A Few Ways To Get A Fat, Nasty Snare Sound

There is no better method of exploring snare tones, than by simply being forced to get certain sounds of the drums you have on hand in a studio situation. It can be frustrating at times when you know what sound you want to achieve, but just don’t know how to get there. I have personally been into really big, floppy, fat snare tones recently. For some reason my taste has gravitated toward that sound in the past few months, and I am constantly exploring different ways of getting there. I have done a couple of posts on a vintage Ludwig marching snare that I picked up a while ago in a music shop. I had no idea how it would perform in a studio environment, or how it would sound under a mic. I recently tracked it on the new Julie the Band EP (coming out in the next month sometime) and was ecstatic with the results. This drum sounded HUGE, and had tons of body with a graceful, smooth low end, and lots of attack. I unfortunately don’t have the recording of it quite yet, but I want to give you an idea of how I achieved this sound.

I obviously used a few muffling techniques to get there. Below, I have listed a few of those techniques, plus some others that I know of, and have used before.

1) Putting a Piece of Tape on the Head:

I know you have probably heard of this or tried it many times, but I do something a little differently. I always make sure that the tape strip is touching both the head, and the rim of the drum. I find that securing the tape to the rim kills much more vibration that simply laying the tape flat on the head

2) Taping a Wrapped Quarter to the Rim

I recently learned this from a sound engineer that I recorded with. For this, you will need a strip of duct tape (which by the way I use for all of my muffling, as it sticks securely to the head) and a quarter. You first take the quarter and lay it on one end of the tape. You then wrap it once or twice so it is completely encased in tape, and smooth on both sides. Tape the quarter to the rim right on the edge so its not stuck to the head, but left free to bounce. The quarter only bounces on loud beats leaving them big and open, and making your ghost notes more tight and defined.

3) Start Taping Stuff to the Head

This is when you want those truly fat, huge sounding snare tones. In my opinion cardboard is the best thing you can tape to the head to deaden the sound. I take a small piece of cardboard and fold it, and then cover it completely in tape to make sure its secure. I usually place it at the top of the head so that I don’t hit it, but many drummers put it right in the center, and cover almost the whole drum with it. People also tape other object to the head such as wallets, and tissue paper. Below I have put a pic of my version of this, and one of renowned session musician Joey Waronker using this same technique.