How to: Make your snare cut through the mix

[John_C]

There are so many threads here about this and it comes up time and time again, so i thought maybe a thread dedicated not to musings and maybes and in theory and the like, but instead to methods that people have tried and tested. Feel free to post your methods, but lets try and keep this instructive as opposed to speculative

Here's my shot:

1. Find a decent multiband compressor plugin

2. Split any offending STEREO tracks that are masking your snare into seperate left and right tracks, but each in its own STEREO mixer channel, panned hard left and right respectively (skip if your multiband has more than just stereo inputs). Leave mono tracks how they are, but make sure they are in stereo mixer channels (remember many plugs take a mono source and make it into stereo, e.g. some reverbs.)

2. Make sends from your snare track (a trigger track if you're using one) to all the offending tracks panned the OPPOSITE to the instrument on that track, and at high volume, probably plenty into the red

3. Add an instance of your multiband compressor to each offending channel

4. Narrow down the frequencies of the snare that you want to poke through the mix more. Set the multiband on one of the offending tracks to compress those frequencies only. (you may have to use multiple instances of the multiband if you're dealing with many different frequencies). Shortest possible attack times, short release times.

5. Save the multiband setting(s) and then open them in each of the seperate offending tracks

6. Pan each offending track hard AWAY from the snare signal

7. Listen to the results and adjust the multiband settings to taste

It's a lot of words but i hope it made sense. I'm still learning how to use this technique, but it's giving me some good results so far. Beware if the track has a very busy snare it can produce a very odd effect on guitars if used too much

 

[Torniojaws]

Or...

1. Add GClip to the end of the snare chain
2. Enjoy

Seriously...

 

[Machinated]

+1

well at least in the sense that the first method seems FAR too much effort - it shouldn't take that much to get it working.

 

[006]

True, but I like the idea he presented of using a MBC on tracks with snare bleed in them. I may try that on the overheads next project. In essence, it seems like it would duck the OH track's snare bleed.

~006

 

[Jaymz]

And try adding another sample on top, namely a clear cracky snare with a fair amount of top and minimal bottom, mix into taste and uber crack and cut!

 

[Metaltastic]

True, but I like the idea he presented of using a MBC on tracks with snare bleed in them. I may try that on the overheads next project. In essence, it seems like it would duck the OH track's snare bleed.

~006

The thing is, though, I don't think he was advocating just the tracks with bleed, but rather ANYTHING that was masking the snare - makes some sense Skeksis, but I would much rather sidechain it to only compress when the snare hit, rather than all the time (as I think you're suggesting). Cool idea though dude!

 

[John_C]

The thing is, though, I don't think he was advocating just the tracks with bleed, but rather ANYTHING that was masking the snare - makes some sense Skeksis, but I would much rather sidechain it to only compress when the snare hit, rather than all the time (as I think you're suggesting). Cool idea though dude!

Yeah this isn't just for bleed. It's a method of making plugins which dont have any sidechaining ability work as if they did. This setup will compress certain frequencies in other tracks when there is an "event" in a track e.g. a snare hit.

 

[John_C]

Or...

1. Add GClip to the end of the snare chain
2. Enjoy

Seriously...

i'm well aware of using gclip, i almost always do on my snares. This is just another method.

I guess i shouldn't have billed this thread as a snare popping out thing

 

[006]

Still, seems like it could work on overheads with a lot of snare bleed...well...maybe best on overheads without a lot of snare bleed, but enough to irritate me.

 

[John_C]

yup, i'm just trying it out in a mix right now and it works a treat, if you're careful, it doesn't affect the cymbals too much.......thing is this track has a lot of snare and HH together so it's murdering the hats a bit atm.