Hi guys, i'll just quickly introduce myself, my name is John, i picked up a Cajon last week as my first percussion instrument, i'm a guitarist and wanted something to lay down basic drum tracks for demo stuff when recording. I love the sound they produce and i really liked the lessons you guys posted on youtube, thanks for that.

Being a bit of a noob i went into my local music shop and picked up a Meinl Headliner, overall i'm fairly happy with it but the snare seems to have a detuned guitar string type sound/rattle thats bugging me, i've tried tuning up and down but it's still there, just producing a different note, is this a problem a feature of the drum, a fault of just poor technique? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, also advice setting up would be great, many thanks!

You may want to try putting a piece (or a couple of pieces) of masking tape over the strings on the inside of the cajon. This is a really low risk aproach that you can try just to see if this remedies your rattle problem while still providing that nice snare snap. If that doens't do it you can always carefully remove the tape and not lost anything. Just a thought. Good luck.