Comparison: How Many Snare Wires? | Season Four, Episode 37
Вставка
- Опубліковано 16 чер 2024
- PATREON:
Not only is this season made possible by our Patreon supporters, this particular episode came as a request from our Patrons! If you'd like to support our efforts and influence the topics we cover here, join us on Patreon and you'll also gain access to exclusive content such as Cymbal Sounds, our long awaited cymbal series, and MUCH more: sladl.ink/Patreon
What’s the real difference between different numbers of snare wires? We’d never done a real back-to-back comparison beyond a couple stock models and, after receiving a request through our Patreon, we decided it was time to make this episode happen. Starting with 20 (yes, we know we could have gone up to 42 but we don’t have all day to produce these episodes) wires, we’ll remove two (one from each side) at a time for each demo so you can hear the difference with a single variable of change: strand count.
0:00 Intro & General Explanation
2:13 Comparison: Dynamics
3:31 Comparison: Full Volume
4:26 Comparison: Rolls
5:08 Comparison: Groove
6:05 Analysis
7:45 How Best to Cut Snare Wires
9:21 Effects of Less Wires
11:41 Wrap Up
PRODUCTION PARTNERS:
GIK Acoustics (sonic treatment): sladl.ink/GIK
AKG Audio (microphones): sladl.ink/AKG
Evans Drumheads: sladl.ink/EvansDrumheads
ProMark Drumsticks: sladl.ink/ProMarkDrumsticks
Signal chain:
Mics - Focusrite Clarett 8Pre USB & OctoPre - MacPro w/Pro Tools 12.8
Recorded at 48kHz / 24bit
Overheads: (Matched Pair in Glyn Johns - Cardioid) AKG C314 sladl.ink/C314Pair
Snare: AKG C518M top, AKG 460b bottom
Toms: AKG C518M sladl.ink/C518M
Kick Drum: AKG D12vr sladl.ink/AKGD12VR
No EQ or compression in use with drum demos unless otherwise noted
Acoustic Treatment:
GIK 242 Acoustic Panels: sladl.ink/GIK242
GIK 4A Alpha Pro Series Diffusor/Absorber: sladl.ink/GIK4aAlphaPro
GIK Evolution PolyFusor Combination Sound Diffuser/Absorber: sladl.ink/GIKEvolutionPolyFusor
GIK Tri-Trap Corner Bass Trap: sladl.ink/GIKTriTrap
Drums:
Pearl Masters Maple Custom Extra
Cymbals:
14” old K clone by Jesse Simpson over Zildjian New Beat Top
Drumheads:
Snare: Evans UV1 / Snare Side 300 w/Puresound Custom Pro Steel 20-strand wires
Toms: NA
Kick Drum: Evans UV EMAD / EQ3 Coated White Reso
Hosted by: Cody Rahn
Production & Consulting: Ben O'Brien Smith @ Cadence Independent Media
👂🏼👉🏼🥁
Leave your questions, comments, suggestions, requests down below and don't forget to subscribe!
*NOTE: Troll comments will be deleted. You're welcome to disagree with whatever you like but let's keep the conversation civilized and focused on drums.
--------------------------
Sounds Like a Drum is a CADENCE INDEPENDENT MEDIA production
For more information, visit www.cadenceindependent.com
Follow us on Instagram: / soundslikeadrum
Like us on Facebook: / soundslikeadrum
The difference between two wires and zero wires is surprisingly significant.
Dude, I literally spilled my beer laughing at this! Awesome comment!
LOL
That´s funny but you´re actually right.
I was sincerely surprised at how subtle of a difference this experiment generated. Great video!
8:10 - I've found from using Puresound wires myself, that if you get a broken wire or need to remove one, simply get a pair of pliers and twist the wire where it is attached into the end plate. It usually comes off entirely, leaving no jagged or sharp coils still attached, risking snare side head damage or an unwanted jab in the fingers! :)
I don't know about you all, but I got a lot of satisfaction just watching the snares bounce off the bottom head when the drumstick hit.
I thoroughly enjoyed placing that camera knowing what we’d be capturing! -Ben
@@SoundsLikeADrum thanks Ben!! It was a cool angle and addition to the video for me personally.
This video literally saved me an entire afternoon of doing this myself at some point. 🤣 Once again, great video!!
Glad to hear it! This was very much made possible by patrons such as yourself. Thanks for your support! 👊🏻🥁❤️
I was really digging the 12/10 wire sound. Just the right balance of snap and body for my taste.
U so right brother. I using headphones to listen & the 12 sound the best- for me. Enough wire for rimeshot,roll and right amount of snare body
I have a '60s Slingy with original 12 strand wires that sound amazing. I almost replaced them, but then realized I love the way it sounds.
I’ve done this before, i actually liked 10 and 8 strand sounded really good, more body less buzz. Infact I believe Steve had and Gavin Harrison use minimal wires
Same here!
12 seems to be the sweet spot. Thanks for this video!
Every time I have a random pondering about my drum configuration Sounds Like A Drum shows up with the answers I'm looking for. I love you guys.
I was planning to do the same experiment. Glad you have done it.
Really good video. Ever since I switched to 12 stand Puresound EQ wires and noticed the big reduction in sympathetic buzz I've never looked back. 10/12 strands is a definite improvement.
Honestly I couldn't hear a difference that could solely be attributed to the snare counts from 20 - 4 wires. Then a definite change between 4 and 2. And a surprisingly massive difference between 2 and 0 wires! I like this kind of extensive comparison though, great video!
Thanks so much for making this. My fave is probably 8, giving a little less "snare" and a little more "drum" 🙂
Cody I’ve gotta say, ever since you guys posted the video where you show the trick of tightening the outer tension rods (not the 4 nearest to the snare beds) to get rid of a little excess sizzle sustain, and growing in my tuning journey, I have started almost exclusively liking 24 strand wires on my snares (that ive tried them on) and on my gretsch bell brass i am absolutely in love with tama 42 strand wires. I can finally control how long my wires sizzle evenly, with no trouble makers and Ive found that the more wires you have, the more focused the drum can sound to me because of the muffling effect the added wires tend to have. But thanks to your video (and many others) i have learned that if you do it right, more wires doesnt always result in a wetter sound.
That being said, idea for a video! You could do a comparison of some of the snare wires available to purchase and compare how they sound. Keep the strand count the same, just compare say, brass to steel, and chrome. Different thicknesses of wires. Like blasters vs twisted. Know what I mean?
I found the 14, 16 range pleasing to my ears.
Love this channel, watched every episode, and tend to come back to some when I want some info on something new I'm interested in purchasing
Ive been cutting down to a 12 strand for about a decade. Great as always!😁🤘
I would love to see the difference between this and doing this again but taking the wires from the middle out instead of from the outside in. I think you’d get some interesting sounds from snares with a gap in the middle.
Surprisingly subtle differences imo!
Right?!? And then all of a sudden the "boxiness" shows up around 10 strands. Still valid sounds though, each with their own character. Of course, taking this a combining it with other variables like different batter and/or reso head tensions could yield some really interesting results!
@@SoundsLikeADrum The point about wires themselves acting as a muffling item a great point. Also, as I'm a patterns guy, the observation of wire counts going approx 6>12>24>48 choices from "Extra Dry" to "Extra Wet" was interesting to me.
Excellent video! It would have been nice to see the difference in sympathetic buzz from hitting a tom also. From watching some videos I believe this is one of the reasons Gavin Harrison cut down his snare wires. Keep up the great work Sounds Like A Drum!
I was thinking the same. Or maybe even play alongside a bass or guitar or both
Awesome subject!
Good stuff! Size and depth and shell type will also be a factor IMHO non the less great demo!
According to Bob Gatzen, the industry standard of snare wire count before the 70´s was 12. You can still see his experiments and pieces of advice on his channel, even if he hasn´t uploaded anything new in the past 9 years.
I worked closely with Bob while I was at D’Addario and we used to discuss this stuff at length. Definitely miss those days with Bob. -Ben
What if you went from the middle out? I know there's sets of wires that omit a few of the middle strands, but I'd be curious to hear what two only on the outside might sound.
The number of "what if..." questions that spawn from experiments like this is astronomical. We would absolutely *love* to produce a whole other series of content like this. UA-cam is probably not the place for such things but we dream of the day when we've got the financial support to develop a whole platform around these experiments.
I’m curious about this as well. Might make for good Patreon content.
It’s called- equlayzer (if I spell it right 😂)
This is great! 20 - 12 or so seems to be more just a question of taste, with more tonal change than volume change. Below 12 might actually be a legitimate way to shave a few dB off snare volume for quieter rooms. 6 seems to be the sweet spot for minimal volume, as quiet as it can go without losing a lot of body to the sound. There's no single change that can significantly reduce the volume without killing the sound, but getting a bit of volume reduction from the wires, a bit from from the shell, a bit from the heads, a bit from muffling, a bit from the sticks, etc can all add up much more transparently.
I snipped the center 8 wires out of my 20 strand snare wires to make a budget version of the pure sound equaliser and it worked really well, my snare was no longer triggered by my rack tom! And the snare still sounds great!!
Thanks Cody.
Snare wire number depends on the drum, drumsticks, musical situation and the drummer. Orchestra requires crisp articulation and zero buzz, therefore less strands and often cable snare strands (see Pearl's philharmonic model with 3 separate snare strainers/wire sets.)
Contrast that to Herculean backbeats on a TAMA 1987 Heavy Birch 8x14" snare drum, where a 20 bell- brass snare wire count sounds massive and thick!
Great vid as always Gentlemen!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! So much great info!!
You are so very welcome!
i use a Puresound 16 strands but i left only 8 on it. i cutted them from outside in (1 stay 2 goes 3 stay 4 goes etc...) and it left a space of 2 intead of 1 in the middle. it's one of Harrison's set of wires in the Protean snare package. i made the same for myself. perfect for backbeat and ghost notes warm and cracky.
8 strands is the sweet spot for me. I cut a 16-strand Puresound in half so I could have two sets.
This is great info that I've never gotten anywhere else.
I was surprised how little difference the difference was till you got way down in snare count. Buzz rolls seemed to show the difference greater than simply striking the drum. To my ears anyways
Comments like this are some of the greatest motivation. Thanks!
Awesome video
Love the Gretsch 42 wires!!
I’m glad u bought up the point of cutting the wires either side as opposed to the one side. I’ve had this discussion on another forum a while back and so may drummers just didn’t understand the need to do this.... the amount of negativity that I was copping was amazing...people saying u don’t have to....to also saying it makes no difference etc. others said if u break a wire on one side just keep playing as it makes no difference.... my argument was if it makes no difference...why do they have 20 strand clips.u may as well just 19 wires on there 😆
Very cool. Did you consider cutting from the center out? By that I mean at the end your last two wires would be the outside wires. I wonder if that would sound different once you got to the extreme? Thanks for doing this!
Yes, though we wanted to do this in a way that reflected how most wires are manufactured (all wires adjacent).
as we're removing wires we are removing mass, but the end plate of the wires remain the same and the mass of it is significant. I strongly believe that for expample a 12 strand out of the box will have notable difference in choking behavior and breathiness of the head comparing to a 12 wires made out of a 20strand or a 30 or 42 . it would be very interesting to see that. it could have a difference like the 13inch snare to a 14 drum. gr8 job guys , keep up
an extremely useful video. fairly scientific too
Been trying to figure out how to make a snare drum sound dry and crisp, almost like hitting paper with a stick, if that makes sense. Less resonance, tight, controlled, no overtones, and chokes easily, like you’re hitting a notebook of loose paper. I assume it’s a wood drum, with a thin coated head cranked, but can’t figure out if both heads should be cranked, 1 or 2 ply, would birch be better, how many lugs, and anything else. Not looking for muffling but still dry and tight. Thanks for any advice!
Kinda of curious what 1 wire sounds like, cause even just 2 had some snap.
what's the best between remove from the outer to the internal strands or vice versa? I wonder if the location of strands affect sound and/or buzz noise. Thanks!
Location definitely affects the tone. That was another variable that would have made this episode significantly longer though.
I actually played without snares for nearly half a set a few years back when the cord broke midway through the gig.
any interest in doing an episode on using orchestral-style cables and snares in a drum-set context? i've got an old Ludwig strainer with the holes for individual cables and i've been thinking about modifying a snare to use guitar low-e strings as snare cables.
Interesting. I only have one type of vintage snare: Three Slingerland Deluxe Student models (aka The Professor's #1 for the first half of Rush's run). All three have the stock snare wires. I'm not near them right now, but I want to say they are 6-10 strand. They also feel more fragile than all modern snare wires I've encountered. With that said, they are sensitive, loud (but not overbearing), and just seem to be "right" for the drum. If anyone knows of anyone who makes a replacement, please let me know.
Is the bottom reso head tunned very tight, or still have some give in it when pushing with a finger?
We prefer not to prescribe a one-approach-works-for-all way of tuning snare sides, especially given our recent episode: ua-cam.com/video/raBf57up7b4/v-deo.html
Our general preference is for a snare reso that has some give to it rather than defaulting to "tabletop tight" as so many do.
I use a variety. I have a 5x14 INDe maple with wood hoops that gets 12. My INDe aluminum has 16, my INDE Bronze has the twisted 20 snares, and my 8x14 INDe maple has super 30s. Though if I had to pick, I love 12s.
Took my 5 1/2 x 14 Maple snare down to 12 wires and really like it. More woody!
Because I'm so cheap, I cut a 16-strand Puresound in half so I could use one and have a spare. I've been using 8-strand Puresounds on my Acrolite for years. To my ears, 8 strands gives a good balance of open drum and snare sound.
How are you mounting the wires since you cut them in half?
@@SoundsLikeADrum Actually I remembered wrong. The 8 strand was a failed experiment. I checked my snares and they have 9 strands. I used a Puresound super 30 and cut it into three. The middle one has the holes and 12 strands, and I drilled holes in the other two with 9 strands. I guess I’m even cheaper than I thought. 😂
I start with a 40/42 strand
Remove outer 4 or 5
Then the inner 2 or 4
Count 5 or 6 strands out and remove 2 until none more to trim
Should leave about 22/25 snares
Not sure if you guys realize but theirs a lever on the side to turn the snares off you don’t have to cut them each time .
If only that lever had 11 settings, this would have been a MUCH faster video to shoot but still just as long to edit.
Personally I love playing match grip more for some reason and yeah I have to adjust the wires on my Pearl piccolo
Wow, the sound is SOOOO CLOSE to my ears, almost across the board! Which honestly is consistent with my experience. I notice the decrease in extra buzz and kind of an increased punch around 12, and the snare response starts to thin out dramatically at 6. I notice that fewer wires makes it more difficult to get a smooth buzz roll. In the groove, honestly, I can't tell until you get down to 6 strands, above that they all sound the same to me. Cool test!
USE A DREMEL/MINI GRINDER TO SMOOTH OUT WIRE WEN CUT.SIMPLES.
Awesome thanks a million time 🤟🏻🤟🏻🤟🏻🥁🥁👏👏🇨🇦
How about cutting from middle? Did it on my Hendrix and definitely reduced buzz n sounds better. Middle four removed from middle leaving 16.
By the way, what about doing a video about 10 inches snares?
To the guitar and bass players who want to consistently do this, you could always just desolder the wires
If you've got some skill with a soldering iron then that can be an option but be VERY careful not accidentally go too far with melting solder over other wires that you want to remain intact. While it's certainly possible to solder it again, the chances of doing that without affecting the placement/tension are slim-to-none.
Most snares I own came with 20 strand wires. Many had some wonky snare wires, so I replaced some with 18s, some with 16s, and some with 12s. You feel a difference behind the kit and with sympathetic vibrations more than you hear a difference form a listener perspective. This comparison you did was pretty surprising, as the snare drum sounded pretty normal even with very few strands left. I closed my eyes and really only felt like the sound was noticeably "wonky" when you got down to 4 strands.
Goodchanging for thé folowîng sound , News tech for mixîng vidéo ?
I’ll stick to my 24 strands and 42 strands. Cool comparison though. Just not the sound for me
Bob Gatzen "Broken Opportunity?"
There's more difference between 2 and 0 than between 20 and 2
Hi i like what you do, but why no subtiles/ traductions?
French ( for me) spanish ( for other)?🤘
That’s a whole other level of production work that we simply don’t have the time to produce. We really wish we could there are just two of us and I’m a one man editing team.
I think ya lost it after 14
But 4 sounded decent for some reason
the winner is........... 20!
with an orchestral snare side??? or a 500 snare side... i will try both.
there's no winner here. it just a matter of taste and need. i pesonally prefer 8 but spaced out on a 16 strand plate. Harrison's way.
@@jiboo6850 oh... there is def a winner...
@@jonathanreddish8590 nope. deal with it.
I really hate to be the guy who does this, but the subtitle at 9:21 should be "Effects of Fewer Wires".
Too much talking, this video could have been 5 minutes shorter, we don’t need to hear when this could come in handy, we get it
I think they got to the point rather quickly. I like that they jumped right into it instead of talking between each change.
Hey there! You must be new to the channel. We consider the context to be just as valuable as the demonstration (sometimes significantly MORE valuable) and that's we we include it. This channel is for everyone, so while certain aspects may be obvious to you , they aren't for other viewers. We made a point of including timestamps in the description so that you could skip around as needed or just watch the comparison section. Thanks for watching and feel free to skip around, watch sections at 2x speed, or stop watching after the demonstrations. One thing we can say is that, if you patiently watch the full video, you'll always learn more and have a greater chance of applying the information presented. Cheers!
Hey buddy, you do not need to be that hostile. If you do not need the info, just ff or rew at your convenience, but 99%of us love to know the “why” behind everything. Chill kiddo.