Snom/Baritone Snare/Floor Tom Snare Tuning & Drumhead Choice | Season Two, Episode 33
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- Опубліковано 4 лют 2025
- Floor tom snare. Snom. Baritone snare. There are a variety of names out there but regardless of what you call these beastly drums, their huge sound is undeniable. Still, there’s a lot of work to be done to dial in your ideal ultra-deep snare sound. This week, we unpack the tuning options, discuss some pitfalls, and lay down some sweet grooves with this fine snare from Maelo.
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Signal chain:
Mics - Focusrite Clarett 8Pre USB & OctoPre - MacPro w/Pro Tools 12.8
Recorded at 48kHz / 24bit
Focusrite Clarett 8Pre USB tinyurl.com/Cl...
Focusrite Clarett OctoPre tinyurl.com/Cl...
Full kit: AKG C414 (ear-distance)Snare drum & tom tom close mics: Shure SM57
Bass drum: AKG D112 (at mic port).
Snare: Maelo Drums custom 14x11” Snom
maelodrums.com/...
Snare Batter: Evans Black Chrome
Snare Reso: Evans Snare Side 300
Hosted by: Cody Rahn
Production: Ben O'Brien Smith @ Cadence Independent Media
Presenting Sponsor: Promark by D’Addario
Production Partners: Focusrite, Evans Drumheads
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If ever there was a drum to try a thicker snare side head, this is it. I would assume it would make for a gushy snare tone, and usable Tom tone. I at least would love to hear the experiment. Thanks for making the greatest UA-cam channel ever!!!!!
So I actually went there and did that. I have a mahogany 14x8 snare I use for that sound. First I went to an emperor snare side and that was great, now I've actually got a 7 mil Aquarian hi frequency on the snare side and a Hi Impact on the batter. In short, you need to tension the thicker heads to a similar pitch as normal, which means cranking the tension way up, otherwise the snare sound is weak and sloppy, but when you do that it feels like there's more rebound in the batter which means you can tune it lower, but also I can really lay into this snare and it doesn't give way and sound splatty like they normally do. I will say doing it this way makes for a big low pitch on the drum with a long note, more like a Simmons sample. It's not at all like that short thud sound that most people get. The body of the sound could easily fill an entire quarter note. It also projects really well so doesn't get lost next to a cranked snare leaving you feeling like it doesn't work without a mic. I've got 42 wires on it and I think that's a good idea because the tom sound is so heavy I think normal wires wouldn't produce enough snare sound to balance it. Sorry for the long one, but I've been fiddling with trying to get this snare setup for maybe a year now and finally it's exactly what I was looking for.
I bought an old Yamaha 14x10 tom and made a deep snare, I put floor tom legs and wood hoops. It sounds great, I really like it!
I made my 13"x10 tom to snare...I mount it to my hihat stand... 😊 Testing heads now and playing few shows with it and I'm in love... soundtechs love it...playing blues it's ideal...no extra head needed for fat snare sound...and also one stand less to carry😉
My son is more of a classical percussionist, but just got a similar drum from Tama. With the heads it came with an Evans G1 reverse dot and Snare Side 300. At any tuning, the snare wires would buzz for as long as 7 to 8 seconds after a single stroke. I switched to an Evans HD and Snare Side 500, and the problem is solved. The snare is a little muffled (I added some cotton balls), so I may try tuning the reso head up a little.
BTW, these videos are an incredible learning experience. I would recommend them to anyone.
Awesome! I converted a 13 x 8 PDP rack tom into a snom. It sounded so good I've been using it as main snare. Only drum on the floor my kick drum, everything else is racked. Thanks for the video!
I was surprised how great it sounded tuned up. Definitely a bucket list purchase!
Thanks for the video guys. I’m in the process of converting my 14 floor Tom to a snare.
Looks like you were really enjoying your new drum Cody !
I've got some random rack toms , 12" and 13" , left over from kit restos I've done and was thinking of turning one into a snare drum. Now I'm going to have to find a 14" floor tom and try this out.
Your new Snom sounds and looks great. You got some good people there building drums and making cymbals for you.
Great video guys 👍👍
Ludwig was kind enough to make a 10x14 snare for me, and yes it is my main snare. I dropped an E- ring inside to even out the crazy snare wire sounds. Worked very well.
Dammit, I build these and was gonna to send one to you guys for an episode like this lol
Can you send me one
Cody, today I received my Tama S.L.P. 10x16 duo birch floor drum. Wow! Lots of potential. Came tuned pretty good with Evans USA Emad batter and 300 snare. The throw is nice! My first S.L.P drum and I'll be buying more. Maybe a dry aluminum to start.
Quality drum and right away I was getting good 👏 "clap" type effects with snare engaged, and predictable & versatile tom sounds. Really cool. Threw a 13" BFS with jingles on it, and it fit nicely within the Emad ring channel and was very cool. Just thought I'd comment because I can't find anything about this 16 duo on UA-cam or anywhere really. Gonna fit pretty cool within my Tama Neo Mod kit.
12x15 is the perfect size for this! If you're going for that deep deep fat tone, the head size really helps.
Great job! I have 3 vintage 14x10s and have used them a lot for this time of sound. All your main points I’ve found to be true with mine - loose wires, very small sweet spot with wire tension, tight reso, dealing with weird pitchiness on the batter, 2 ply batter, ring or heavy tape on top.... spot on! A cool idea for another episode could be vintage single tension field drums! people always see these single tension drums on eBay and think those will do THIS sound 😬..... they have their own cool niche usefulness but it’s a whole other ballpark from this fat gushy thing.
Very,very nice sounding and looking drum. Congratulations on your purchase, I'm sure you will enjoy it.!!!
Hi guys! Great stuff here!
I've experienced the same on my 50s WFL field drum. The reso needs to be tuned quite high to get a cleaner sound and a good snare wire responce.
Mine is a little bigger 15x12 and it prefers medium to medium low tuning on the batter side.
Keep up these great videos!
Cheers
Dave
Man that drum tuned up to a ‘normal’ snare sound is where it is at!!
Surprising right? I don't know how much people consider the value of that with drums this size! Definitely not a one-trick drum.... - Cody
After watching this video I managed to pick up a sixties Premier marching snare with top and bottom snares
Oh-ho-ho-ho my Gawwwd! Loove this snom sound!!
My main snare is a 70s Ludwig parade master 10x14 3 ply with rings and I use a Evans dry HD, and it is awesome. $70 on Craigslist
Finally a video on this! I’ve been wanting to get that Larnell Lewis snom sound really bad.
i built a snom out of my 14by12 maple floor tom. sounds great.
My allegros have a very similar color scheme, cool I enjoy your channel Thank you
After your opening playing, I had to go listen to "You Got Lucky" by Tom Petty and then come back and watch the rest.
Sounds great Cody!
I had an old Ludwig 15×8 marching snare years ago that became my main snare. I loved the sound of it,but sadly I had to part ways with it.
Awesome vid- been looking to get myself one of these myself to add more versatility to my second floor tom
Videos are looking great guys!! Noticing some more saturation? Looks perfect!
Thanks so much! No additional saturation but a little shift in lighting and some grading tweaks. Cheers! -Ben
Great channel! Would love to see you do an episode on dealing with a house kit with crappy worn skins and how to get different sounds or just the best out of a bad situation in a short time.
The S.L.P. Duo Birch 14"x10 is my favorite
That MAELO snare is great!
That thing sounds groovy man!
Marching Bands should have Baritone Drums added to fill the gap between the Tenors & Basses
This is the one I’ve been waiting on!!!!
I would be interested in yet another snare tuning video. I like the feel of a really tight snare batter head (and a deep snare) , but tuning both heads high chokes out the drum. How do you feel about tuning the snare batter head real tight and the reso head fairly low to get a tight but not too high sound? Maybe an idea for a video? I'd love your thoughts on the matter.
Love this. I actually have 3 Ludwig kits in standard sizes... 12,13,16,22.... I never use the 13’s... I’ve been thinking of putting snare wires and throw off on em.... def gonna do it.
Nice! Don’t forget to get some snare beds cut as well!
I love your lamp in a block of wood on a wood snare drum on a wood shelving unit holding other wood snare drums.
You had me at gaft tape.
I love snare racket. Bring that racket. Flap them wires.
⛓🎉
I’m not sure if it has been covered here or not but it would be great to hear and have explained how lugs and types of hoops affect toms specifically. I’ve recently been playing on a Decade Maple kit and since the 16 has 6 lugs I’ve found tuning to be a bit more quirky than the norm “not bad just different” and I’d love some input as to why. It is interesting to me that the drum prefers to be at a higher tuning than other 16’s I’ve owned as well. I also wonder different sound I could find with a 2.3mm vs the 1.6mm that is stock. Loved the video and what you guys do!
If you want to tune it low, it will theoretically help to use a spectrum analyzer app to get the lugs as close as possible. I've recently started using one, and tuning is far easier and more accurate. I don't know if this is a common thing to use or not, I just thought it might be useful and it really really was.
Not sure we’d ever have a need to go any lower than demonstrated here and managed to do that in just a few seconds by ear but if an app helps you move faster and/or tune lower, excellent!
Yuhhhssss finally awesome 😎
This was a really interesting video. I'm really surprised by the reso head choice. I'd have thought to use a 5 mil or 7 mil head as a reso, though I always sort of thought that the idea was to put a drum like this in the floor tom position so that it can serve both as a floor tom and as an auxiliary snare. Do you feel like you can find a tuning for this drum that would allow you to use it as both and simply slip on or off the snares, or do you think it would need re-tuning or different heads to be able to have it serve both as a snare and as a floor tom?
If i'm being honest, I don't know that the physics are there to get both a 'normal' floor tom sound and a good sounding snare response at a single tuning. Because of the way heads and wires interact at a given head tension there are always going to be concessions you'll have to make toward one or the other of the two sounds. The main barrier i see is that the amount of tension you need on a snare side head to get good response results in a LOT of pitch/note getting thrown through the batter head causing the drum to have a really round tone with lingering sustain. This is compounded by any muffling you may use to focus the tone of the drum for the snares-on sound as I did with the E-ring. There's still a lot of experimentation to do here for sure, at the moment i'm using a coated Hydraulic batter and getting a totally different behavior out of the drum. Regarding snareside head, a 7mil is going to have less snare response and not conform well to the snare beds at all. I imagine i'll experiment with a 2mil and a 5 in the future just to see what the outcome is but i suspect it won't be a game-changing difference, just an alternative. - Cody
I use a tama duo snare and a Evans Coated Onyx on the top and a black reso on the bottom to get a better tom sound out of it. I needed to get a good sound for snare and floor tom.
6:38 is a dope beat
"You're giving a lot of information to the snare wires" - I never heard anyone talk about the membrane vibrations as the "amount of information" before. I guess it's not what information is honestly :D
This is a great video! Thank you! I just got a baritone snare made by Dale Flanigan at Fortune Drums in Cleveland. It's a Pearl Session Custom 14" x 12" tom, maple shell, with Optimount instead of legs. I was struggling to get a good snare sound. The tom sound was good. I am looking for that big fat, wet, Praise & Worship sound. I can't wait to try the things you suggested. One question... in your opinion, does legs make for a better floor tom sound vs. Optimount? Thanks again!
Chrunky 🤩
Using one or two LP 1623 RAW Series Snare wires work great too. It's a half snare wire that connects to the tom hoops, they have a magnet in them and clip onto the hoop very easily. They don't clip to die cast hoops just to let anyone know, cause the metal alloy on a die cast hoop
BTW I did make a snom with a mapex 14x8 maple/poplar 6 ply snare drum, using a really low tuned evans coated hydraulic and a remo ambassador snare side head. Sounds really awesome as a 14" floor tom and beefy snare, but you really gotta hit the center and work on the snare tension and head tension to both heads. it's not like your most typical snare tunning
I have been trying to get my snares to sound this fat and low for a while. I can’t wait to make a new toy. Fill at 8:34 is 💥
awesome vid! I've seen the Snarky Puppy drummers (Sput, Larnell) pulling this off with not even that deep of a drum (like 6.5 or even 5.5). I'd love to see a vid on doing this with those drums and using them in the Floor Tom 1 position
Here you go! ua-cam.com/video/dYvcTL8v9jI/v-deo.html
I didn't know about these, they're cool. There doesn't seem to be any reason offhand why one couldn't just get a rim and snare wires, and put them on a floor tom?
Thanks for watching! Yep, you could definitely mod a floor tom but don’t forget a snare bed cut into the reso edge...
The only limit is our imagination...and like, having an angle grinder and drill and stuff.
Really want too know what cymbal that is. Sounds great
The "beat oriented" placement of this big snare is the best in my opinion. Unfortunately, my kit has no space available for that kind of add-on! I have 2 congas and 2 drummer timbales there, and I use 2 floor toms on my right-hand side.
Can you do an episode on high tuned or cranked snoms?
Yeah we may do something like that once i've had time to really find my way around the drum and get a sense of its range. I've done some field drum-ish stuff with it (higher tuned, muffled calf head) at home and gotten some super cool results with that too! - Cody
@@SoundsLikeADrum sick. I want to show my 14x14" to my drummer and try to use it in our posthardcore band.
+soundslikeadrum *Several manufacturers have the resources to build a floorstanding snare drum as a production item.* Pearl Drum Corporation could easily do an eight-lug φ14"x12" with standard snare release and butt; so could Tama Drums Division, Hoshino Gakki. My idea of a practical vintage? An eight-lug φ14"x12" Ludwig/Conn-Selmer Classic Maple floor tom with a dual High-Torque bearing-edge reinforce and P87 release/P34 fine-tune butt retrofit, as such a drum will accept not only REMO power heads (e.g. the BX-0114-10 Emperor-X® batter and KL-0214-SA FaLams® snare-side) but also both the L-1108 guts and the L-1110 snappies.
It looks a bit like the Field Drum which is a Snare Drum w/ a Deeper Body.
I wonder what it would sound like if you put a big fat snare drum on that thing :D But great fat sound you already got there!
great stuff as always, but ...... where did you get that t-shirt!?!? :)
Have you tried attaching it to a marching carrier to see if you could march with it?
Not yet! Could be fun though :) -cody
The next logical progression is a showcase of 15" snares in normal depths. Super under appreciated size
Have you checked out the baritone snare by pearl? Size 15x5 African mahogany. Around $390.00 .These snares are beautiful for people searching for a quality 15" snare at a very affordable price.check them out.!!!
How did I get here from watching videos of Snom from pokemon?
Another great video, guys! I just wondered how much of an influence the thickness of the shell has in these cases (really deep snares). Did you think about that when ordered it?
I differed to the builder's experience with drums he's made in the past and since we're really after tone and fatness here more than rimshot crack or projection we went with relatively thin maple (6 ply I think). The baseball bat edge on the batter side was my idea based on a Craviotto I played once which added even more to the overall wideness of the sound at whatever tension. I would be curious to hear one with reinforcement rings and an even wider round edge to see just how thumpy it could get :) -Cody
Where do I get one of those more cowbell t-shirts?
I love how the kick interacts with the snare wires more
John Mayer - Vultures is the intro groove :D
We actually featured that as one of the tracks to match snare tones in this video: ua-cam.com/video/Nu2V_KlAppw/v-deo.html
Some lucky guy just won a Snom at the anika nilles clinic i went to
That happened at the Sam Ash clinic in Manhattan that I attended as well. Pretty cool drum! -Ben
Sounds Like A Drum same at the la guitar center clinic!
Hi.
Crank this baby up...!
For me this is drum sounds better with a higher tensioned batter. But, either way you go, without the wires it just sounds like a normal floor tom, so I don't know if this drum is for me right now!
Is Cody treating himself to some snares 🥦?
I had a 15" marching snare that I turned into a floor tom.
By the way, what are your thoughts about "drumbales" (crossover between snare and timbales)?
I feel like it might be helpful to use the shoulder or butt end of the stick on the hi-hats and open them up evvver so slightly to get a bit more beef out of them when playing such a beefy snare sound.
Yep, that's certainly an artistic choice you can make depending on the context. It may turn out that you only really want to be hearing kick and snare and that the hats are meant to be barely present as a time keeper. If there's heavy rhythm guitar going down then the swampy hats could be a bit much. Always best to listen and adjust. Cheers! -Ben
Sounds Like A Drum Oh, I didn't meaning swampy or sloshy. I just thought the delicacy of the hats and the beefiness of the snare were an odd match (to my ear, anyway). Would love to have heard the drum in a musical context. Any cool links to suggest?
To me it sounds like an untuned regular snare. Ithink it works better
on the the right side as an auxiliary similar to what Anika Nilles does. I would imagine the response would make it difficult with doubles and other rudiments.
S N O M
Does it metal tho?
it goes without saying - more cowbell!
You ever try a 16x16 snare those bastards sound gnarly
Reminiscent of Steve Jordan
use remo calfskin on the top
You can get any snare drum to sound like that by loosening the head a lot .
Done .
Maybe so (though that hasn’t been what we’ve found to be the case- especially switching between snares on and off), but try and get it to project more than two feet...
Snom body once told me...
Snom body toucha my spaghet (yes Ik it’s a dead meme)
@@BisharpnearOhio SPAGHET!!! Got cha 😎
How about another episode on a 10"/12" snare/tom lol
I am really considering a 10" snare/tom. It'll be more of a timbale as far as I understood, I don't know how usable it'd be if tuned very low. Anyway, another idea for a video one day? :-)
Sput playing this kind of setup:
- ua-cam.com/video/7lTDVeQTNTU/v-deo.html
- ua-cam.com/video/unvguJBRqis/v-deo.html
That's sort of what the power piccolo/soprano snare episode was about: ua-cam.com/video/g4E8Tl7dEs8/v-deo.html
It's snare+tom=snom
Cody - anyone ever tell you that you bear a striking resemblance to Maggie Gyllenhaal? You look more like her brother than her brother does... If you do a side by side photo of you two, it’ll blow you away. Whoa, maybe you and Jake were switched at birth?!? We gotta get you, Jake, and Maggie on a daytime talk show for a dramatic reveal of the DNA test results. (Is Maury still around? He’s the man for the job)
This is my favorite comment ever - taking it straight to IG :) -Cody
You're not striking the batter head hard enough. You're pushing more air in that depth of a snare drum than you would with a 5" or 6 1/2 deep one, especially holding stick with traditional grip.
We’d have to respectfully disagree. The sound is right on the money for what we were aiming for and that’s what counts. As we mentioned in the episode, it’s possible to hit too hard and end up with diminishing returns. Dynamics are key with this stuff and the there’s so much more to be pulled out of the drum when you’re not beating it up. As for traditional grip, there’s plenty of power with this technique if that’s what you’re looking for. -Ben
@@SoundsLikeADrum I figured you would disagree, that's ok. Why would you play an over sized drum in soft passages? I don't think you can hit a drum so hard it ends up with diminishing returns, it only maxis out at a certain volume and that's it. Yea dynamics are a part of playing. You know you can get a great punchy and low end tone out of a 14" floor tom better than a 18" floor tom.
I thought my Ludwig 14x8 sounds too fat... I was wrong. Your snare is fat dripping.
I see no point in this
I love the content of this guy’s videos, but it’s 3 minutes of stuff I want to see, and 15 minutes of waaaay too much talking
We don’t usually respond to these type of comments but, out of curiosity, what are the three minutes that you want to see?
@@SoundsLikeADrum I love tuning drums and learning different techniques by watching other....but I feel like sometimes you take 5 minutes to explain “we’re going to turn each lug a quarter turn” instead of just doing it. Your content is great, I watch a lot of your videos, and your collab with rdavidr...just sometimes a bit long winded for my liking. Not saying that’s bad, I’m just too simple-minded to pay attention for that long without making drum noises haha.
@@nickwolf3405 Thanks for the feedback. We're working to clearly communicate methods that some may be more familiar with than others. We ask that you please exercise some patience (or simply skip ahead/play the video at 1.5 or 2X) as there are lots of people that benefit from the careful detail and contextualization of this information.