Snare Drums and My Wallet

A little duct tape keeps my wallet on the snare head.  

I don't usually carry a lot of money in my wallet, but in my line of work it doesn't really matter. I'm a recording engineer and producer, and my wallet is one of my tools to make a good snare drum sound great.

Drums have a natural ring to them. When you're recording drums, one of the challenges is to deaden the sound of the drum without killing it completely. You want some resonance, but not too much.

I grew up listening to Steely Dan, and one day I was reading about how they got such a great drum sound. The drummer was Bernard Purdie, and he said that he used to put his wallet on the top of the snare drum to deaden the sound a bit.

I tried it and it was amazing. Just the right amount of damping to fix almost any drum ring. I just have to remember to get my wallet back before the drummer packs up :-)