The rough mix
sounded good
until the first fill.
Every time the drummer
went round the toms,
there was a hiss underneath,
a faint metallic fizz,
like someone shaking
a box of paper clips.
You soloed the tom mics.
Clean.
You soloed the snare mic.
There it was.
Right on every tom hit,
and loudest on the high one.
The drummer had not
touched the snare.
He was right.
The snare played itself.
Under a snare drum
a row of wires
lies against the bottom head.
That is the sound of a snare.
Hit the top,
the bottom head moves,
and the wires rattle against it.
But the bottom head
does not care
who moved it.
Any sound in the room
near the pitch
that head likes to ring at
will move it too.
That is sympathetic vibration,
the same thing
that makes an open guitar string
hum when someone sings its note.
A tom tuned close
to that pitch
is the perfect trigger.
It is right next to the snare,
it is loud,
and it rings for a while.
So the snare wires
answer every tom,
a little,
every time.
Bass notes can do it too.
One note on the bass,
always the same one,
and the snare buzzes
through the whole chorus.
In the room
you never notice.
The band covers it.
The snare mic
is a few centimetres away
from the wires,
and it hears nothing else
quite so well.
The fix is usually
not on the snare.
Change the pitch of the tom.
A small turn,
a little up or a little down,
until it stops
landing on the snare's note.
Hit the tom,
listen to the snare,
turn,
hit it again.
Then check the wires.
Even tension,
sitting centred on the head,
not cranked tight to kill the buzz.
Tight wires stop the rattle
and choke the snare
you actually wanted.
A strip of tape
on the bottom head,
near the edge,
can take off the last of it.
And remember
some of that fizz
is the sound of a real drum kit.
You are not trying
to make the snare deaf.
Just to stop it
answering questions
nobody asked it.
The rattle was in the snare.
The cause was in the tom.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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