How many strands is the Puresound wire set? Also, how wide are the snare beds?

David

Snare beds would be what I would look at first...but before I went to any "drastic" measure (re-cutting), I would look for a couple of other things first:

First, check to see if the snare mechanism and butt end are exactly across the drum from each other. Sometimes on those "no-name" drums, the butt end is slightly "off" in relation to the throwoff...In other words (and totally exaggerating the point), let's say the throwoff is at 6:00 o'clock and the butt end is at 11:55 o'clock -then, whenever the snares are engaged, there will be an uneven pull on the wires leaving some with less tension on them and some with more tension on them...and that could cause buzzing. This problem could be corrected by re-positioning the butt end so that it sat at the correct 12:00 o'clock position in relation to the throwoff. Does that make any sense? Burger Kin And...also check the relationship of the snare/butt alignment in relation to being centered on the snare beds

Secondly, I would check to see if the shell is warped/twisted. Many times, those "no-name" drums are made from lauan wood which is very porous and can change shape over time -given climatic conditions and possible uneven tension on the shell. The cure for that problem is to get another no name drum and cut your losses! Mister T...or yeah, definitely use it to experiment on...why not? -might be fun!

I've had this problem in the past. After dumping a good chunk of money into the snare (such as having the bearing edges re-cut and the snare beds done) only to find out ........ it's just a sensitive snare that reacts to a certain tone or note. I have seen certain heads present the same problem as well. A friend of mine had suggested placing 1 strip of electrical tape on either end of the strainer laying it across the wires. To my surprise ........ it worked!!! I have a Crescendo, custom built, #2 of 2 made, 13x5 Oak snare right now that reacts to my 10" tom. Take a guess what I am doing ........ Laughing H

Thanks for the quick and helpful replies folks. David, I'll pull the bottom head off and measure the width of the beds. I can say that compared to other wood snares I've played/owned, they seem quite wide (not necessarily deep).

I won't be dumping a lot of money into it, I'd be doing the work myself and as stated, it's sort of an experiment at this point.

When I restored the Kent, I went with narrow (maybe 2.5" to 3") beds which were pretty shallow (about a 32nd of an inch deep). I figured if the sound wasn't to my liking, I could always go deeper. I didn't want to go too deep and have to redo the edge work I'd already done.

One thing to note: My newest snare (the Tama Artwood I posted a few weeks ago) has almost undetectable snare beds, yet it's sensitive and sounds great. Go figure :)

More to come...

Try the wallet trick. Put your wallet on the batter and hit it. 9 times out of 10 this will stop the snare buzz if its just a sympathic frequency issue. If it works, then don't worry about recutting edges, snare beds, moving snare butts, etc.

If it's a sympathetic buzz you should be able to fix it with some combination of tuning, different heads, snare tension or damping.

Curiously, when gigging, I have never had anyone else notice when I had a snare buzz. Its usually not as loud as you think and irritates you most of all.

Good luck.

Quick update: Haven't pulled the head off yet to measure the beds, but I did try one last tuning session the other day. I tuned the top and bottom head way down - Much lower than I normally would, and the buzz is gone. The snare has a very fat/wet sound to it which I like. The overall pitch of the drum is now very close to my mounted tom's pitch, yet the tom no longer excites the snare like it used to (very strange).

I checked out the butt alignment thing o-lugs and it appears to be centered/aligned with the throw. Just curious, but if this were a problem, could you not make a slight adjustment to the snares via the snare straps, rather than relocate the butt?

Drum Dad - Yes, the ol' wallet trick has worked for me many times before and in a live situation, it's a great quick fix. My problem is more with recording the drum. I currently have a single Moon Gel on the top head to take a bit of the ring out, but not completely choke the top head. I like my snares to have a bit of ring to them, unless a situation calls for something else.

I still intend to work out the buzz-when-tuned-higher problem in the very near future. I would prefer to tune it up a bit higher than it is now, minus the buzz.

Next step - Pull the bottom head and measure those beds. The quest continues.

Yeah, I guess you could move the snare cord, too.Burger Kin

I actually did experience the mis-alignment problem on a very good snare drum and no matter what I did, it just wouldn't work right. When I discovered the mis-alignment, I took it back to the store and got my money back.

O-lugs. I don't know whose drum it was but that is absolutely amazing to me. Especially on a high end drum, since they are still, for the most part, hand made. There is no excuse today for having a major quality problem like that on a drum. There is no way it would pass quality checks. Someone would have had to make a decision to let it go or a dealer would have made a decision to sell factory seconds as new. Usually seconds are marked in some way though to prevent that. If that happened to me, I would seriously consider whether or not to make future purchases of that brand.