Folks,

laltely I've been building my own vintage-style snare drum.

See: http://vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=54071

It's 15 inch wide, 6 inch deep. Stave oak construction, thin shell, with integrated re-rings. Inner 45 degrees edges, outer roundover.

I've been playing it, but I'm not happy with the sound.

There's a spot of about 1/2 inch wide in the center that, when I hit it, gives a dry short sound. When I hit the head a bit next to that spot, it sounds great. The problem is that the border between the two spots is quite sharp. Which is quite a problem when I play; I'm not a very precise hitter.

When I cranck it up, the bad spot gets smaller, when I loosen it, it get bigger. When I tune it really high, it's gone,but then de drum sounds way too high to my liking.

There's an amb hazy on reso side and a coated amb on batter side.

I've tried different tensions on the reso-side, which gave different sounds, but did not solve the above mentioned problem.

A friend drummer said that this is a problem common to snares bigger than 14 inch.

Anyone of you has anything to say about this?

I'm considering running an emperor or an ambassador X (thicker heads). Or maybe a controlled sound?

Second, I'll maybe make sharp double 45 edges, but that's a lot more work.