From: ddm@wpi.WPI.EDU (David D Marshall)
Newsgroups: alt.drumcorps
Subject: Re: Snare Technology
Date: 12 Nov 1992 16:20:21 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu

In article <pm860605.10.721514608@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu> pm860605@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Peter J. McKinney) writes:
>
>	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.

Actually, I believe that if you use the overtone sequence, then there are a
number of options.

>	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.....

That is what the Falam tried to do, I believe.  However, the material must
be very strong to withstand the high tensions that are being applied to
the head (esp. with the free-float design).  I don't see how there could be
a compromise between thickness and strength because if the strength increases,
then the thickness must increase, or you have to use a different material.

>	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?

When you raise the pitch of the head, you are increasing the tension in the
head.  This increased tension creates more resistance for a wave to overcome.
This means that the head will not resonate as long and therefore it will
reduce the number of vibrations.

>
>- Pete

--David
-- 
 Spirit '88      |"So get off your butt and ride."      |     _,-~o     |
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