Piccolo snare appreciation thread!

Mattayus

Mattayus

Sir Groove-A-Lot
Jan 31, 2010
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Cambs, UK
www.numbskullaudio.com
Admittedly I'm a bit of a 90's boi, so I grew up with this sound all around me, but lately I've been re-listening to some of the stuff from that era and man... When did snares stop 'cutting' like this? Now they all sound like a pillow being hit with a pool cue.







I know there are a few good piccolos in Superior programmes (thanks to Mr Haake and his continued use of them, thank you sir), but does anybody have any particularly awesome piccolo samples they can point me to? I've got a few in my collection but always looking for more.
 
Man i love that snare sound and songs you just posted , incubus not so much but the album sounds great. I have more than a few Piccolo snare samples in my hard drive that are worth sharing, give me a day and i will deliver. When i listen to those records i wonder if they have a sample mixed in but it seems like they are not augmented , great mixing on those records. Piccolos are awesome snares but a little hard to find the sweet spot , if you find the right tuning for the song they just work like a charm adding that missing extra personality to the overall drum sound.
 
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Cheers man!

I guess it doesn't strictly have to be a piccolo, I think I just love 'snappy' snares no matter what the dimensions.

This one obviously isn't a piccolo but MAN it's one of my favourites ever

 
Piccolos and high pitched snares aren't necessarily related. A lot of people tend to make that confusion. I haven't had great experience with real piccolo snares but I love high pitched cracky snares in the right context. The best similar sound sound I had was with a 13x7 wooden snare tuned high. A Tama Soundworks Kapur that I bought some years ago. It's one of my favorite snare drum ever and it was cheap. Not sure If they still produce it. But it's quite deep, the smaller diameter make easier to tune high. I also recorded a Pearl Mapple piccolo 14x3 and I hated it.
 
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You're quite right, there is a strict difference between piccolos and just high-tuned cracky snares. I'm not entirely sure piccolos work in the context of my own personal music, but highly tuned snares with lots of *crack* certainly do. Piccolos only tend to work in either hip-hop infused rock/metal, or grindcore :lol:

One of my favourites, and one I'm using for my EP, is one that my drummer used to own. It was a cheap Mapex of some description, but my god that thing sounded righteous. He sold it, but luckily I made samples of it before it went. It's a sample I use all the time, it's so tight.

Another is the Rogers Wood snare from Toontrack SD 2.0. Phenomenal snare. So much character.
 
Mattayus said:
You're quite right, there is a strict difference between piccolos and just high-tuned cracky snares. I'm not entirely sure piccolos work in the context of my own personal music, but highly tuned snares with lots of *crack* certainly do. Piccolos only tend to work in either hip-hop infused rock/metal, or grindcore :lol:

One of my favourites, and one I'm using for my EP, is one that my drummer used to own. It was a cheap Mapex of some description, but my god that thing sounded righteous. He sold it, but luckily I made samples of it before it went. It's a sample I use all the time, it's so tight.

Another is the Rogers Wood snare from Toontrack SD 2.0. Phenomenal snare. So much character.
Click to expand...
Can we hear it or can you share it?
 
Sounds great indeed! Never noticed your samples before. I sent you a virtual pint! :)

Edit: the archive is corrupted on my end.
 
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Pxz said:
Mattayus, i always use a few of them for blending and they rule haha . Hey i found this one in my drive, preety similar to the snare on the Snot album . I have a few more in another drive with separate ambience for more mixing control, gonna post those ones asap.
http://www81.zippyshare.com/v/RD2nHzXa/file.html
Click to expand...

Just bumping to say I've been playing with this sample more and it's fucking fantastic. It's definitely going to feature heavily (in fact, probably be the main snare sound) on my album that I've just started writing. It actually sounds much better detuned, it's got a great woody *crack* to it and still sounds like a highly tuned snare. At normal pitch it's just a little too small sounding for rest of the mix, but doesn't mean it wouldn't suit other mixes at pitch. Amazing stuff.

Where did you find it, man?

The only downside is that I think it doesn't have enough dynamic samples. Even the relatively quiet ones are still quite hard hits. But there's enough variation there I think.
 
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