Tuning Snare Drum Guts

Video Transcript

"So now we are going to tune the individual guts. So what you are going to want to do is throw off the snare strainer and you are going to want to take a pencil that really doesn't have a taper that goes straight all the way across and you are going to bring it under the snare like this to the opposite side and you can put and tighten the snare strainer again. You are going to want to get some object. I'm going to use a guitar pick but you can really use a key or screwdriver or really anything to kind of pluck this like a guitar string. These guts are tuned fairly well but you can hear that they are a little bit different in pitch. So on this side here, there is a system of screws and you are going to want to take your Phillips screwdriver and you can hear when I am loosening it, how the pitch of the individual snare will go down. So you are going to want to get some kind of desired tension and then you can go. That one is a little bit higher so we are going to loosen that one a little bit. Those are close and we are going to go one more, this one is a little high. So really you are going to want to go all the way across. This can be a bit of a lengthy process especially if the guts have never been tuned but this will fix a lot of the minor tuning issues that you will have. You will start to wonder why there are little inconsistencies from drum to drum, you know why they sound different from each other even though the heads are somewhat matched and they've got the same heads and everything. It really sometimes comes down to these little guts and it really gets overlooked quite often. "