Drummer Cafe Community Forum

whats the deal with snare beds?  

for a while my main snare was an acrolite.  when i started building snares from toms, i used it as a referance.  it has no snare beds.   so my new drums had no snare beds.  i knew what they were and had an idea to thier purpose, but figured, if the ludwig didnt have it, it wasnt entirely necessary.  

fast forward a little while.  im planning on building a couple new drums.  and had recently read ron dunnetts site.  on said site he espouses the necessity for a snare bed.  for the love of pete and all that is holy, you need a snare bed.  so on this first of two new drums i cut the bottom bearing edge.  and gave it a wee snare bed.  not much, just a tad shallow and flat.  

so im playing this drum today and its bugging me.  because of the snare bed i need to turn up the tension on the strainer to get the snares how i like when they are on.  unfortunately, this means when they are off, they arent as off as id like them (they still rattle) so now im regretting the snare bed and planning on trimming off the bearing edge and cutting a new one to get rid of the bed (im glad it was shallow).    im also thinking of installing two strainers instead of a strainer and butt.  but thats another story :)

so ... whats the deal with snare beds?

That is one fine idea.  I wonder why I didn't think of it?  FWIW I have one snare with beds and I have the same problem, you cant throw the snare off completely.

I've never understood the need for snare beds, particularly in the age of the plastic head. Calf heads - once you seat them - are supposed to conform to the irregularities of a drum shell, but plastic heads negate that need as far as I can tell.

Some VERY respected drum builders swear by snare beds, but they've never explained it in a way *I* could understand. To me it seems like it makes it far more difficult to tune the snare head, and increases the chance of breakage.

ronns explanation is basically that it allows the snare wires more vertical tension.  you can bring the snares up into the bottom head more.  youd have to read his site to get the word, it actually made sense.  and far be from me to argue with dunnett :)    

come on now, any one want to justify 'em for me here? or do i bust out the table saw once more :)