Distorting the Snare?

[demirichris]

I have read on multiple occasions about folks using distortions on their snare tracks to bring things out a bit. For those of you who do this, what plugins/hardware are you using?

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

I've doen it in paralell on super dirty stuff. I either over-use a saturator or sometimes sansamp.

 

[derfbonker]

i used to run snare tracks thru my POD, tweak till it sounded huge, like a shot-gun blast or something, and then barely mix it back in.

 

[John_C]

well some people use gclip on the snare to bring out the high end and get away with a lot more volume without freaking out the master bus comp. It can sound great for a very big fake metal snare

 

[chrisjmp]

I love doing this in theory, but I usually have trouble getting it to work in the mix. It adds some cool aggression, but for me it always seems to kind of smear the attack in a weird way and can make the low mids out of control. I usually use the sans amp plug in when I try to do this because it supposedly has no latency.
I pretty much always use saturation on snare, Tapehead or URS or sometimes both.

 

[AllanD]

I do it with Gclip, but I hate the sound. I need it though, to get it audible in my crushed mixes.

 

[mva801]

I love doing this in theory, but I usually have trouble getting it to work in the mix. It adds some cool aggression, but for me it always seems to kind of smear the attack in a weird way and can make the low mids out of control. I usually use the sans amp plug in when I try to do this because it supposedly has no latency.
I pretty much always use saturation on snare, Tapehead or URS or sometimes both.

I use Massey Tape Head on snare all the time. Sometimes on toms and room mics as well, if I want things really dirty!

 

[chrisjmp]

I use Massey Tape Head on snare all the time. Sometimes on toms and room mics as well, if I want things really dirty!

Yeah I love tapehead on drums and sometimes bass and vocals as well, I just have trouble mixing in full blown distortion on parallel tracks , the bad always seems to outweigh the good in my case. Bass is the exception

 

[Morgan C]

Would like some more info on this too. I generally just overdo the saturation, but it makes it really weak and blurry.

If you use a transient designer first, and then distort, then you can get a load of attack that doesn't stick out much. Then blend this in slightly.. but its very hard to get it right.

 

[Erkan]

I do it with Gclip, but I hate the sound. I need it though, to get it audible in my crushed mixes.

Ouch, this doesn't sound good

 

[AllanD]

Ouch, this doesn't sound good

Lol, I was joking about the super crushing. The reason I hate the sound though, is because it gives the snare such a nasty attack that's pretty hard for me to filter out without sounding real fake. I like to use snare 5 (I think? The really big fat deep red one), and when I throw Gclip on it, all the low end fatness disapears, and it sounds like a disgusting thin snare. But atleast you can hear it in the mix I guess :erm:

 

[Ermz]

I've never really done this. If I feel like I'm losing the snare too much I'll use compression > EQ > gclip > transient designing (roughly in that order). In fact I've never really got into saturating drums too much aside from crushing them in parallel and such things for songs where it works. The most I've done is super distorted/effected drums as a song effect more than something subtle.

Actually come to think of it, I kept those super effected drums underneath the main drum sound in parallel and it added some fairly cool grit. You can hear it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/285689/Music/Memnoir-Soundtrack For A Nightmare.mp3

Those effected drums at the start are an actual real kit, not samples, and that sound gets maintained throughout the track, even though in the heavy sections you can't hear it. It's automated up and down. I guess that's the closest I've come to distorting drums.

 

[MortenDK]

I use sans amp on an aux track so I have a way blending the effect with the untreated track.
I dont use it on everthing!, actually come to think of it I never used in Heavy metal!. I do use it pop/rock and folk!.. but yea it can a really cool effect!.
Chad Blake is using it on everything he does on drums tho!, so check out some of hes productions! hes one of my favorite engineers of all time

 

[demirichris]

Ermz:
A while ago I read a post where you mentioned folks using slow attack and quick release compression settings on hi-fi samples (slate and such) creating a mix that is a series of loud pops between the rest of the dense mix - killing the body of the drums.

How do you go about bringing body into your drum tracks but still keeping the attack, not trying to totally bite your techniques but it seems like you have a strong grasp on the concept.

Mind speaking a bit on this? Drums, especially the snare, are hard as fuck and seem to be something very very few folks get right.

 

[greyskull]

i use mcdsp analog channel on drums.
Compresses/saturates/clips them in an awesome way which helps them sit in a mix better and not eat all the headroom

 

[BLUElightCory]

Sansamp (the Digi plug) in parallel for me.

 

[AerialThesis]

THC (Total Harmonic Distortion), on it or in paralel (watch for phase plz )