DIY Drum Restoration [MD: Modern Drummer]

Part 5: Snare Beds in Depth

Welcome to part five of our series on DIY drum restoration. This month I hope to demystify the final element of the shell design equation: snare beds. So much has been written about them, and, unfortunately, a good percentage of it is hyperbole. Snare beds are actually not quite as mysterious as you might think.

Snare Bed Basics

When you look at the resonant side of a snare drum, you'll see material missing from two opposing sections of the bearing edge, right under the strainer and butt plate. These cutouts may be barely discernible, or they may be fairly deep and prominent. The depressions form what's known as the snare beds. Oriented in the direction of the snare wires, the beds allow for a slight inward curvature to form across the surface of the head, which in turn allows the wires to lie snugly in place (hence the term bed). Without a snare bed, the wires would rattle, sometimes uncontrollably, yielding an indistinct tone.

The degree of contact between the wires and the drumhead is dependent on the depth of the snare beds. The requirements of snare beds differ depending on whether the drum is designed with standard or extended snare mechanisms, or possibly even cable or gut snares, which still enjoy limited use. Because snare beds also affect overall head tension (especially at the lugs closest to the cutouts), they can be manipulated to shape the overall tone and response of the drum.

Do You Really Need Snare Beds?

Snare beds are essential on drums that use wraparound gut, cable, or metal snares, and for standard snappy wire mechanisms. On these types of drums, the cables or straps-or the snares themselves-have to make a sharp turn over a corner of the bearing edge to create tension. Snare beds are used to compensate for the imperfect physics of these wraparound and snappy snare systems. In the case of wraparound snares, deeper snare beds are required in order to allow the snares to turn a gentler corner. If the snares were forced to turn a sharp corner, the center of the wires would belly out and not make intimate contact with the drumhead.

With standard snappy snares, the end plates tend to want to toggle upward in response to the cord, cable, or strap pulling on them, but this is not nearly as extreme as with wraparound snares. Drums outfitted with snappy snares require much shallower snare beds-only about 3/32'' deep.

Drums that feature extended snare systems, like the Rogers Dynasonic, which has pre-tensioned snares set within a frame, don't need snare beds, because their tension system is independent of drumhead contact. Just for insurance, drums with extended snare systems often have minute, nearly imperceptible snare beds that are a few thousandths of an inch deep.

Know Your Drums

An important thing to keep in mind is that snare wire units should be no wider than the width of the drum's snare beds, or else you'll experience snare tension and rattling issues. As a result of the resurgence of the classic John Bonham sound among drummers, there's been a recent trend toward the use of forty-two-strand snares. Bonham's omnipresent Ludwig 402 snare drum has very wide and shallow snare beds, which facilitates the use of such a wide snare unit. Be sure to check out the width of the snare beds on your drum before you buy a wide strainer, or else you could be disappointed by the results.

The size and depth of the snare beds greatly affect a drum's tonality. For instance, the classic punchy sound of an old Slingerland Radio King is partially due to deep snare beds, allowing for a greasier snare response and a tubbier overall tone. (The other defining factor in the Radio King sound is the drum's rounded bearing edges.) Conversely, the crisp snare response and sensitivity you get from Ludwig models is due mainly to the drums' employment of wide, shallow snare beds.

Because snare beds, particularly deep ones, lower the snare-side head tension in the area near the bed cuts, the beds have a big impact on the bottom head's resonance and the drum's snare response. A common issue with drums that have deep snare beds, like vintage models that were originally equipped with calfskin heads, is a wrinkled snare-side head. The wrinkle appears because polyester film doesn't like to conform to radical curves. Calfskin heads are much more malleable, which is why poorly shaped snare beds and bearing edges didn't affect drum tunability or response on older drums. A wrinkled head means reduced tension, which can inhibit a crisp snare response and yield a boxy sound. (Some players might actually want this sound.) Shallower snare beds guarantee a crisper snare response.

Warning: Using a hair dryer or heat gun to remove wrinkles from snare heads with deep beds is a surefire way to ruin a good head. The plastic used in drumheads is a thermofilm, which means it is formed by and reacts to heat. Drumhead collars are formed on special temperature-controlled presses that localize the heat. As a result, the molecular structure of the film changes and holds the curve. The process actually makes the drumhead harder and a bit more brittle. If you apply heat to a drumhead under tension, where the already thin film is being stretched even thinner, you're setting yourself up for sudden failure.

If you own a drum with deep snare beds that often cause wrinkles in the head, and you don't want to modify the beds, use a thinner 2 mil snare head, like Remo's snare-side Diplomat or Evans' Hazy 200. The thinner film will follow the radical contours of the edge much more easily, so you'll be able to remove any minor wrinkles by tensioning the rods on either side of the snare beds. Don't sweat it if the hoop appears to be a bit uneven. Though the hoop may not look correct, the tension across the snare bed will be optimized. Drums equipped with die-cast hoops might have a problem in this area, due to the stiffness of the hoop.

Making Modifications

I'm often asked whether an old drum with round bearing edges and deep snare beds, like a Radio King, can be coaxed into possessing better snare sensitivity and more cut by reshaping the edges and snare beds. Absolutely! By cutting a small roundover on the bearing edge (to reduce the high-frequency muting effect while still maintaining good head-to-shell contact) and trading deep, narrow snare beds for a wider, shallower profile (to maximize head tension near the wires), you can reshape the drum's response without affecting its primary tonality. The beauty is that modifications can be done in degrees, depending on the amount of sensitivity and presence you're looking to gain.

Most wood snare drums can be cajoled into producing "your sound" via edge and snare bed manipulation, unless the shell's natural properties are vastly different from the qualities you're after. For example, trying to coax a fatback sound from a piccolo-size drum just won't work. You can manipulate the edges and beds to make the drum sound darker, and head choice can play a major role in the overall sonic color, but the volume of air within the shell (i.e., shell depth) is the primary determining factor for how "fat" a drum can sound.

Smooth or Rough?

I'd like to finish this article with my stance on an age-old argument among DIY and professional drum builders: Should bearing edges be finished smooth and waxed, or should they be left natural so that they have a bit of grit to them?

First you must realize that plastic drumhead film is very slippery and almost nothing wants to stick to it. This is what makes the process of applying coatings to drumheads a science unto itself. So is there really any point to burnishing and waxing bearing edges? Well, there's one other question you need to answer: Do you want the drum to tune (and detune) easier, or do you want it to hold tension better?

If you would rather have hairtrigger tuning, then by all means fine-sand, finish, and wax your bearing edges. I want my drums to hold their tuning better, so my practice is to sand the edges down with 320-grit paper and then seal them against moisture with a wipe coat of shellac. This results in an edge that's smooth yet has a palpable texture. The increased surface area tends to grip the slippery drumhead film a bit, which I feel translates into more stable tuning.

J.R. Frondelli is the owner of Frondelli USA Drums, which specializes in repairing, reworking, and restoring vintage drums, as well as building new vintage-style drums. For more info, visit frondelli.com.