Lets talk 100% natural snare -

guitarguru777

guitarguru777

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Nov 13, 2003
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Ok so in my quest for the 100% natural drum sound I have come across a small problem. My snare drum no matter what I do sounds really small. I have tried different drums, different heads, different tuning, but I still am having a hard time finding a nice crack with a nice resonance. With a piccolo and a really tight marching tuning I was able to get a killer CRACK on the top, and with a 14x6 Tama I was able to get a nice resonance but no crack. I would like to be able to achieve this using a single snare drum.

Currently my mic technique is 57 on top about 2 inches off the top of the head pointing at the center, another 57 pointed at the shell about 2 inches from the shell, and finally an i5 on the bottom of the snare about 2 inches away pointed at the center of the head.

I know alot of body comes from the overheads and thats where my studio is really lacking right now. Decent quality overheads. I hace CO2's, Sterling ST31s or AT2020s and more recently I have gone to the LDC AT2020s to try and get more body in the snare. This is working to a point.

In this I want to discuss everything up to the point of the mic hitting the pre, so lets discuss tuning, type of snare, size of snare, mics, and techniques used with those mics.
 
I'll just point out that getting a deep snare and hitting it like a motherfucker can yield some good results. pussy sound in, pussy sound out
 
Have your snare mics a little further back, otherwise you're only getting the initial transient or any of the hit and none of the body.

And like you said, a huge amount of the snare sound comes from the OH's and room mics
 
Phase has not been mentioned here yet I don't think. Have you used your DAW to look at the wav file to see if everything is in phase?
I find mesuring the height of my OH from the ground and again fom the snare helps to keep the snare in phase in the OH and then phase align the close mics (not time align)

Either get an experienced drummer to tune your kit, or get a tuning watch. It is amazing how much a small amount of tuning can help ALOT!
Have you ever seen a drummer being asked to tune the guitars? I don't think so...

Other than than the other thing that effects the tone of a snare drum is... the drummer!

No offence but if you are not a drummer and you are the one hitting your own test hits then it will make it very hard to judge. The difference between a guitarist hitting a snare and an experienced drummer is HUGE. No matter how hard you hit that drum it will never compare to a good drummers hit.
Find your self a good drummer that is willing to spend the day with you and continue your experiments from there.

Feel free to email me some files to have a look at m8, happy to help you anytime.
 
^what pikachu said.

When I mic up a snare, I often don't point the top mic directly at the center. A lot of times what I'll do is get the capsule about 1/2" over the rim of the snare and point it almost directly across or angled only slightly down. It seems to get the body that I like while the snare bottom mic gives me that crack. Bleed can become an issue, so gate the snare top to the snare bottom since the bottom is usually a cleaner signal.
 
I've been finding myself keeping the snare more open as well. While I've typically gone for the least amount of ring possible, and I've found through experience(and painful trial and error) that if it's too dead you not only lose the sustain which makes the snare sound bigger, you lose some of the upper harmonics as well which is pretty valuable to have when you want to boost the highs. With surgial eq you can get rid of alot of the ring and then still have the longer sustain.

Sometimes if you point the top mic capsule almost straight across the snare you can get much less high hat in the mic. If you point the mic towards the center or the rim sometimes the high hat just bounces of the snare and right into the mic, but becareful not to point it towards the ride..since that can be a factor as well.

I still struggle to keep just a natural snare mainly due to the fact that I love the sound of agressive compressoin on the snare. I find that even with minimal bleed on the natural snare, compression just brings too much bleed in and my stereo image gets skewed.


Like the other suggestions so far..keep em coming.



I'm still a fan of the 57 on top, beta57 or a condenser on the bottom.
 
Judging from you have said, guru, I don't know if this is a sound you are going for but I recently finished up a project with natural snare, can check it in this thread. I just did a typical 57 top, about two finger's width (1.25" or so) above the rim, barely poking in and aimed at the center. Then an Audix i5 on the bottom. I thought it came out really good considering it's natural, I usually have to blend samples in on the hard hits to get a consistent crack. The drummer makes a huge difference.
 
I'm gonna bring up the Massenburg ribbon technique (which Massenburg actually got from the old engineers of the 60's and whatnot). Figure 8 mic (preferably a ribbon) between the snare and hats, each side aiming to pick up one of the instruments. Then add that in with the overheads and a close snare mic, experimenting to see if you prefer top or bottom miced up better.

Get a good drummer in there, as mentioned before, and just spend a whole day aligning phase and learning what to look for, what to listen for, and how your ideal tone sounds.
 
guitarguru777 said:
Currently my mic technique is 57 on top about 2 inches off the top of the head pointing at the center, another 57 pointed at the shell about 2 inches from the shell, and finally an i5 on the bottom of the snare about 2 inches away pointed at the center of the head.
Click to expand...

I use this 3 mic technique alot now, and my only suggestion would be to try something brighter like an LDC on the shell part of it. Also try shifting the angle away from the centre and towards the edge and just see how it changes the sound. Sometimes I find a snare mic that's farther away but pointed at the edge sometimes has more punch, then a normal centre skin micing.

guitarguru777 said:
I know alot of body comes from the overheads and thats where my studio is really lacking right now. Decent quality overheads. I hace CO2's, Sterling ST31s or AT2020s and more recently I have gone to the LDC AT2020s to try and get more body in the snare. This is working to a point.
Click to expand...

Phase with the overheads is a big deal, as is mic distance from the snare between the 2 overheads. If you're looking for alot of snare in your OH tracks, they should be as close to equidistant as possible.

If you have any figure-8 mics, try putting one between the kick and snare, almost on the ground. I find it adds a bunch of ton and punch when it's blended in with the close mics.
 
The main troubles I have with natural snares is when it comes time to mixing in the overheads. I always find that my overhead levels have to come down so much when balancing my cymbal to drum levels, that most of my snare sound comes from the close mics, and we all know how that can sounds - lifeless, artifical and boxy.

I also love the sound of hard compression on the snare, but like what was already mentioned, the bleed levels that are brought up just smear out the rest of the kit and fuzz the stereo imaging. Even when gated, it sounds unnatural with cymbals and other parts of the kit coming through. It essentially turns into a mono "everything" mic. :mad:

Same can happen with the toms, too.


Grrr...
 
C_F_H_13 said:
I use this 3 mic technique alot now, and my only suggestion would be to try something brighter like an LDC on the shell part of it.
Click to expand...

i love micing the shell but i find most of the time the kick/hat/kit bleed makes the track nearly unusable, how do you deal with it? i've tried everything from a 57/AT4040/NT5, even a AKG414 in hypercardiod but still so much goddamn bleed..
 
nowherecatastrophe said:
i love micing the shell but i find most of the time the kick/hat/kit bleed makes the track nearly unusable, how do you deal with it? i've tried everything from a 57/AT4040/NT5, even a AKG414 in hypercardiod but still so much goddamn bleed..
Click to expand...

Combination of 3 things:

1- I personally use a 414 in hypercardioid, position it where I get the least amount of hat/cymbal bleed. Kick/tom bleed doesn't bother me at all.

2- The drummer has to fucking smash the snare (general rule of drumming IMO) and if there's too much cymbal/hat bleed..either he's hitting the cymbals too hard or the snare too soft.

3- Transient Shaping. Used to do it on the way in, now I just use a plugin.

Keep in mind too it all depends what you want out of each mic. For me it's meat/smack from the top, high end "shell" tone from the side, and rattle and bit from the bottom. Because I use the shell mic for brightness, maybe the hi hat bleed I find acceptable is too much for most.
 
It's so fucking hard to get a good sounding 100% natural snare...

It relies on...
1) A good drummer who can hit the damn thing, and Doesnt' insist on cranking the snare and ruining your tuning.
2) A Good Snare; tuned well
3) A Good Room. ( they're pretty rare!)
4) A Decent signal chain, But compared to everything else this is pretty minor!
 
I use a i5 on top and the 57 on the bottom.
The snare has to be good and the drummer needs to hit it hard
Then I use an AB OH setup and make sure the snare is in the center.
Same for room but with an spot-AB.

All blended together gives you a realy good snare sound
 
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