random question to people who record and keep snare tracks

[Ionei]

From the clips i heard i think its the source.

Also, maybe its worth it to invest in a few great snares.

A good snare shouldn't de-tune too fast if you have seated the head correctly.

 

[Machinated]

definitely in the tuning dude.

also, use some moongel to kill off some ring. I don't notch anything out (i like to keep a little bit of ring in, but nice ring, not the ring you have in your example).

 

[shred101]

Got to admit, I dont really know too much about tuning drums so how do you guys know what to tune to? Do you look for where the "note" of the drum is or where the attack is?

 

[SkybluestudiosBEN]

Ive only had a few cases where I kept just the original snare but if I use the original snare I usually blend it with a trigger for support.

 

[Machinated]

note consistent around all of the drum, and at a pitch that you deem right for the music.

drum dial or tension watch can help, but its always worth checking by ear. theres a ton of vids on youtube to learn from, not too hard

 

[shred101]

and at a pitch that you deem right for the music.

That simple eh? So you dont look for the note and compare it to the tuning of guitars/bass or anything then?

 

[Machinated]

depends on loads of stuff really, sometimes it can work even if the snare is out of tune with the music as such. check out paramores snare and its tuning on riot, they deliberately did it out of tune.

usually ill just tweak it depending on the drum, the skin and the drummer and what kind of sound would work with the band.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

i dunno
i have good mic's and good pres, and its a snare mic not a room mic

how can 100's of different snares all be this bad?

I mean play with different tuning, different mic placement...etc.
Drum is an awesome instrument for that...

I know this sound a little bit too "oldschool vibe" for lot of guy here...

 

[BLUElightCory]

It's all about drum tuning - If you can get a tech in there to optimize everything before you start tracking, the drums will be much easier to handle.

It's true that the kit does start detuning after a bit, but it's usually not too much of a problem to tighten some lugs here and there to maintain the tuning.

 

[nwright]

What I heard in the clips you posted is what I hear pretty much all the time in most recordings I've done or with bands we play with. The only time I didn't get it was when we tracked drums for my band's CD in February. We spent 20 hours doing drum tracks for 9 songs, of which a couple hours a day was spent tuning drums. The difference it made was huge. I bought a Drum Dial and it was a great tool...

The EQ'd clip sounds good to me, but even that one I'd end up cutting out more of the ring. I'm assuming by the values you are using something like Waves Q10 EQ? Does opening up the curve make it better or worse? I find using a Q of 100 with the Waves Q EQ's seems to be almost too steep a notch.

 

[soundsunderground]

The unprocessed clip sounds pretty typical to me.

Perhaps the problem is you should try boosting instead of just cutting. Or a combo of both. Boost the lows and the highs as well as a few sharp cuts in the areas you describe.

 

[soundsunderground]

What heads are you using btw? I find the genera dry is really good at eliminating ring without too much effort Ambassadors and Controlled sound are also very good though need a bit more work than the genera i my experience. Crank em up tight as fuck, almost like a marching snare head, this should get you a nice cracky attack and you can get your lows/resonance from the bottom head.

Ambassadors will last about 10 minutes with a hard hitting drummer playing a 5b or larger.

Tight as fuck will probably be out of the range of the drum. Getting lows from the bottom head is generally not a good idea since there really aren't a whole lot of lows going on (ever solo'ed the bottom snare mic?). The bottom head should almost always be tuned the same or higher in pitch than the top head.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

I agree with most people, but it's also worth saying that things that bother you on a solo'd track add personality in a mix. I wouldn't worry about them unless they bother you in context.

 

[gabriel g.]

Joey I know what you mean. Do you also have the feeling, if you start notching out some frequenzies you realize other annoying freq. more?

Reasons:
-Bad room
-Bad drum-tuning
-bad drumkit
-bad playing

the Audix i5 is a realy great snare top mic combined with an sm57 at the bottom.
If you have one give it a try

 

[jval]

try throwing some tape or moon-gels around the edge of the skin to kill the overtones. Obviously the drum skin has a lot to do with this too... Remo controlled sound or emperor X are great.

 

[Aaron Smith]

everytime i've ever recorded a snare with a mic, there's like 100's of frequencies that are annoying and i feel like i have to remove

one time i sat down and decided to just notch out every frequency i didnt like hearing and it actually started to sound good

but its hard for me to believe this is what people do. i mean i was literally sucking at least 6 or 7 different frequencies completely out of the eq.

so is that how it goes or what? whats your experience?

This is 100% how I feel about the snare every time I track drums, even when the snare is tuned well, has dampening on it, and sounds good when all the tracks are raw. It's when I start actually mixing, that multitude of ringing frequencies becomes apparent and bugs the crap out of me too. So contrary to what everyone else is saying, I've been doing the smallest Q setting -18dB Waves Q10 thing for years, and it works out just great. I've never heard Andy, or really anyone on here talk about it, but I don't think there's anything ridiculous about this methodology!

 

[ahjteam]

here's clips

http://www.joeysturgis.com/raw_snare_no_eq.wav

http://www.joeysturgis.com/raw_snare_eq.wav

You can also try something like this, pretty much easier to do and does similiar thing in maybe even a bit more natural sounding way. it still leaves some of the ring, but if you really want to get rid of it, use a snare clamp, o-ring and a piece of moongel and tune the snare better:

edit: and just out of curiocity; do you have a carpet under the drums?

 

[Aaron Smith]

here's clips

http://www.joeysturgis.com/raw_snare_no_eq.wav

http://www.joeysturgis.com/raw_snare_eq.wav

Yeah you can definitely make the raw track better than that, just by messing more with the actual snare prior to tracking. But again...don't be afraid of notching stuff.

Also, if you've notched out enough frequencies that you're satisfied, but there's still a few random hits where the drummer just didn't hit the snare in the right spot (creating even more ringing frequencies on those hits only), rather than go even deeper with the surgical EQing (which overly scoops the "good" sounding hits), just paste in a snare hit from elsewhere in the song.

 

[Matthias King]

Finding the right snare, head, and tuning combination seems to save a lot of time and frustration down the road.

Being able to pull up the track flat, it should have that thwack, if not it like going to the dentist, pulling teeth etc.

Having a drummer who knows how to hit a consistant solid rim shot is a plus too.

To be honest, that un-eq'ed one didn't sound all that bad to me, just maybe a bit dull and ringy. But what waltz says here I agree with. Maybe a different head, a brighter one maybe? And maybe tuning it differently, maybe a little tighter?

Also, like someone said earlier, some moongels might help, or even a piece of tape or two. One drummer I recorded would tear a strip out of a t-shirt and put it underneath the top head. It made it a lot more dead than I would have thought would be good, but the recorded track sounded crackin.

Also, is that track you posted just one mic? If so, maybe you just need another mic on the bottom of the snare, which should be a lot brighter and less ringy, and then once that is blended in with the top mic, it will sound more like what you're after, along with the OH's.

 

[KeithTidd]

This is 100% how I feel about the snare every time I track drums, even when the snare is tuned well, has dampening on it, and sounds good when all the tracks are raw. It's when I start actually mixing, that multitude of ringing frequencies becomes apparent and bugs the crap out of me too. So contrary to what everyone else is saying, I've been doing the smallest Q setting -18dB Waves Q10 thing for years, and it works out just great. I've never heard Andy, or really anyone on here talk about it, but I don't think there's anything ridiculous about this methodology!

I notch alot aswell.

I think that great snare sound everyone is looking for really has to do with overheads and room mics more than close mics. Also slap a remo CS on the snare and make sure to put it on properly and tune it/dampen it well.