Funny that you say this. Listen to the song 'Some Kind of Monster' on that album. It intentionally has sympathetic rattle during its intro to good effect.
Thanks muchly. I have been frustrated by this for the past few weeks and after spending a half hour this morning have been able to eliminate the worst of the problem. Toms shouldn't sound like buzzsaws!
Good rule of thumb. Adjust your snare drum to your favourite sound/tone. The snare is the centre of your kit and work with other things around it, like the toms. Fine-tune your toms to get them out of the snare range causing the buzz.
Good lesson. I’m glad you talked a little at the end about it being part of the instrument. I love the individual sounds of my drums, but when I sit down to really play, it’s all one instrument, and those unintended resonating stochastic sounds become a big part of the music and how I react to it. It’s something that is lost in some electronic music. But also a good point that too much can really get in the way.
Totally agree...I love listening to older jazz recordings where they recorded the drums with one room mic. Too often we look at each item as a separate instrument. But they're not. They're all part of one and they all work off of each other.
I'm 55 and I got my first drum set a couple weeks ago...it's a used Pearl "Forum" set...and it's snare was buzzing when virtually any other noise was made. I like to modify and tinker with many other projects I've worked on...so trouble shooting something is almost second nature to me. I fixed my sympathetic buzz by taking a Kleenex tissue and placing it between the snare wires and the resonating head. Fixed. It might not have the ideal sound that a snare drum should have...but it's good enough for me to want to get back to seeing how I want my drums, cowbells, and bongos placed in the room without barricading myself against the wall. I also opted for a taller bar stool than the "throne" squatty seat...since the ergonomics feels better for how my right foot extends for stepping on the bass pedal. I haven't even messed with the symbols much yet...still working on my drum roll and variations of Phil's fill (you know...the awesome "In the Air Tonight" frustration vent). I think I need more toms to do it exactly how he did it...and I'm not left handed like him...his toms are set up in the opposite direction from left to right. So much to learn !! Next on my list is to tune my toms so I can get the right notes to do the easy "George of the Jungle" theme song. Sounds pretty crappy right now :D
Thank you!!!! I just changed my snare tuning, and I've got a bad buzz. I'll tune my toms up a half step hopefully that stops it. Man, your vid hit on everything I search.
just got a real drum set for christmas, and i have been playing electric drums for 3 years now, so i had no clue what the snare wire even was, nor how to tune a drum set. this helped me a lot! Thank you so much!
Super helpful! I always wondered how to fix this (I imagined some sort of drum shield around the snare) and I never got a satisfactory answer until this video
New to drums. Discovered this when I picked up Bass and scared myself with the buzz. Took a solid 5 minutes to figure out what was happening. Learned my snare is in C. Also put a hole in the kick head, replaced it, tuned it, liked it, set it up and played it....also tuned it to C. Apparently my ear likes C. Needless to say, thank you for the explanation.
One other quick fix that can help with snare buzz (I think this is a Bob Gatzen thing) is to detune the lugs on either side of the snare beds by 1/4 - 1/2 turn. Getting the intervals of all the drums dialed in is a more complete solution but sometimes just that detuning improves the situation quite a bit.
The thing you say about hitting the kick drum and the top tom or floor tom resonating, that is driving me sort of nuts. The snare does it, too. I would love to see a video where you actually go through from a-z working that sort of thing out, all the drums interacting, and tuning or whatever to eliminate it, or make it work in a good sounding way. Enjoy your videos. Thanks.
i just want to say thanks. I was getting snare bleeds on non snare hits during some home recording. I tried a few of the tips and hit it on the head (pun intended). All cleaned up! Thank you thank you thank you!
Here's an unusual take o this topic. I have long been plagued with sympathetic vibration. However I have 2 snares that never have the issue. One is a 1979 Slingerland "Spitfire" TDR wood snare, and the other is a circa 1984 Sonor metal shell snare. What they both have in common is their snares extend beyond he snare head. The snare butts are outside the drum like the old Radio Kings (Ludwig and Rogers has similar set ups too). I don't know is that tyrpe of snare wire set up has anything to do with the lack of sympathetic vibration or if there is some other variable I'm missing. I just know that they don't get the sympathetic vibration so those are my go to snares 95% or the time: the Sonor for any style heavily amplified like Rock, Blues and Gospel, and the Slingerland for Jazz and anything else..
harast52, This Snare Buzz drives me crazy. Similar to you, I get worse with buzzing on a Maple Snare 14 X5.5 then on a Nickel over Brass 14 X 6.5?? I'm a real Beginner at Tuning. I'm 70 YO, and in 2019 I resurrected playing Drums after 50 YEARS. Back when in 1966, I started to take some lessons (about 8 or so), Got a cheapo kit and Played with my HS Buddies in a Garage Band - that never got out of the Garage. We learned all our instruments together going from Playing corn ball songs like My Girl to Gloria, to I'm So Glad (Cream). I didn't know anything about Drum Tuning, different Heads, etc. Now I am learning - Thanks to Interweb. I have finally got to a Sweet Spot tuning my 5 Toms. Used different Batter heads - finally settling a combo [right now],Evans G2s Coated on 3 rack Toms, and 1 Evans EC2S on the16" Floor Tom and a Remo Emperor on the 14 " Floor Tom. After doing some of these changes, suddenly I got Snare Buzz , mostly on the 14 X 5.5 snare. Driving Me crazy. I tried some of the tricks mentioned here and at other sites. Then, I Gatt taped each end of the snare wires , and its just about Gone!! Yes, it chokes the snare a little , a bit more than placing a Moongel on the batter head. I use a Evans HD Dry Batter head on both Snares. I know its' a No-No but it works for now. Happy Drumming.
And finally when you tuned it to the best, you play in a band and the bass is going to resonate your snare more than any other drum could do. Just live with it and dont go crazy about the buzz.
Great lesson! But as a french speaker your "do ré mi fa sol..." were so cute ;) And btw, what does Solfège means for english speakers? For us, it's all music notation and concepts.
Morgane Gautier In musical terms, it's a method used in music education to teach pitch and sight singing of western music. Cute was really what I was going for, so glad I nailed it ;^)
Yea, adjusting the 2 lugs on the reso head on each side (4 lugs together) of the strainer is one way to control this and to quickly adjust the amount of snare you hear. But yes, it loosens that head a good bit doing it this way.
Kick drum vibrating floor Tom's is 24" kick 14/16/18..I was able to get the 16"to stop ringing but I had to tune up higher. The 18" won't stop... Tried resetting reso and batter heads higher and lower... Moon gel only makes is sound tubular...I is the only Tom with a new head by the way.?
What about the “ting” buzzing from the snare that rings out after striking the snare itself? Is there is any muffling techniques or tuning that you perform on the snare? 😣
Yea...that's just the natural ring of the drum. You can tune it up or down to get rid of that. You can also muffle it...a bit of gaff tape or some Drumdots/Moon Gel usually does the trick. I like a little of that "bark" in my sound though.
Thank you for the quick reply. I have a weird looking tape ring going around it now for the show I just finished and it has a similar effect as the Big Fat Snare dampeners, so I will be looking for a new way to muffle it. Lol.
I've been chasing this for a couple of weeks. Tuned the rack tom HIGH and cut it way down but the floor toms were still bad. Lowered the pitch of the floors and reduced it by around 50 %. But then the rack tom was too high. Stupidly lowered the rack tom tuning and now its worse than it was to begin with. I HATE slapping tape on the skins!
Hey, I have a 13 x 7 Maple snare. TAMA SLP, thisck she'll. Regardless of what snares I use (wires) or what tuning I use on the snare (perfect 04th, perfect 05th) every combination between, muffling, and how I tune my toms or kick, my snare buzzes with every Tom I play, including the kick. I also have an issue that after I strike the snare, regardless of what tightness the wires are, there is an after buzz of the snares after I strike the snare. The Reso head is wires are aligned, evenly tensioned, the snare Reso is quite high, I've tried it lower, every combination in between. I can live with the sympathetic vibration from the toms but I've found it near impossible to get rid of, or reduce that after 'bark' of the snare itself. So instead of a nice crack/pop sound, I get the first strike and then an after zzzzzzzz. Some of this gets lost in the mix of the drumset but it's the first time I've not been able to remove it. This is the first snare drum this has happened with, which leaves me wondering if it's just the snare drum itself ?
So we could go back and forth trouble shooting this but it sounds like you know what you're doing when it comes to tuning a snare...at least how to trouble shoot it. I can tell you from extensive experience with Tama (I was an artist with them for 5 years), their snares are SUPER hard to tune compared to other brands. I have even gone to a drum store and hit individual brands of snares in a row to see what the "brand" sounds like. Tama was last place in snares every time. One of the reasons I left them was because of how hard it was to tune their drums. I have also found that most snares only do one or two things really well. I have 2 snares just this past week that I detuned completely and they will just live at the studio as my "low gooshy" snares. If I was having these types of troubles with a snare, I would either sell it and get a Ludwig (their snare lineup is BANGING and they are super easy to tune...I would suggest supraphonic, acrolyte, copperphonic, or black beauty, depending on your budget. Facebook marketplace has great deals a lot of times). The other option would be to crank that bottom head way up, crank the top head way down (almost wrinkly), kill overtones with some gaff tape, and have a big, low, gooshy bad boy on your hands. Thats the Steve Gadd 80s sound...you still get the tone of the drum but you also get that low thud with minimal overtones. Cranking the bottom head also allows the snares to activate better. But, if it were me, I'd sell it and get something I liked. Sounds like you just don't like the snare...and that's ok.
@@StephenTaylorDrums thanks for your advice, yeah I think I was attracted to what the snare potentially could be, but it seems it might be a bit of a one trick pony (deep and slushy is where it sits best) it's almost like the shell is just too thick and it's fighting even medium to high tunings which makes it sound boxy, and it just sits in a specific frequency of it's own and causes and attracts huge sympathetic resonance. Its beautifully made, but you're right I've got to be happy with it. I've spent more time since I brought it, trying to get it to sound right, than enjoying playing it. It's the first 13" snare I've had and the first TAMA. Appreciate it, thanks.
I've found that the puresound wires can actually increase the buzz in some cases too! I put my old 20 strand back on after weeks of trial and error and they performed better.
I don't think u will reply but here it goes lol: I managed to reduce sympathetic buzz but there is sth else, whenever I hit the snare, it rings, but there is a catch, if I hold the cymbals and hit the snare, it wont ring? Moving cymbals a bit away doesn't work, any advices? :(
It could definitely amplify the already existing resonance, but not be the sole cause for it, so in order to change the amount of buzz I'd start working from the root, i.e. the actual drums. :)
Ugh..my snare buzzes not only when hitting the toms but also when the dog barks or if someone talks in an elevated voice. Its so rude and disrespectful.. always interrupting conversations. 😂😂🤷♀️🤷♀️
I am not a singer and don't pretend to play one on the internet lol. There's a reason I play the drums. But I was good enough to get a music degree and make a living at it...so play to your strengths ;^)
I think the root of the problem is that your voice is too manly :( like lumberjack/butcher manly lol. Nice lesson though that snare buzz is enough to ruin your life when you do not know how to deal with it.
