A solution for Premier 632 strainers and similar ones

A solution for Premier 632 strainers and similar ones.

I bet that many of you, like me, own Premier snare drums featuring the classic #632 snare strainer.

Other brands feature this kind of holed plate too (like Ludwig), and I can see why you may end up hating this piece of gear, as attaching modern snares to it can be a pain in the you know where… Why this design? Because these strainers were built with gut snares (or wire-wound silk) in mind.

Although some of us still use gut snares on certain drums, that is not the norm today, so drummers using conventional wires with these strainers may end up getting to not very elegant solutions like that below:

To solve this issue, I came up with a very easy, inexpensive, handy and practical idea. Go and get an electrical connection strip (in whatever colour you like. I chose black because I find it more elegant). They are dirty cheap.

Cut two individual pieces and get rid of all the shavings (just for aesthetics. It is nice to do things well 😉).

Pass the cord from behind trough a hole in the plate. I have used leather cord with a circular section, very rigid and strong. Try to make it run parallel to the snares in order to avoid torsion, thus buzz (no pun intended). The holes you passed the cord through may not be at the same height. That is ok as long as the tension in both ends is the same. Now pass the two electrical pieces that we cut before and use a scredriver to thighten them.

This is the final result:

A very effective, secure and elegant solution to attach modern snares to old school strainers. Show me your Premier drums and how you solved this problem!

…et in Arcadia ego.