I bought a Mapex Meridian kit a few years back, with a 24″ bass drum (woah!), for gigs where I needed kick to cut through even if un-amplified. I’ve hardly ever gigged it, truth be told. In part because the snare had no snare beds, and sounded terrible as a result. It had a kind of sandpapery asthmatic wheeze on every hit; no real definition.
Marking out and filing down the snare beds.Anyway, I’ve been meaning to cut snare beds myself, or find someone to do it for me. In the end, as usual, I watched a load of YouTube vids, and did nothing. Until now, that is. I finally sorted it out, and it was a piece of cake. And it’s totally sorted the snare out.
Pics show the stages, from masking the shell and drawing where the beds go, to filing them down (by hand), and then examining them on a flat slab (marble) with a light inside the drum.
Checking the beds on a marble slab, with a light.Must admit, I’m dead chuffed…
PS – Anyone else ever bought off the shelf drums that don’t have snare beds but really ought to? I actually got this kit second hand. It seems the previous owner never noticed or was bothered by the issue (they said they’d had and regularly played it for a couple of years!).