As a live drummer, I’m usually faced with the difficult decision of ‘how I want to sound’ versus ‘the amount of gear to bring’. It’s nice to express yourself with multiple instruments at your disposal but sometimes you’re limited by stage size or what you can physically carry.
Here’s a quick and easy way to get different colors out of the one snare drum you bring to the gig.
1. Get a worn snare batter head and cut away the metal ring. Doesn’t have to be neat.
2. Place it on top of your snare drum head to get that 70’s funk bumpin’ sound. It is surprisingly versatile and works for a lot of genres of music.
3. Instead of a snare head, throw a 12” cymbal on your snare to get that gated electronic snare sound. Works best when laying the butt end of the stick firmly against the cymbal with little rebound.
– Derek Wayne