how to fix this snare sound?

[forsaker]

Hello. I'm mixing a band that recorded everything at once but in different rooms. Unfortunatelly, the drums were recorded in a very small room and the snare sounds awful. The guys want it to be 100% natural and I don't know how to fix it. This the result of my work: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106229499/nz/2004_2.mp3
And the unprocessed snare: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106229499/nz/snare.mp3

Has anyone an idea how to fix it? Thx in advance.

 

[cartoonhead]

My attempt: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/99626696/ultimatemetall/snare_processed.mp3

Gate with quick hold and release, hard eq (see screenshot), hard compression (I use blockfish in complex mode), transient shaper and then clipper.

 

[UncleBob]

If you didn't mention that was a snare drum, I would've just thought it was some afro/cuban percussion drum.

You're best bet would be to sample augment it even though the band said they didn't want that, if they can't tell in the end then it's no harm done.........you need to protect "musicians" from themselves as much as possible

 

[Chris Lucas]

Did the drummer have the snares off? If so, is that the sound they wanted? Because if they want a regular snare sound that recorded snare is never going to be one.

 

[forsaker]

yep, in this song, the drummer had the snares off in most parts. still, they are aiming to get the sound of the snare similiar to what the guys from Tool have on their albums, for example, here: and it seems to me to be really hard to achieve it having this ringing raw sound. Thanks for your help, I will try the idea presented by cartoonhead.

 

[J.L.BeelerMusic]

If the band is wanting it to be 100% natural then processing the snare to hell and back might not be a good idea. Strongly gating the snare might have bad results since it was recorded in a small room, it might not sound "organic". All it needs really is a little bit more of a crack. So personally, I believe that it could use a strongly high-passed snare sample that's blended in just enough to give the snare a little bit more bite. Hopefully that would end up sounding natural and your clients would still be happy.

You might have to remind them that you can't make gold out of dirt (not that the recordings are dirt).

 

[Axell Strad]

For my taste drums sound good except that the cymbals are too mono. But the guitar is really strange
and scooped. Maybe problem should be sought in this?

 

[forsaker]

For my taste drums sound good except that the cymbals are too mono. But the guitar is really strange
and scooped. Maybe problem should be sought in this?

I needed to create fake stereo on guitars since it was recorded only once. . That's the source of the problem, I believe. Sometimes the guitar is in the center intentionally So far I've delayed the copy of the guitar track a bit, modified one track slightly in terms of equing, used a stereo widener (110%) and boosted the highend for both a little (after deesing) to make them more present. I don't know any other tricks that I can use. Besides, I've applied usual hp/lp filters and saturated guitars a bit. As to the cymbals, well, maybe they sound in this way because of the size of the room. Nevertheless, I'll try to work on it. Thanks for your opinion! I'll try the trick with blending a strongly high-passed snare sample tommorow, thx!

 

[TRUIE]

For the guitar issue, you can also try this (ADT) :
http://www.vacuumsound.de/plugins.html

Best VST for that task IMHO, when you really can't make the guys record a second take.