mcjnic!...

Sorry I didn't see this thread till now as I would have been able to save you a little time, although you DID in fact do the right thing here! The problem with your drum was that it had NO SNARE BEDS. NONE... NADA... ZERO. That is why your snares were buzzing. As soon as I looked at your pics I knew, as I have seen this from Slingerland many times!! Whomever built this drum or worked on the shell at Slingerland completely forgot to cut in the beds. Possibly built on a Friday??!! LOL!! Anyway...

All the snares can do is just lay there... flat ... as the throw/strainer had no way to pull the snares "up and in" to the bearing edge, as again, the bearing edge was flat... no beds. The result of that is always... snare buzz... and there is no way to eliminate that without cutting in some snare beds, which is exactly what you did. Excellent! Think for a moment on how the snare bed functions: With the bed cut in, it allows the snares to be pulled "up and into" the bearing edge, creating the proper contact with the bottom resonant head. The result is as you found: Round, warm, crisp. Fact is, Slingerland blew this one... and many more that I have seen over the years too. Regardless, you made the adjustments, and got the drum playing/sounding the way it was intended!

I do have a 1968 Slingerland 51/2X14 Buddy Rich Artist snare drum in WMP, and it DOES have snare beds cut in. Perhaps this drum was built on a Wednesday!! :-)

Tommyp

Thanks TommyP. While it would have been nice to have had the confirmation early on...I did learn more by working through this one. I'm a teacher, so naturally I would think this. I would LOVE to have one of those Buddy snares. sweeeeet drums.

Hey,

I recut (or CUT, 'cause they never did it) the snare bed on my 71 Slingy Artist (Mahogany finish). It seems to have done the trick. I've never cut a snare bed before. I was nervous but just went for it. I've touched a lot of beds in my time (I can't believe I actually said that...sorry). I went with what I felt was the right thing. I made a quick video for my YouTube site to check the new tensioning/new heads on my Slingerland kit and also to check out the work on the snare. Let me know what you think of the snare sound. I really don't care about the "drummer" comments. That's not what this is about. But, I really do want to know what you think of the sound of the snare. Do you feel I did the snare justice? That's the key. I like the sound and response of the drum. It really woke it up. I may be a bit too close to this one, though. It's really driven me crazy up until the moment I finally broke down and cut on it.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csyy7x2eZvA&feature=channel_page[/ame]

Thanks guys.