This video caused me to totally reexamine, and ultimately change, how I was tuning all of my snares. I grew up in drum and bugle corps, and our philosophy when it came to the bottom head was to crank it just about as much as we could. I'd continued that attitude long into my drum set playing without thinking too much about it. Thank you so much for opening my eyes when I didn't even realize they were closed.

Jesus, every one of your videos gives me an existential crisis. I wish that this channel had existed when I started playing! nothing was more frustrating than tuning for me. Naturally, I turned to the internet to help me tune my snare. Every forum said the same thing: "Just crank the snare-side". So, I did that, for YEARS. I put up with pitchy overtones, so many different heads, I even just bought a new snare altogether. I had this revelation by myself about a month before this video came out. Easily my favorite channel on youtube!

I like your sober non/stupid-goofy approach. Very fluent with the delivery of the information. A lot of good information too. Cheers!

This is an INCREDIBLY valuable video-thank you sincerely for posting it.

"Too much promotion of resonance" that's a phrase worth remembering. And the finished product was really revealing. Very informative. Snare tuning seems to be the biggest mystery in drum tuning.

Anyway tough, this series is teaching me more about tuning than everything that I ever seen Keep up the good work

I have been playing since 1963, made a living out of it for more than fifty years, These videos are by far the most complete and musical ones ever. a great achievement. Kudos and parabens. hail Cody Rahn

Before clicking on this, “you already do this and know what it does, why are you clicking this vid” BECAUSE I ALWAYS WATCH THIS CHANNEL, GO AWAY BRAIN

I’ve really grown to value and love these videos, the small details I continue to struggle with today as a 20+ year drummer. And tuning a snare is something I’ve always sucked at, so this is a huge help.

You guys have really opened my eyes to the incredible number of variables to tuning, especially my snares. I am trying out many of you schemes to see how they sound to my ears. It’s been a fun experiment so far and the sounds I’m getting are some of the best ever. Thanks for the great information, keep it up, please.

This is currently my favourite channel on youtube, there is some excellent information here. The vast majority of 'how to tune your snare' vids (there are hundreds - thousands, maybe) just go on and on about how to go around the lugs in a star pattern to get the head even. That it.... What you are telling us about the relationship between the top and bottom head, the effects of different head tensions, how to get different sound is excellent. It is what I've been searching for for ages, really great stuff, thank you. Please keep it coming :)

This is one of the few channels in this big, strange world that I can confidently say I have never skipped thru the video at all. Soooo much quality and dense info with clear, concise explanation the whole way through. Binged 4 hours today. Now... To the shed with me!!!

Could you tap the bottom head just to give a general reference of pitch?

I love the content in your lessons. I played around with my 70s Ludwig LM400 and found loosening the snare side head about a half turn down from table tight excited the shell a lot more, loosened up the feel on the batter and took out a lot of overtones. Thanks for posting this, exactly what I needed for the studio!

That last two snare sounds is basically all my snares since early 2000s, that is since I started playing drums and until I watched your video on tuning the snare side to a ruler and letting it settle for wires properly. I know you tried your best to make the most out of the cranked up bottom head, but really there is no getting back for me to that sound once I figured out how to keep bottom nice and resonant thanks to you. Big kudos guys.

8:29 is every single Junior High and High School snare drum.

Your opening was so true. All I heard when I first started was to immediately crank the bottom head. It was never even a thought to keep it somewhat loose. I may have some stuff to try here.

For me this episode is a revelation. It made me retune my whole arsenal. It would be even more informative if you quantify using a tune-bot. For me I took the snare side from 400Hz to 340Hz and for a batter head tuned at 270Hz. (These values are individus lug values). The results are amazing. With a Tune-bot you can get a consistent over and over again. Please consider using in your episodes. Thanks for all your outstanding efforts and super valuable information.

This is one of the best channels you can turn to for solid advice in my opinion. I've played all over the country at large venues as well as tiny bars for over 20 years. I have always struggled with what I thought was a good sound out of my snare. Keep in mind what you're hearing behind the kit does not represent what it sounds like at the front of house. Countless hours of grief for no reason, when I would listen to an opening act that was using my kit it sounded amazing! Don't over criticize yourself or you will go nuts.

I've been drumming 35 years. As long as I've had any understanding of tuning, I've had it fed to me about the snare side being freakishly tight. I'm really glad I ran across this. I think you may have relieved my snare tuning nightmares. I love the sound of a nice open, responsive snare but never nailed down the tuning (stick response and resonance has been "Bla" at best). I think this may have helped me a lot. Thank you.

Another video saved to favorites for reference. Fantastic job again!

This channel is incredible! Loving the content! Well done!

I love this channel so much

Cody, you're the best, thanks! Comprehensive, worth watching twice.

You where literally reading my mind with all of what you said. Thanks a million for this video.

Well, its Tuesday, and that must mean, another entertaining and informative video from Sounds Like A Drum. Great Job guys !

Whys this not at 1M views this guys a genius

Thanks for this guys, great conclusion to the previous snare side video, the guidance from which has improved the sound of my snares no end. Biggest thumbs up yet!

Great stuff as always . These videos answer a lot of questions. And give a lot of good info. Thx and keep them coming !!!!

Excellent knowledge and great teacher. Keep it up, brother. You are lighting the darkness.

Good call Terry! Incredibly informative! Thankyou so much!

WOW! So helpful! This really is both an art and science !

Wow! The piece you found important in this experiment (high snare-side and low batter) is a problem that i would have with my metal snare drum and I couldn't figure out why. Thank you!!!!!

Thank you for the video! Can’t wait to try these tuning techniques.

Short and concise, excellently explained ! GREAT 🥁🥁🥁 !!!

Another fantastic and very helpful video! Thanks guys!

very educational, one of the best on u-tube cuts through all the unnecessary garbage.

Always enjoy your videos. Straight forward talk and informative. Your videos I watch from start to finish. 🥁

Cody, that was beautiful. I am going to play with this and see what happens. thanks

Thank you so much for sharing your tuning knowledge!

Really illuminating - another great video!

You are well spoken and quite knowledgeable. Best wishes!

You're doing Gods work here. I was obsessed with idea of 400Hz lugs for the snare side.... My dads closet acrolite taught me a lesson about that idea.... could never figure out why i was getting the crazy snare buzz and odd ring when hitting off center.

Thanks for making this quality content for us. You also seem like a really nice person.

I wish you were around when I was a young drummer.. I was just shooting in the dark when it came to tuning.. I never took lessons so I never learned even a fraction of what you show here.. Thank you as always.. baco

Love this channel and all the good info you're putting out there! I am now a subscriber.

Dealing with this right now, got to re-tune tonight. Thanks for this man!

I’ve never heard anybody tune a metal snare to sound that good. Anybody I’ve ever seen use metal snare have always used tons of dampening techniques, tape, rings, etc. Good stuff!!!

Great vid, loving the content your putting out 👊💯

Awesome content Great hard work Changing heads and snares will give you more better options

My jaw kind of dropped to the floor when I heard the difference in the end. I need to try this on my snare ASAP!

I NEEDED THIS SO MUCH THANK YOUUUUU

Good video, and what an excellent drum.

Your videos are awesome, guys!

Thanks so much for a very informative video! Great job.

Love the no eq, no effects and no muffling on your recordings. Saw your last video, very interesting. I still have to say that at least for my snares, the resonant head tuned low does not sound good at all. I achieve my favourite snare sound by cranking the reso head and having a mid tuning batter head. Keep up the vids! They are very interesting!

Best drum channel on KZfaq!

Great video guys !

Really like your teaching, you make so much sense. Save me a lot of frustration in why I am doing things wrong.

I watched this video and promptly went to my beautiful 7 piece maple drum set and de-tuned every resonant head within reach. lol. I appreciate the articulate display of knowledge, and it was fun to focus on getting a completely different sound from each drum. Very inspiring, and that's the beauty of drums and drumming... subjectivity. I've become really good at obtaining a very consistent tone, by tuning the same way all of time, but switching things up and finding new sounds is something I need to do more of, so thank you for that.

The most important head is the one that actually touches the snares that give the drum the sound. Makes perfect sense but people don't realize this and hardly ever tough the snare side head for fear of breaking it due to the thickness. Thanks for posting. In the marching arena we almost always crank BOTH heads because this is the current sound of choice.

Really helpful, thanks a lot man!

thanks for this video!

I dig that crisp sound that the bell brass snares have. Soon that will be my next snare.

those videos are awesome! very helpful! subscribed:)

Excellent video, clearly presented and demonstrated. And I am definitely going to use "steer into the skid"... subscribed

Really helpful series.

Loved the steer into the skid analogy 👍

Just discovered your channel! Awesome stuff guys! Thank you for sharing these valuable information! Now back to binge watch your videos. :D .. Keep up the good work!

Dude, great channel!

Excellent and super helpful. Thanks dudes!

Great experiment!

I love the sound of the snare side cranked on the Supraphonic. To be honest, I like the Supra at just about any tuning

Been watching sins show one, Not a young guy, but I said yes to play drums in a project, Iam a bass player, this have helped me grow so quicly, thank you... Not the drumming ofc, but i can easely make any drum sound pretty good :) thank you!

Great information. Many thanks.

Hi Cody! Great videos man!! Very inspiring for me when I’m stuck on a drum sound

I think that in the end, it usually boils down to personal preference and what a person is seeking to obtain sound/tone-wise from the drum...it helps to know what you're doing however and how tension of the reso, snare wire and batter will affect the final outcome...so your video helps to understand these variances. I personally like my reso cranked and will tailor my final sound with the batter and snare wire tension....die cast hoop on top and 3MM triple flange hoop on the bottom with a 42 strand wire....on a 14"X6.5" cherrywood stave snare drum...she cracks!!...thanks for the comprehensive video...great as always!!

Snare: the bane of any drummers existence. I've spent more time on this. Then almost the whole kit.

Soooooo helpful!!! Thank you, thank you!!!

What a fantastic video. Thank you so much! The sound at 8:20 is the ugly one I've tried to get away from on many occasions. You've made me realize I have been neglecting the interaction of the two heads and tuning the bottom head tight as standard when I shouldn't be. Thanks again, have subscribed!

Another great lesson thankyou

Being a southerner from Louisiana and currently living in New Orleans, the way to get that buzzy snare sound for brass bands/Dixieland tunes is achieved multiple ways. My favorite was the method given by my private instructor in college. He said to tune the drum to sound how you like it and then back one of the batter head tension rods all the way out.

Nice video!

Thank you for this valuable information.

Great video.

Even with the weirdest settings, this snare still sounds so good!

Thank you again for addressing the many ways one can accidentally strip the drum of its tonal integrity

Great paet 2 Casey. I landed on a Benny greb snare tips using 2 closest lugs on batter which was pretty impressive.. great job casey

I tuned my Black Acrolite yesterday an ran right into this exact problem, where the snare side was way to high. Thanks for pumping out these insights, really helped me lot! :)

I find a tight bottom head , medium tuning on top and easy on the spring tension with a dry head and vent holes works for me . Thanks for the lesson .

youre magnificent at what you do! thank you!

Okay, so what you did around 2:35 is basically what I have going on my snare, but I finally learned my lesson about wanting a deeper tone and keeping the snare side too tight. So I basically have mine (snare strings released) sounding like a medium toned timbale or something like that, similar to what you have at 2:35, just a lower pitch, but I definitely needed to loosen the snare side to do what I wanted because it needed to breathe a lot more. In the end, I was actually able to tune down the snare side head to let more air flow inside and resonate, but then I was able to tune up the batter head a little bit just to even out the tone and then like you said, I ended up putting some dampening on to tame a lot of the overtones because I kinda like that timbale like sound with snares lol it’s funky. But I still get tons of overtones on anything toned below like medium-high, maybe cause I still haven’t upgraded my first snare, but it’s not like it’s that old only like two years and I take care of it and I like it’s crack. (Not a real crack, cracking sound, you know what I mean) And yeah, I’m surprised I’ve had no noise complaints yet because also as you said, mine gives off this gunshot sound rather easily. I’ve tried to get that for a long time, I’ve heard some drummers have it over the years, but I could never really get it, but finally, I got it. Also, I like my wires to be articulate, but not so tight that they turn on from basically every other drum, so what I went with, along with the tuning I just described, was a pair of Twisted 20’s, so it’s actually 40 strand coiled by twos and they pick up the articulation without needing to be real tight or tight at all really. They really don’t do too much extra snare response unless they’re super loose and just dropping off the snare side head basically. So everything together really has gotten me more towards the sound I want. I can only imagine what everything will sound like once I get a snare to overtake the maple decade one that came with the kit.

great channel and nice lamp. I have one of those.

Once again, SLAD saves me from putting a sledgehammer through a drum because of my own failings, snare sounds like snare again, thank you.

I agree with some others that I wish this stuff were around when I first started playing. You can learn something from every video eve if it’s not what you like. Case in point, I learned how the bottom head relates to the top head better even or your final outcome sound wasn’t something I would like. It sounded a little sloppy to me. I LOVE Stewart Copeland’s snare sound on Zenyatta Mondatta! Crisp, fast attack, resonant but quick decay.

Just a thought, I’d love to see a back-to-back of all the sounds at the end of the video. Thanks again for all the great info and experimenting. :)

Late comment here. You guys make such amazing content to help us really understand this stuff! One more thing that would help me a lot is to show us the pitch relationship between the top and bottom heads at these various points. Not necessarily with extra gear for a precise frequency, just an edge tap with the other head muffled. That's much easier, IMHO, to replicate or shoot for than terms like "table top tight" or "I can press my finger into it". My 2 cents, thanks!

Nice! 💪🏽

Just went and grabbed my pearl snare and tuned the snare side down lower than what I normally would and wow it sounds great. I use a Remo ebony snare head for that dark kinda punchy snare sound and Evans ec2 Tom heads to give my toms some clear cutting tone. I like the dichotomy of the bright toms and throaty snare. Reminds me of the way Danny Carry’s drums sounded on the aenima album, mostly “push it.”

Yo Cody!! I picked this video at random and found my old Cornball Cohort. Nice job brutha!!