In Summary

As sounds go, apart from the voice, the snare drum is one of those things that can help tell you whether you’re listening to Sinatra or James Brown. Its recorded presence has changed enormously through different eras. Here we take a look at the sounds behind the music.

Going Deeper

Eras, Genres, Sounds

It could be said that the thing listeners relate to the most is the song’s lyric or topline. Next up is humanity’s second oldest instrument: the drum. One of the most definitive kit pieces to tell you whether you’re listening to swing, soul, funk, rock, or rap is the snare drum.

It could be said that there are three main factors in how a snare drum sounds on record: the musical input from the drummer is of course the biggest factor, followed by the tuning with the drum itself, and the recording techniques applied, in that order.

There’s no doubt that individuals’ musical or technical traditions will go a long way to shape what lands on record. Historically this meant that earlier recorded music’s sound was defined by the three factors above as well as restricted choices around instruments and gear. As time progresses, no longer are these dividing lines a thing.

It’s true to say that no one style can lay claim to any one sound. In this article, we’ve decided to group our sounds by era, because covering every genre could take a while! Is there any such thing as the definitive phat and funky snare sound when it’s just as likely to be moonlighting on someone else’s folk record? The fusion of sound, style, and era allows engineers to mix things up in more ways than one.

Our list cannot be definitive, as there are so many exceptions to the norm, but nonetheless, here we run down some of the sounds that served as markers along the way throughout recorded snare drum history. We also speculate on how some of those sounds were immortalised.

The 1950’s Snare Sound

Following the explosion of recorded music in the previous decades, we kick off with some of the earliest recognisably ‘studio-flavoured’ snare sounds, taking in jazz, big band, rock-n-roll, and more. These sounds are ambient, and often far back in the mix reflecting the perspective of the capture.

Many musical traditions from the 1940’s such as Big Band had spilled over into the rock-n-roll era of the 1950’s. This included big drums with higher tunings, often with shallower wooden snares at their centre, often played by drummers from jazz and marching backgrounds.

Many engineers working at this time had been there right from the earliest days of commercial recorded music when studios established their own ways of working. This meant that distant mic placements away from the snare were the order of the day, with the extravagance of a mic on the kick as well depending on the studio. The mics up in the air would have included any choice from a number of classic large diaphragm valve condenser mics, or ribbon models that were still alive and kicking from previous decades.

The 1960’s Snare Sound

By the start of the next decade studio bands had evolved into smaller core sections of drums, bass, keys, and guitar (with add-on sections of horns and strings where needed). The drummers in these more closely-knit groups were producing snare sounds that were drier and more present thanks to both the popularity of spun aluminium drums that cut through the mix, with mics placed at least within arms’ reach. Rather than sitting at the back (both on the floor and in the mix), these sounds were edging their way forward, coaxed by producers who were making records to be danced to rather than ‘just’ listened to.

The middle and later years in this decade saw engineers dare to place mics closer up to the snare for more control. This introduced the all-conquering zoomed-in sound that many associate with the sound of recorded snare drums to this day. Our second example from the 1960’s is the epitome of earlier close mic snare sounds: dry yes, but still with a halo of atmosphere from a live band performance. This one made possible by tea towels presumably from a raid on the studios’ canteen laundry cupboard!

The 1970’s Snare Sound

It’s hard to say what made the seventies the Decade That Ambience Forgot, but we’re guessing that ever-expanding track counts and bigger production values lent themselves to controlled sounds to match. If the late 1960’s saw snare sounds starting to dry up, the 1970’s was the drought. As in all our eras listed here, the number of titles that personify a sound is huge, but the sound above is a pretty good flag-bearer for the early-to-mid 1970’s snare drum sound. With a medium tuning meeting a healthy dose of damping (joined by the mandatory single headed toms), the drum above is as painfully up-close and personal as the lyric.

As the decade wore on, disco put a new spin on the 1970s’ air-free snare ethos. This married the current recording trends with ever-lower tunings bringing the big, fat, splat of disco and dance snares to dancefloors the world over. Many drummers had to adapt their technique to make these snares even remotely playable, which wasn’t unlike asking a trampolinist to bounce on sand… Whatever the pain involved, the sound did record incredibly well, also informing sounds that made their way into punk, new wave, and beyond.

There were exceptions. At the same time as many rockers and funksters were revelling in dry snare drums, no snare drum sound run-down would be complete without an entry for the huge, often ambient drum sounds of 1970’s rock. Many would say that the person and sound who best sums this up is the inimitable touch and power of drummer John Bonham. As many producers have found, the sound above is the perfect illustration of how no amount of gear can get world-class sounds without world-class talent. His choice of snare is also the producers’ and drum libraries’ fave, the delicious hollow ‘tock’ of Ludwig’s 402 Supraphonic.

The 1980’s Snare Sound

The following decade was no less revolutionary for the centrepiece of all drum sounds. Many dry snare sounds from the earlier funk and disco eras still infiltrated monster selling records like the one above. This sound is powered by one of the most definitive lessons in when not to play, but this snare’s tight sound (thanks to medium high tuning and damping with a bit of mass behind it) also saw artificial reverb make a triumphant return for drum sounds in the eighties.

This period also saw the birth of the enormous ‘cannon shot’ snares, with both acoustic and electronic machine sounds locked in battle trying to out-emulate each other. It’s hard to say which came first, but sounds like the huge Linn Drum snare conveyed a deep snare, tuned down into the ‘wrinkle zone’ and well-damped for good measure. Whether real or electronic, the colossal eighties snare archetype such as the one above would be nothing without a healthy drenching from the then-new algorithmic reverb boxes of the era.

Machine sounds took an ever greater role later on in the decade where electronic dance styles came to the fore to fill the airwaves across the western world. Classic Rhythm Composer machines such as the 808 and 909 pumped out snares that could push their way to the front of any mix, with signature sounds underpinned by searing white noise and razor-sharp tom-like envelopes.

The 1990’s Snare Sound

After spending years being ignored by mainstream radio and music television playlists, many underground styles started to see the light of day in the 1990’s. The snare drums found on many hip hop records were born on vinyl twenty or thirty years earlier, with the use of sampled beats really taking off in this decade after starting towards the end of the 1980’s. As a result these snares where sometimes cranked up and tight in sound such as those from perennial sampled favourites from The Winstons, James Brown, and even Led Zeppelin.

Classic funk and soul records were often the source of choice for countless drum’n’bass and jungle styles tracks as well, usually from tracks with a suitably exposed hit or beat being lifted. The key difference here was the sampling tech’s sped up and pitched-up sounds that defined those genres.

Many alternative guitar bands from the 1990’s wielded snare drums that bucked studio trends from the 1970’s and 80’s such as the one below. These were cranked back up and unashamedly free to ring. Also on the menu was plenty of compression to pinch the front of sounds and elevate those unbridled overtones. This was also the beginning of the loudness wars that saw gritty, truncated mixes’ snare drums hit the top to create yet another facet to the sound.

The 1990’s also saw arguably the last of the truly big budget studio productions funded by label giants. These snare drums and their accompanying kits were clean, crisp, and often literally the last word in Hi-Fi glory for listeners of mainstream rock and pop played by session supremos in the latter days of gold discs and industry millionaires.

The 2000’s Snare Sound And Beyond…

Let’s face it, there are only so many ways a snare can be played, tuned, and recorded. Following eighty or so years of innovation in the preceding century, many sounds that have emerged in the third millennium are variations of everything that has been before. Now, familiar sounds from bygone eras continue to crop up to power new music. Drum libraries’ sounds are full of those that simply wouldn’t exist without what has gone before.

New sounds on record are frequently either full-on homages to classic sounds, or layered monster sounds that combine two or three layers. Using the boom and fizz of electronic sounds to supercharge acoustic sounds is a popular trick that can also add some stylistic spice to mixes.

This reflects the melding of musical styles as well, with the old clans of mods, rockers, rappers, prog-wizards, disco kids, techno heads, emo kids, hipsters, funksters, and all the rest in between a distant memory. The latest generation of music makers and music listeners take what they need from a rich seam of musical history in an age where convention is gone and everything gets reused.

What are your favourite snare drum sounds from the annals of recorded music? Let us know in the comments.