Composer of Requiems
New member
My idea was to try to emulate the feel of orchestral philharmonic snare wires.
This is quite a rough rushed job, since I just got home from picking up used guitarstrings from a friend, and I'm going back to camp for NS soon, but......
Basically, I loaded in the end with the ball first and clamped it tight. After that, I stretched it over the snare. It's lucky that I've had experience with instruments with too many damn strings, since these buggers tangle up easily. Slotted them into the other end and tightened the clamp on the other end, then clipped off the stray ends with a pair of pliers.
First up, I've to say that I really did a very messy job of it. Now I know why manufacturers weld wires onto metal end-plates, although I'm pretty sure I've seen Pearl orchestral snares with wires loaded in directly.
My wires are of different gauge, and handling all of them is really messy. I think that's really all there is to say about it.
Also, I think I shouldn't have clipped the end so short, because I tried to make an adjustment after that and I had problems stretching it tight.
Now, we come to the sound!
First of all, this chokes really easily. It has to go on mid-low tensions, unlike normal snare wires.
These indeed do sound quite a lot like orchestral snare wires. The tone is really different. It's hard to describe, but if I had to, I would say that the snare hit itself is drier.
However, probably because there are only five strands here, and also because my steel snare is also quite ringy in itself, I get this really nice ringing tone out of it. I can hear a lot of the snare's voice, with a nice little bit of snare-wire attack.
I'll try to record this.... sometime. Not now, since I've got to go off soon.
Hope more people can play around and see what else can be done! Maybe large rubber-bands or some other rubbery/plasticky material for other types of gut-snare sound.
This is quite a rough rushed job, since I just got home from picking up used guitarstrings from a friend, and I'm going back to camp for NS soon, but......
Basically, I loaded in the end with the ball first and clamped it tight. After that, I stretched it over the snare. It's lucky that I've had experience with instruments with too many damn strings, since these buggers tangle up easily. Slotted them into the other end and tightened the clamp on the other end, then clipped off the stray ends with a pair of pliers.
First up, I've to say that I really did a very messy job of it. Now I know why manufacturers weld wires onto metal end-plates, although I'm pretty sure I've seen Pearl orchestral snares with wires loaded in directly.
My wires are of different gauge, and handling all of them is really messy. I think that's really all there is to say about it.
Also, I think I shouldn't have clipped the end so short, because I tried to make an adjustment after that and I had problems stretching it tight.
Now, we come to the sound!
First of all, this chokes really easily. It has to go on mid-low tensions, unlike normal snare wires.
These indeed do sound quite a lot like orchestral snare wires. The tone is really different. It's hard to describe, but if I had to, I would say that the snare hit itself is drier.
However, probably because there are only five strands here, and also because my steel snare is also quite ringy in itself, I get this really nice ringing tone out of it. I can hear a lot of the snare's voice, with a nice little bit of snare-wire attack.
I'll try to record this.... sometime. Not now, since I've got to go off soon.
Hope more people can play around and see what else can be done! Maybe large rubber-bands or some other rubbery/plasticky material for other types of gut-snare sound.
