I tumbled upon this when looking for tuning info on Lite snares, but unless you want to read oodles of Germanic nonsense about how drum shells should not move, skip to the quote from the article below... . It just so happened that in this article from Modern Drummer, 1985, a Lite snare was being tuned at the factory when the author was there: the rest follows.
I was intrigued and checked my Lite's tuning against a tuner, and my tuning is the same as factory spec. I would say it corresponds to a rock tuning more than a snappy jazz tuning. In this mode, the edges have lots of ring but the center is a full but dry pop. The more I work with recording the Lite snare, the more I like it.
http://www.sonormuseum.com/articles/MD% ... 985MD.htmlQuote:
We know, from the research that has been done, what the ideal tuning is for our different models of drums, so we tune them before they are sent out...He turns the drum so that each tension bolt, in turn, is under the microphone. Rolf pointed out that, if you want this sort of accurate tuning, this is a very time-effective way of doing it; it takes three or four minutes only, as opposed to half an hour or more if it were being done by ear. As a matter of interest, the drum I saw being tuned was a Sonorlite 71/4 x 14 wooden snare drum. The batter head was tuned to Db and the snare head to Gb.
Eccentric, perhaps. Most drummers just fiddle around with their drums until they get a sound they like, but the scientific research conducted by the people at Sonor has led them to consider the "perfect" sound for their drums-and they don't want anything short of perfection to leave their factory.