How are you routing/processing your snare?

[Gelatin]

In my opinion, the worst pieces of advice going round this forum are cutting out spill on tom tracks and brutally hi-passing overheads insanely high. I'm boosting loads of bottom in my OHs and automating my tom tracks - that's my tip for a good snare sound.

I agree with the OH's but I think that the tom tracks are a matter of taste really, depending on if you're going for a dry sterile type sound or a open roomy type of drum recording.

On topic - I usually record top/bottom snare but sometimes I end up throwing the bottom one and going the sample way instead, but that's mainly because I never get good results with the crap mics I have... lol.

 

[dale_a_smith]

Once I started doing bottom too, I'll never go back.

Sorry..

 

[AEL89]

I agree with the OH's but I think that the tom tracks are a matter of taste really, depending on if you're going for a dry sterile type sound or a open roomy type of drum recording.

On topic - I usually record top/bottom snare but sometimes I end up throwing the bottom one and going the sample way instead, but that's mainly because I never get good results with the crap mics I have... lol.

Automating your tom tracks won't make your drums sound more open or roomy. It just sounds more real. Listen to the snare bleed in your tom tracks - it can sound great so I'll leave a little bit of it in. I try not to get too caught up on isolating each mic to its source if its not having a seriously negative overall effect. If you have more hats than snare in your snare mic then you just have to adjust the placement.

I always use tape saturation over clipping too.