My mastering is really killing my snare

[Mattayus]

Seems as though the snare is losing all its body and "snap" once the track is mastered. The kick, however, has become more prominent. Obviously it's a limiting issue as it invariably is when it comes to attack, but this one has me stumped.

I'm using T-Racks 3, it's going through an EQ, then compression, then a limiter.

Here's the track mastered - Darkadian - One Foot Out The Grave

HALP!?

 

[Nauru]

Easy fix - don't use a limiter!

 

[Mattayus]

well yeah, but the limiting seems to give the track that extra sheen and bite. I mean, it's not brick-walled or anything, it's on fairly smooth, so I'm guessing it's just my settings... which I can't remember right now but I'll post a pic later. I've always limited my masters with out major problems. I've had problems with attack before in the past but always been able to sort them with some tweaking without altering too much of the track itself, but this one is a bastard!

 

[TheWinterSnow]

you could try clipping the snare by itself a fuck ton so that the transient is killed however the sound is left unaffected, when you get the snare to volume it won't be killed int he master if you are using moderate limiting or clipping on the master.

 

[John_C]

Work on the snare by itself to try to get it to cut without having a massive transient. Saturation and clipping are both useful tools for this, as well as careful eq. The way of all flesh is a good reference for this, the drums are all cutting through with these very "woody" mids and the guitars sound like they've been cut a bit there.

 

[greyskull]

clip/saturate the snare in the mix

 

[Keregioz]

What I do is use a limiter on the whole mix except the snare which I just let it clip by itself by raising the volume (and a slight limiting)

 

[brianhood]

+1 on clipping

just use gclip and you'll be good to go.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Another vote for Gclip.
Works good

 

[Ermz]

Use gclip on the snare in the mix. Avoid using too much limiting in the master. Mix it to be loud.

 

[KillFrenzy]

And mess around with the attack settings on your limiter

 

[Mattayus]

Awesome ideas, thanks. Also, just for the record, I master in a separate project aftering mixing down to a wav, I don't master on the master bus of the project.

Just to give an idea of what my mixes sound like un-mastered, here's a clip from another song but with the exact same settings - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4128689/exhume.mp3

 

[waltz mastering]

Seems like you could add some weight to the bottom end. To my ears there's some good high mids goin on but both songs could use a little more beef in the very low end and low mids. 2 cents.

 

[Mattayus]

In the snare or the songs themselves? Because I'm currently working on bass tone (see my other thread floating around in the Equipment forum) because this current one was just so lacking. Not just in bass, but character and grit. I've got better results already and it's making my mixes sound so much deeper and full

 

[waltz mastering]

The low end of the song in general but also maybe adding some low mid (250 Hz) to the snare as well. Are you putting hpf's on the kick, bass or mix?

 

[Mattayus]

The kick, yeah, it's way too sub-bass heavy so I filter it, but I kind'a dig the way it cuts right now. I just think the song as a whole needs more oomph which will probably (hopefully) come from the bass

 

[Sora01]

I really like boosting lots of 200hz on the snare, Gareth gave me that tip, now I almost always do it, seems to beef up the snare nicely

 

[Shaun Werle]

is anyone else having hard times getting Gclip to work, everything my wrapper wraps gives me Access Violations when i try to open them in pro tools, I have some mixes to finish and With all this Hype on Gclip i just want it to work, any suggestions?
I also use a limiter on my master, I hate it. But it let's me get some more volume

Best of luck with your issue

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

I just turn up the snare in the mix to correct this issue

 

[Mattayus]

It's not a volume issue. You can turn it up as much as you like and it will still kill your attack if you haven't set your limiter correctly. In fact, the higher the volume, the worse the issue!