How much 'ping/ring' do you like in your snare track?

Mattayus

Mattayus

Sir Groove-A-Lot
Jan 31, 2010
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Cambs, UK
www.numbskullaudio.com
I'm a guitarist, but nothing about drums makes me harder than a super high-tuned pingy snare. Getting that huge, untamed *CRACK* that resonates the whole shell sounds fucking beautiful. I can't stand snares with an o-ring on.

However, on faster music I find that the accumulative effect of this ping/ringing can be a bit overbearing, especially in combination with both the close mic and the overheads.

How do you like yours, and how do you go about dampening it marginally, and not completely? Moon gel? Strategically placed duct tape?
 
I usually record the snare with no dampening at all, just make sure that it's tuned right and it sounds good (with the ring and everything). If the ring is getting too prominent during the fast parts I just automate an EQ or sometimes even a multiband compressor to bring the ring down during those parts.
 
I'm actually dig ring, but as you mentioned on faster/ technical stuff not so much. But that ring make that hit feel like it's having some extra power in it, specially on groovier stuff.
 
Before I felt I kind of had to remove ALL the ring in the snare to get it to sound "clean". But lately I have been trying to simplify my mixing, and thus left some out that ring there, and it actually sounds really good in a mix. It feels more edgy, kind of. So, the right amount of ring can surely be desirable.
 
It depends on the mix and the snare and the type of ring. There's a certain type of ring, it's got a real...kinda "poooong" sound that I hate. But the ring that's got more high pitched ping to it, I love it.
 
Yeah, it does disappear under the mix quite a bit I guess.

I'm currently in a band that plays groovy hard rock, and our drummer's snare sounds fucking gnarly at practice when he takes the o-ring off, I was just concerned if it'd be an issue if we kept it that way for the EP.

This is the sort of snare sound I'm talking about. It's fucking lush



You can tell if he played anything thrashy that would probably build up and become too much though, but maybe an automated transient designer or enveloper would surely take care of it.
 
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You definitely need a little ring in there. I usually use thinner heads, like controlled sound or ambassador, and just put 1/2 or 1 moon gell on it. Enough to dampen a little without making it sound dead.
 
I can't say I'm much of a fan. All the snares I've been up close and personal with have sounded miles better with an o-ring.

The snare in the linked video, for instance, does nothing for me except grate on the nerves. I guess I like mine pretty damn dead.
 
I usually use a half moon gel and there's usually still a lot of ring left. If you've got the drum tuned right, you can notch out the ring with narrow band EQ without killing the vibe of the drum. Too much dampening and the drum sounds dead. Too little, and it's St. Anger.
 
Totally depends on the project but my usual procedure is to sample the snare with and without dampening, then track with a moongel on there. Under the close mics there will still usually be a fair bit of ring since I normally use a single-ply head, but I can blend the ringy sample in if need be. Sometimes a parallel track with an 1176 totally levelling the attack can work well to blend in more sustain.
Snare in the video sounds wicked, it's tuned very well though.. no substitute for that when you're leaving it as wide open though.
 
It's really song-dependent.

I've found that the best thing to do is have some instrumental scratch tracks on hand, and do a pass of the drums without any dampening to see how the ring works with the rest of the music. If it's too much, then I put small amounts on moongel on the drums until everything sits well.
 
BLUElightCory said:
It's really song-dependent.

I've found that the best thing to do is have some instrumental scratch tracks on hand, and do a pass of the drums without any dampening to see how the ring works with the rest of the music. If it's too much, then I put small amounts on moongel on the drums until everything sits well.
Click to expand...

Yup. This is another reason why good prepro is KEY. I don't like to track drums to a single scratch guitar because 1. it sounds annoying as shit in mono and 2. decently-tracked rhythms are going to to influence the drum tuning/tracking/editing more than you think.
 
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