Hi all,
(1) In the 40's / 50's, were drummers using calf skin heads on the bottoms of their snare drums as well as the tops? (I'm assuming they didn't have clear plastic resonant heads until later, so what was the standard back then?)
(2) Can I get some of that vintage tone by putting a thin coated head on the resonant side of my snare drum as well as the top?
Seems like a silly question, but any input would be appreciated. Thanks.
NO NO NO NO NO!!!! DO NOT put a coated head on the bottom of your snare! You will kill ALL resonance! Use a snare side head. In the old days of calfskin heads the snare side head was a really thin hide called slunk skin......much thinner than a regular batter head. Same goes for today with modern heads. Use a SNARE SIDE head and you'll be fine.
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Yeah...agreed. I mean, you could go with a heavier snareside head, like an Emperor Snareside...but, unless you really, really wanna deaden the snare sound to a 'thunk'...don't use a coated.
It's not a silly question, I have seen folks use a batter head on the snare side in an emergency, but it's just not optimal regardless of the sound you are seekin'....
...there are a lotta choices you can go with on the batter side for an old-school sound (also depends a lot on what kinda snare drum we're talkin' about)....[/COLOR]
Thanks all. Currently using Fiberskyns on my batter, Diplomat clears on the snare side. Sounds fine, but was just curious. Thanks for clarification on the slunk skin. Had heard of that before but never truly knew what it was used for until now.
Well, not to be too morbid or anything, but....well...
a "slunk" skin is the skin of an unborn calf that's still in the womb when the cow is slaughtered. Since the baby calf is underdeveloped, its skin is very thin. That's where slunk heads come from. And that's also why you will never see big-sized slunk drumheads.
:(
