Drum:14" Yamaha sfz
Batter Head:Remo White Max
Snare Head:Remo Ambassador Clear (Mylar)

1.Remove both heads, clean the drum side of the top rim, and and the entire top rim itself. Clean all the dust away from the bearing edge on the bottom side as well.

2.Finger-tighten the top head as you do, and tighten it only enough (using the cross patterns of course) until the overtones and ringing goes away, then let it sit for a while.

3. Then put on the bottom head, since there is no collar, it needs to have time to stretch so it can't be tightened up too fast or it can stretch or even break. Finger tighten the bottom head as much as you can, then turn the key 4 times around on each lug (cross pattern again).

4. Next, take the top head and turn it between 6 and 8 times around on each lug. You might hear little pops and cracks from the head, it's just seating in, don't worry. check after every couple turns to make sure the head is seating evenly. I usually take a ruler and stick it on the bearing edge and make sure all of them are even. It's very easy for the head to not seat properly at this stage, so this is important.

5. Take the bottom head, and start to crank each lug up about 2 times for each lug. Take your time with these turns, don't turn too quick because you can seriously damnage the head now. Use the ruler again and check the bearing edges every couple turns. You will probably hear popping now too, but again, it's just the head seating. Do this until you reach the desired pitch you want.

6.Now to the top head again, set the entire drum down on a towel so you mute the bottom head, tune the top head to the desired pitch you want, while stick checking the lugs now and again with the ruler.

7. Now you're ready to tune the guts, unlike what Jon said, don't put the pen in and turn the guts on. Keep the guts off. But still put a pen or pencil under the guts. To do this, turn the guts off, slide the pen under the open side of the guts, and slide it to the other end, where the guts should stil be touching the head, I recommend that you put a paper towel between the pen and the head, so you don't scratch the head. I didn't remember to do that with mine and now there is ugly scratches on the head. WHen you push the pen all the way back, you can now tune the guts. Tune them all to the same pitch, I advise you to NOT tune them incredibly high because over time, the guts stretch and then they are no good after stretched too far. Tune all the guts the same, then slide the pen back to the other side, turn the snares on, make sure each end of the snares is touching the head with the same amount of force. The level of each side can be altered using the round things on top of each mechanism on the sides. Make sure those are leveled right, turn the guts on, play.

For a wet sound loosen the entire gut mechanism a little more (on the left snare mechanism, from drivers standpoint)

For a dry sound, tigthen the same mechanism to your desire. Be aware that overtightening this over time will stretch the guts, thus making them unusable after a few years. That happened at my high school, all the guts are stretched too far and now we can't tighten them as much as we would like.

Yamaha 13" sfz

BOTTOM HEAD

1.) rub wax on the bottom edge of the shell where the head sits (helps the rim from catching a sharp edge and ripping.)

2.) place remo ambassador head on bottom ( you know the paper thin heads)

3.) place rim on drum.

4.) dip lugs in vasaline (or whatever lube you want) and place then and screw them on finger tight.

5.) start krankin the head down in criss-cross pattern starting with 3 turns/ lug then decrease the next set until it gets close to the tension you want. ( you cant over krank especially with the paper thin head.) soooo let it sit to stretch a bit then continue until it gets to the tension you want

There is no real pitch just whatever we think sounds good

TOP HEAD.

1.) place top head on drum (remo white max)

2.) place rim over top head

3.) dip lugs in lube and start screwing them in finger tight

4.) same criss cross pattern as the bottom crank the sucker down until you get it where you want it.

5.) let the drum sit play on it a while give the heads a chance to sink into the drum.

6.) finishing touches to the sound you want.

Lastly we stick a piece of tape dead center bottom head over the guts.

depending on the tension give a nice staccato hope you dont tick sound.

The basics apply to pretty much any marching snare, but there are some different pitch characteristics for different heads -- particularly kevlar or other high-tension heads versus mylar.

And if you've got a non-free-floating Field-Corps drum, the mylar vs. kevlar topic is one you'll need to pay attention to. With very few exceptions, non-floaters generally weren't designed to handle the high tension of fiber heads like Falams, Tenduras, Maxes, etc. Unless you want to risk damaging the drum, it's a good idea to stick with mylar heads.

First, make sure the snares are aligned with the shell correctly, so they're laying across the snare bed. The snare bed is a small flattened spot on the bottom edge of the shell where the guts are supposed to lie. On a free-floating drum, if you rotate the shell when you reassemble the drum, the guts don't contact the shell & bottom head in the right place and your snare response won't be right.

If you've got the shell lined up right, it's probably just a matter of tuning and adjusting the guts, which seems to get overlooked by most people.

First, tune the guts themselves like snare02 mentioned in steps 7-9 of the fourth post in this thread. While it's ideal to match the pitch from strand to strand like he described, I can usually get a fairly decent sound in less time by making sure all the strands are roughly the same tension. Set the tension knob to the point where some strands are pulled straight while others are loose. Add just enough tension to straighten the loose ones. Readjust the knob and repeat until you've got all the guts in the same ballpark.

Next, set the vertical adjustments on the snare assembly to make sure the snares touch the head the whole way across. If the snare assembly is adjusted too low, there will be some gap between the snares and the bottom head, greatly reducing your snare response. If the snare assembly is too high, the snares will bend as they contact the bearing edge. That bend actually acts as a lever and pushes the snares away from the head. You want the snare strands to be almost perfectly straight from one end to the other.

Finally, adjust the tension of the snare strainer. As a baseline, I disengage the snare throw-off and adjust the tension knob so that there's just barely enough tension to hold all the guts perfectly straight. Re-engage the snare and fine-tune by ear. (It helps a lot to do this part outdoors with another person standing some distance from the drum.)

Different sounds require different tuning and tuning methods. With one of the lines I work with, a fatter sound is needed to go with the music. With this line, we put falams with the dot on the top and falams 2 k series on bottom. The trick is to tune evenly, no matter what sound you want. If you do not tune evenly, you will ruin the head and the instrument. I prefer to tune the tops of the snares as high as I can get them all to go to (not the highest one will go to). Then, I tune the bottom of one of them until I get the best sound I can. After that, i tune the rest of the bottoms to match. The snares i try to get to lie evenly across the head so an even snare sound is acchieved. I tune the individual snares to about a g to a in order to get just the right sound. I like the sound to be heard from all dynamics and a nice continuous sound during a buzz roll.

Pearl FFX
White max
Pearl Stock head for snare side.

I personally like the dry sound like the blue devils because it does not have that echo sound after you hit the drum and the response is mucho shorter. It also is not as loud. To do this please follow the next instruction.


Take 2 peices of cloth and fold each one in half.

You will need 2 strands of 3 inch of 3m tape.


First, Loosen your batter head quite a little.

Then Flip the snare upside down and tune the Snare side in Criss Cross pattern. Tune it until the head gets a deep pingish sound out of it, to say it easily just tune it higher then your top head.

Next flip your snare over and tune the batter head but let the bottom head be tighter.

Next, flip over the snare again and apply 2 cloth onto both side of the drum and tape it down on the head tightly.

Next Adjust the strainer so would be tight then flip over you drum and hit it to see what response you have. Most likely youll have a drier sound then before.

If it sounds like a tom drum then loosen the tension between the snare will a get dry sound but the response is still there.

Experiment on the strainer to acheive a sound you want.

I would reccomend a Falam snare side to get the best dry sounding response.

when changing heads remember to clean the inside of the drum,as well as the hoops and lugz. get as much dirt and dust out as possible. dirt can be a drum's worst enemy, good luck.

We've been screwing around with tuning lately, but it hasn't gone so well. How would you get a sound like the cavies in 2002, tuning wise? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgaSvRBRhbs

We're using Evans MX Whites on top, MX5's on the bottom. A cranked bottom and looser top is what we just changed to, but a couple bottoms have warped.

I've read all the posts about tuning methods, of which I'm familiar..but I have a query about the actual sound of the drum. I really like the Cadets snare sound..very crisp with a good amount snare.....but despite my efforts, I've been unable to mimick that quality of sound. I can tune a snare pretty well and my lines get compliments on snare sound, but I really wanna get a more crisp sound. I'm a tenor player so I haven't been exposed to many nuances of the snare tuning technique. Any corps guys/snare guru's have any recommendations or advice they could lend?

See attached tuning techniques.