Which snares are you using now? I've got a 3-ply Gretsch snare and I've always had a similar problem. No matter how hard I tighten the snares, the drum just doesn't sound "snappy." But I've only ever used cheap generic snares on it. Any tips?

I tried tuning the drum down a little (reso head) and that seemed to work a little, but it still buzzes a lot. I changed out the snares - again - from a used 20 Gretsch to a New 20 strand Gretsch and tried different ties - thin plastic this time. Still buzzen!

NEXT I will try to change out the reso head and put a new coated something or other on the batter (I have a used Evans G1 Coated now).

There has got to be a good combo in there somewhere!

If all fails - I'll take it over to Ray (Ayotte) and see if he wants to tinker with it.

Any suggestions?? Or - are these old wood Gretsch snare drums just tempermental?

The rest of the kit sounds great - best drums I've played. The snare - with snares off sounds beautiful too..........it's so exasperating to not have a nice sounding snare in the mix.

Hmmmm - Maybe that's why Charlie Watts uses that nice big DW snare...........???

I tried an Earthtone batter (actually goat) on my Supra with an Ambassador snare side and it sounded absolutely horrible. It didn't sound right until I put a slunk on the snare side. Lots of people disagree, but I've found that using calf batters with plastic resos doesn't work as well as plastic/plastic.

The cheapest way I found to get my two slunks was getting them used off of eBay. One was a 15" that I cut the hoop down for the 14", and I imagine because of 15" marching drums there's lots of 15" slunks out there that nobody knows what to do with. My other one has a couple of pinholes that don't affect anything, so I got both of them real cheap.

I tried using an Earthtone non-slunk as a bottom - don't bother. It sounded like when I tried to put plastic batter heads on both sides of my Stewart snare in 1969. The reason I've learned most stuff is because I've tried a lot of stupid things. :)

I once called both Precision Drum and Greg Hohn ("the Drum Doctor") to ask what I could do about my Gretsch snare. As with yours, the rest of my kit sounds fabulous, and the snare sounds great with the snares off... but it just doesn't have that "crack" to it when the snares are on. I can't remember whether it was Greg or Precision who told me that Gretsch snares from that era are cantankerous. Apparently they didn't do a spectacular job cutting the snare beds.

One of these days I might take the drum to Greg to have the beds redone. In the meantime, I'm getting me an Acrolite. :)