From: pm860605@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Peter J. McKinney)
Newsgroups: alt.drumcorps
Subject: Re: Snare Technology
Date: 11 Nov 92 20:43:28 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University

In article <1992Nov11.153121.27109@bnr.ca> rbeckham@bnr.ca (Rick Beckham) writes:
>From: rbeckham@bnr.ca (Rick Beckham)
>Subject: Re: Snare Technology
>Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 15:31:21 GMT
>In article <1dp059INNf0p@bigboote.WPI.EDU> ddm@wpi.WPI.EDU (David D Marshall) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov10.154849.13203@bnr.ca> rbeckham@bnr.ca (Rick Beckham) writes:
>>>
>>>  All this talk about the falams and whether they project/don't project as
>>>well as silver-dots deserves some further reflection. Examining this
>>>discussion from aspects such as '..air being displaced' seems to me a bit
>>>on the long-road. Why not drag out the physics books and look up which
>>>sound has a longer duration? If memory serves, the lower pitch has a
>>>shorter duration (correct me if I'm wrong), therefore it will travel the	shortest distance.
>>>
>>>  As for the falams I find that mistakes are easily masked (such as flat
>>>flams) because of the high-pitched shorter duration sound. I've witnessed
>>>quite a few lines (high school, college, drum corp) that in my opinion
>>>received higher scores than they should've because of the falams.	
>>>
>>I have to disagree with this last point.  On the contrary, there is less
>>post attack resonation from a Falam head because of the higher tensions
>>in the surface of the head.  It is tougher for the head to propagate waves
>>(displace air) when a large force is required to establish the amplitude of
>>the wave.  Therefore, the initial attack will be heard (qualitatively at
>>a near equivalent volume as plastic), but there will be less residual
>>resonation (grass) to cover up the dirt.  
>
>  Good point.
>  I agree that there will be less residual resonation, but I think dirt
>  is easier to cover because more than one player is involved.
>  A single snare drummer's flat flams are very noticeable (tick), and     
>  flat flams coming from a strong player in a line are also noticeable.
>  But generally mistakes like flat flams tend to be dropped more by weak
>  players, hence can be covered by the other players. With a deeper
>  pitch, this same player will project more, his/her mistake will
>  resonant longer.    
>
>>There is probably the phenomena of echoing occuring more frequently with 
>>the Falams since they are rich in upper frequencies, and those frequencies
>>aren't absorbed as well by objects.  That would explain how a lot of lines
>>sound trashy on tapes.
>
>  Stadiums are pretty big. If the sound doesn't travel far it may not have
>  to be absorbed.
>
>  This also reminds me of a trick the Bridgemen used to pull, whereas
>  they tuned the bottom heads a full octave lower than the top. IMHO
>  this is only one step higher than stuffing the drum.

	Tuning the bottom head a full octave lower then the top head would 
seem to me to be a *good* thing to do.  Most top heads are exteremely tight 
and must be made of material strong (thick) enough to take the pounding of 
the sticks.  Bottom heads are geneally thin since they are not played 
upon directly and must rely on air motion in the drum in order to vibrate.  
Obviously, tuning the bottom head to the same pitch as the top head would 
produce the loudest sound (the natural frequency of the bottom head, which 
has the snares, is identical to that of the top head).  It may not always be 
possible to tune the thin lower head to the same tension as the top head 
without breaking it.  If this is true, it seems that the next best thing 
would be to tune it so that the top head vibrates at some *multple* of the 
bottom head frequency - thus, one octave lower would be the first logical 
choice.
	More along the lines of the thread of general sound quality and type 
of top head....	it seems to me that there must be an optimum head thickness 
for a snare drum.  Brad mentioned earlier that displacing a head further 
makes a louder sound.  Too loose a head won't vibrate and too tight a head 
will be too difficult for a player to displace.  The latter may be a 
problem with falam heads when tuned improperly.  It must be possibe to
"engineer" a drum head so that it matches the strength of the average snare 
drum stroke.  In other words, design it so that it's just strong enough to 
tune up to the desired pitch (and thus produce the nice short sounds we're 
after) and yet thin enough to be moved by the drumstick without breaking a 
wrist.  This scenario would create an "ideal" pitch for a particlar head 
material/drum diameter.  To get a higher pitch you would need a smaller 
drum.  Bottom heads are obviously below this threshhold and falams are 
perhaps a bit beyond it.....
	On another topic... whatever happend to the idea of snares on both 
the top and bottom heads of a drum?  I swear I saw something like that a 
while back... seems like it's not a bad idea to me....
	Also - one thing that we have failed to address is the legth of time 
that drum heads vibrate.  I'm not an acuostics expert, but the pitch of a 
note (high pitch = short wavelength) is probably not related to 
the number of vibrations the drum makes before the sound is completely 
damped out.  Does tuning "up" only shorten the wavelengths to shorten the 
sound or does it reduce the number of vibrations too?
	Sorry about the rambling  - I figured I'd give the folks following 
this tread a bit more to chew on....:-

- Pete
____________________________________________________________________________
| Peter J. McKinney                     pm860605@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu |
| Electrohydrodynamic Laboratory                                           |
| Fluid Mechanics and Wind Engineering Program                             |
| Civil Engineering Department                                             |
| Colorado State University                                                |
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