Making room for the snare

[abaga129]

Hey everyone, I was hoping I could get some tips on making room for a nice big (but not too loud) snare. Some of my questions are: What other parts of the mix do you do cuts on to make room and where? How do you mix the snare with the rest of the kit? (Routing and when you apply certain effects). And if you layer different samples, what do you take into consideration when doing this?

I use the Truth Custom Black and Gold samples if anyone is wondering.
Any input would be awesome !

 

[Tommy Evans]

When making room for the snare by cutting out frequencies in other instruments I usually start with the kick. Theres not alot of important information in the 200hz-250hz region of a kick so that goes first. (I highlight the 200-250 region because thats where the balls in your snare will usually be) I suck the same region out of the bass and sometimes the guitars too if necsesary.

As far as routing, I send all my shells to a buss with a compressor and mix into it. Sometimes theres an EQ and/or a Gclip on the buss as well.

 

[alan1990]

If your snares not having the impact you want its most likely a problem in the 150-400 area. Guitars and bass tend to need mud cut here and there is usually a ton of useless information in kick tracks in this range

 

[abaga129]

Thanks guys! Will definitely be trying this out. Cutting the kick never even crossed my mind When you guys put verb on your drums what do you usually go for? what kind of Room size and diffusion?

 

[medic999]

multiband sidechain the snare to the 4-6k region of the guitars. that works for me, lets more sizzle through without having to turn the snare up too loud. and slice 4k out of the guitars

 

[oroinvictus]

Make sure your snare is mono too.

 

[Studdy]

I've usually find a decent boost at 185hz - 220ish gives the snare a lot more body/punch. I tend to pull it up to where its banging and then back it off a touch. Don't be afraid to low cut the snare

Always curious when people say "carve" or "cut", generally speaking are you most of you talking 3db, 6db, 12db? Obviously this is music and there is not hard or fast rules. Just in general when you think cut how many db usually? How wide q?

\m/

 

[abaga129]

Thanks for the feedback guys
I've been trying a lot of your suggestions and it has definitely helped. There are still a few things im unsure of though.
I started experimenting with parallel processing. I create a send and on the aux channel i've been using an eq with a boost at around 200hz and about 5k. This is followed by g clip and then a transient designer with about +6db on the attack. I'm fairly happy with this mixed with the original snare sound.
Do you guys use parellel processing on the snare? if so what do you do?

 

[medic999]

Slice is like a very very precise narrow cut and deeper. I have learned to first make a loud narrow boost and jog around until I find that frequency I want to cut, then cut. Adjust the q until you lose too much then back it out. Same goes for volume. I slice 4k because it's the same frequency as nails on a chalkboard and is very annoying. just my 2 cents.

 

[medic999]

Thanks for the feedback guys
I've been trying a lot of your suggestions and it has definitely helped. There are still a few things im unsure of though.
I started experimenting with parallel processing. I create a send and on the aux channel i've been using an eq with a boost at around 200hz and about 5k. This is followed by g clip and then a transient designer with about +6db on the attack. I'm fairly happy with this mixed with the original snare sound.
Do you guys use parellel processing on the snare? if so what do you do?

A boost around 5k could conflict with the vocals. but if it sounds good then who cares. I parallel compress all the shells to add sustain and power. Also compress the crap out of the room track to add some more sustain. No need for reverb after that (if mixing fast paced stuff)

 

[GearMan2point0]

Could always sidechain with the bass at around 200hz.

 

[abaga129]

Could always sidechain with the bass at around 200hz.

How do you side chain at a specific frequency?

 

[Tremar]

When I aim to sidechain at a specific frequency I mainly use a multiband compressor (Waves C6) and bypass all the bands that aren't being used. So you would create a send on your snare track, place the C6 on the guitar track you need to create some space in, bypass all the bands except the one you'll be using, then set the C6's key input to the snare send you created earlier and adjust the compressors settings accordingly. Sorry for the long response I didn't really anticipate typing so much, but I hope that helps!