For me, taping a small slip of tissue paper between wires and snare head, tuning both skins slow (see below tips) and damping the snare head gave me that thuddy sound that I wanted.
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http://soft.com.sg/forum/gear-drums...-low-thud-sound-any-advice-tips-guidance.html
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tune lower have denser, damped batter heads that produce a good thud but the sound is more "open". There is no alternative but to experiment - have fun! (Also experiment with how tight you have your snare strainer - this is adjusted by the lever on the side of your snare drum.)
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A deeper snare might help with that. Depth makes a big difference to the amount of low-end the drum produces.
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Although a deeper snare may help with presence, I think you should still be able to get a "fat" snare sound with that snare and head choice, all things being equal. Tune the batter as low as it will go, just above wrinkling. Tune the reso to a medium tension. You aren't using drumsticks with tiny tips are you? A 5A drumstick or larger may help to get a fatter tone.
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You don't necessarily need a deeper snare to get that sound; even a 5" deep Acrolite will go as low as I'll everneed. Tune the batter head to a medium-loose tension and the resonant head a fourth above its pitch. Keep the snares loose enough so that they buzz at least as long as the batter head resonates. Apply some optional muffling on the batter head to get rid of excess overtones.
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A lot of that fat and wet sound is also mic and effects and so forth
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What you hear in recordings is EQ'd, compressed, and a lot of time blended with samples to that kind of sound, so shooting for that may be kind of unrealistic
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Some country guys would even throw a towel over the batter head in the studio to get that low thud.
I agree with this; your head selection should give you this sound. And, although a deeper snare would lend itself to that particular sound, I have heard deep snares which are tuned beyond piccolo range! Check your tuning before you get your wallet out.
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...but a low, fat thud which the thread starter is craving for isn't just a product of a handful of studio magic. It's first and foremost a tuning issue. I've heard countless live, unmiked snares that sounded fat and thuddy. Just tune the baby down low (not necessarily loose and floppy) and lay into those backbeats.
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Most of all thing said are true, but and there is a but, a 6 1/2" deep will alway have more bottom then a 5" deep. For once the shell itself will have a lowe pitch resonance, the air chamber is bigger, and you won't have to lossen your head to a unpleasant lower tunning.
Some people have the habit of tunning their snare so low to achived a fat sound that the instrument is almost unppleasant to play.
