At my High school I'm the only snare and I play a Yamaha field corps drum with a Falams II Head as the Batter and A Falams II side Head.
I am pretty happy with the sound of the heads I think they sound nice and I got my drum tuned to sound pretty nice too but I'm not getting the actual snare sound that I'm looking for. I've tightened the snares I've loosened the snares I've tried the bottom head loose I've tried it tight but I'm just not getting that nice buzz a marching snare is supposed to make so after messing with them for quite a while I decided maybe its just the snares.
We've had these drums for 4 years now and they don't get a lot of up-keep unfortunately due to money problems but would replacing the snares on the drum help with this sound I'm looking for?


Also if anyone can help with this issue. while trying to get Bass Drums in tune today I realized I'm not very good at tuning Bass drums we had Bass drum 1 and 4 both quit and Bass 2 pulled something in his knee so we only have Bass drums 2 and 3 and bass 3 is the only one marching ( I know our Bass Drum section is a mess). So Should I tune Bass 2 higher to mimic the parts of Basses 1 and 2 or keep it tuned how I would normally tune and should Bass 3 go lower? Really any Bass drum tuning tips would help I love my snare but I'm not a bass drum guy so I'm bit lost with those.

Well, there's a couple things I'm curious on:

First, is the snare an sFz/ MTS or is it a Field Corps? If it's Field Corps and NOT the sFz/MTS then I'd get rid of the Fiber pretty soon or risk imploding the drum, the mylar heads on the market (the Powerstroke 77 gets a good deal of praise on this forum) should suit you just fine until the director can get enough to purchase the free floater drums needed for fiber heads.

In terms of the sound, maybe you should have someone with a LITTLE more experience in percussion come out and actually see what sound you're getting from a distance (read:Tower/booth) and not up close (read: performer)? Also, have you moved the snare bed up and down from the head to gauge where the snares are touching when the snare is down on it's own?

As far as your bassline, first try and get those two back but if that's not possible, I would tune the drums to a good distance between the two but don't reef Bass 2 and drop Bass 3 which could cause you to lose whatever projection you may get from those drums, again a person who has more experience in drumming who can listen from a distance would help a lot.

it's not an sFz or MTS because sadly our direct doesn't know very much about drums and didn't get the good snares. after looking online I think it is a Yamaha MS-8014 Field Corps Snare Drum I'm not positive though under that drum it did say high tension so does that contribute at all and I know when we first ordered them you can order them stock with a blackmax head on it so I don't see why they would give you that option on a drum not met for those heads.
the chances of the heads changing or actually getting better drums is somewhere around 0.
I can't get the director to work with me on drums at all so I highly doubt we will see new equipment coming unless it is incredibly cheap.
We did have a percussion specialist who said he played for the cavaliers for 5 years come in through band camp he tuned our bass drums to sound much much better than they were but he didn't really mess with my snare too much I have it sounding probably a little better than he had it with the new heads that we have on it (the old ones were pretty bad though). He is the one that decided that we needed those heads so I assumed he knew what he was doing.
the drum I think sounds pretty good how I've got it tuned but every time a school with a bigger drum line starts playing with their sFzs or MTSs I crave that sound but sadly I don't think I Have the equipment to get that sound :'( if it was up to me I'd sell the snares we have (since we have way more than we will ever need anyway) and go out and buy the sFzs or MTS snares
I worked with the snare gauge for a good while today but after reading what you have to say it probably isn't the snares it sounds like we just have the wrong drum for the job.

and theres no way we will be getting our bass drummers back one of them never showed up for practice and didn't know his part and the other just wasn't into marching band. Thanks for the advice I think that will settle my indecision on what I want to do with them so I will have them tuned how I want them by our next contest hopefully I don't believe we had any judges say our drums sounded bad or anything in our last contest but I'd rather have them sounding perfect than good enough to get by we only have 4 people in our drumline now 2 basses a snare and quints (we started with 4 basses but 2 quit) but even if we are a small line or as I call us a line segment there's a lot of talent and I believe that our drummers should sound as good as we possibly can.

Fiber snare side heads like Falams or Evans MX5 have a "dry" characteristic sound, meaning they don't give a lot of snare response. In the context of a big/strong snare line, you can get plenty of snare response, though, and the dry tuning will provide extra clarity.

Mylar snare side heads like Remo Ambassadors or Evans MS3's (or my personal favorite Ludwig Xtra Thin C1114) have a more "wet" sound -- lots of snare response. They'll be somewhat lower in pitch than fiber heads, but the snap of the snares is more prominent in their overall sound.

If your drums aren't high tension free floaters like the SFZ or MTS, do not use fiber heads like Falams, Maxes, or Hybrids! Most drums built from traditional lug designs simply can't take the stress from high-tension heads. I can tell you from personal experience that Yamaha Field Corps snares like the MS-8014 will be damaged even by moderate tension on fiber heads. Over time, shells will warp and even possibly cave in. Lug casings and rims will crack and fail. In high school, the rim on my MS-8014 darn near exploded under tension from a Falam head. A piece of the rim actually shot off when it failed! Like Scott said, a Mylar batter like a Remo Powerstroke 77 is a good choice for a lugged drum. (HERE is a clip of the Glassmen playing on Powerstroke 77's to give you a taste of their sound.)

Anyway, getting back to your original question, no matter what kind of bottom head you use, there's more than just tension to tuning the guts:

• Individual Strand Tension: At the end of each strand, on the butt side of the snare mechanism, you'll see tuning screws. These allow you to adjust each strand so that they're at the same tension.
• Overall Snare Tension: On the throwoff end of the snare mechanism, you'll find the knob that controls the tension on the whole set of guts. Tighten it just enough to take the slack out of the snares. From there, the tighter you go, the drier the snare sound.
• Vertical Adjustments: These are the knobs on the top of the throwoff and butt. These adjustments are often WAY wrong when inexperienced tuners tweak their drums.
  
  When the vertical adjustments are set properly, the snare guts should be almost entirely straight from end to end. They obviously shouldn't be floating off the head, as that reduces their contact with the head and reduces your snare sound. But just as importantly, the snares should not be bent as they pass the bearing edge of the drum! Think of each gut as a semi-flexible see-saw, with the bearing edge as the fulcrum. As you crank the snare down past the bearing edge, what happens to the other side? It wants to lift up, off the head!

You shouldn't have to replace the snares unless they're damaged.

...and at four years old, the drums should be in fine mechanical shape unless they're getting abused. At the school I teach, I have old Yamaha MS-8014's from the mid-1980s that have been to **** and back and still sound fantastic with their original guts.



Only one guy marching a bass drum? Give him the bottom drum and have him play downbeats & accents. It's basically going old school, before the days of tonal bass drums.

DON'T play split parts between a marching bass and a stationary (injured) one. Give the injured guy something else to play. The distance between a drummer on the field and an injured one on the sideline will almost certainly cause phasing problems because of the time it takes sound to cover distance.

Let's say you've got one bass drummer on the front sideline and one on the back hash mark, which puts them about 100 feet apart. And we've got an audience member about 100 feet in front of the sideline. The drummer on the front sideline hits a note. The speed of sound is a bit over 1000 feet per second, so the drummer on the back hash and the audience member hear that note about a tenth of a second later. The on-field drummer plays his note in time with what he hears, but his note now has to travel 200 feet to the audience, which takes about two tenths of a second. Even though his note was played perfectly in time from his perspective, it's almost a quarter second late to the audience member, which is almost a full eighth note at q=120 bpm!!!

This is why good marching bands are taught to "listen back" and keep in time with the sound they hear behind them. That way, the timing of the sound will be correct from the audience's perspective. Don't listen to the pit!

thank you very much for the information about heads. I actually tried to convince our director to go with remo ambassadors but our percussion specialist wanted the falams II heads and also I think I may be able to get the sound I want now if I tighten each individual snare they feel kinda loose.

You asked about the sides of the head lifting up but they are not they are very very straight I know I sound rather clueless but I do know how to tune a drum and I'm pretty good at it but I'm usually tuning concert drums and I want all the information I can get about tuning the marching drums because I want us to sound great.

for the bass drums most of what you advised has already been done the only instruments in our pit are cymbals and the bass drum that was injured so we just have them at the back of the field so at the only part where the bass split part is very important the marching portion of the drumline lines up with the pit cart and therefore problem solved

thanks for all your help we will be having our second non-competitive contest this Saturday hopefully we will get our first gold of the year, Wish us luck

You don't sound clueless -- just inexperienced. You're asking some thoughtful questions.

I don't know how old your percussion specialist is, but would I be right if I guessed he's younger than his mid-30s? If so, he's probably always had drums that were capable of handling high tension fiber heads like Falams and may not be aware that older-style drums just can't handle 'em. Heck, Yamaha doesn't even claim their current drums can handle Falams snare side heads. Using a fiber snare side head voids the warranty even on a SFZ.



HERE is the full text of the warranty on Yamaha's site.

It may be a lost cause to suggest a head change to prevent damage to the drums, but it's really silly NOT to make the change since proper heads cost a LOT less than replacing the drum. Interstate Music's web site lists Ludwig LW6114 Silver Dot batter heads for $12.28. Remo Powerstroke 77's are better sounding (or at least easier to tune) and cost about $20. Mylar snare side heads are usually around $12.

well I informed the band director of the issue today and she says the heads won't be changed so if anything happens to the drum I guess that she will figure it out the hard way