, but some other metal snares may need it. I've had three or four chrome Krupa snares, and this is the only one I have liked. The rest were sold.

Do some people like a ringy metal snare? I'm sure they do. Fellow band members, soundmen, or recording engineers may think otherwise.
I also thought that about the ring with recording engineers. Which made the comment from the salesman all the more puzzling when I was looking at the Copperphonic - something about the Copperphonic being great for recording in a studio.
 
Yes.

Edit: I think the audio mix makes a huge difference to the overall recording, and might be different if playing to a small room/venue.

Now that I’m really listening, I hear the ring in the snare, but it fits the song terrifically in my opinion.
 
I guess I don't dislike the ring, though different metals ring differently, and I like some more than others. I definitely prefer brass shells that have been black nickel plated to ones that are clear lacquered or use other metals. I'm not sure what it is in the black nickel, but it makes a big difference to me.

I've played a ton of aluminum snares, and raw, chrome, or enameled I like them all.

Bronze has a sweeter shell ring than brass to my ear, and I can't get enough of that tone. I try to run my bronze snares with as basic of a 1-ply coated batter as I can get to maximize the shell tone.

In general I try to get all of my metal snares to be open and ringy though. It's easy enough to drop a Zero Ring or whatnot on there if that ring isn't working, but that bit of ringyness is what gives each metal its characteristic sound. To always dampen it out does defeat the purpose of a metal snare I think.
That’s my conundrum. Why get a “legendary” or expensive metal snare if you’re going to muffle it, right? But to me that ring isn’t the sound I’m searching for I guess.
 
Depends on the situation/environment/room…etc

In the studio it’s a no (unless the song calls for it) but live I love the bite a little ring (still slightly dampened) gives me to cut through.
So in the studio, are most metal snares muffled or dampened? If so, what’s the point? I could see a metal snare being used live to cut through loud guitars I suppose.
 
So in the studio, are most metal snares muffled or dampened? If so, what’s the point? I could see a metal snare being used live to cut through loud guitars I suppose.
That’s a call made between the band and producer, and you can’t generalize.
 
Like in the Black Hole Sun clip...a snare can have plenty of ring to it but in a band context you might not notice the ring unless you're really listening for it. But it is there, and it is contributing to the overall drum sound. Take that out, and the track becomes less interesting.
 
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