random question to people who record and keep snare tracks

[Aaron Smith]

Haha, dude- what's the deal with people feeling stupid doing surgical EQ cuts? Sure you can reduce some ringing in advance, but I always tune the snare, I always use moon gels, and I always notch out the offensive ringing frequencies. I think it's bizarre that people are acting like surgically EQing your snare is off-limits somehow. What's the deal, people?

 

[KeithTidd]

^ I concur.

 

[Matthias King]

so most people are saying there needs to be more signals from the source (ie: overheads / room)

but this is JUST about the raw top. making the raw top sound great.

Is there any particular reason you're trying to make just the top mic sound good by itself, despite the fact that in the end you'll more than likely be blending it with the bottom and OH's?

Just wondering why that alone is so important when ultimately it's a small part of the puzzle of the final snare sound.

Not trying to be a jerk or anything, just curious.

 

[joeymusicguy]

kinda OT, but joey.

is the snare in that song that they just posted slate? or is it blended?

and is there anyway you could post a clip of the song on dropbox or something? i wanna hear it without the shitty myspace player.

the confide clip is blended snare

hence it sounding way cooler.

also lots of mics in the room for everything else.

 

[joeymusicguy]

Is there any particular reason you're trying to make just the top mic sound good by itself, despite the fact that in the end you'll more than likely be blending it with the bottom and OH's?

Just wondering why that alone is so important when ultimately it's a small part of the puzzle of the final snare sound.

Not trying to be a jerk or anything, just curious.

cuz in the mix, it was honkin like no tomorrow.
where the oh's and room's sounded fine

 

[joeymusicguy]

Aite Joey

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/347071/joey/raw snare.wav

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/347071/joey/processed.wav

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/347071/joey/top and bottom.wav

try using your same processing that you did on your snare on mine

i don't think its you man i think its the snare

you def didnt pay for that api plugin

im literally telling everyone in my house to eat ramen so i can buy it

 

[jangoux]

If it sounds good on the OHs, then its positioning. Try aiming the mic at the drummers nuts (in parallel to the snare) about an inch over it OR just position it higher.

btw, tuning a snare too high NEVER worked for me, it always sounds choked and boinky. Also, i owned 5 snares and some of them prefered higher tunings, some lower tunings, so sometimes a great snares sounds like crap on a given tuning.

 

[joeymusicguy]

If it sounds good on the OHs, then its positioning. Try aiming the mic at the drummers nuts (in parallel to the snare) about an inch over it OR just position it higher.

btw, tuning a snare too high NEVER worked for me, it always sounds choked and boinky. Also, i owned 5 snares and some of them prefered higher tunings, some lower tunings, so sometimes a great snares sounds like crap on a given tuning.

well one problem is i rarely meet a real drummer

i meet scene drummers who think they're real drummers. yeah they just got the new truth kit and their snare is so warm yet so punchy! whatever the fuck that means. its been a long time since i've met someone who knows what a snare should really sound like in person, and how to get it there. let alone someone that knows their own snare well enough to make that happen. most people are coming in complaining they dont have money for new hi hats, which are nicely cracked to hell and back.

these bands are on LABELS and tour 10 months out of the year. its sad, really.

 

[CatharsisStudios]

you def didnt pay for that api plugin

im literally telling everyone in my house to eat ramen so i can buy it

LOL


oh shit feds are at the door brb.

 

[Wisheraser]

you def didnt pay for that api plugin

im literally telling everyone in my house to eat ramen so i can buy it

It's about a grand for the API pack. Sure it's expensive (I don't have it), but it's not THAT expensive to assume there's no way he could afford it. If he boasted about having Mercury though, that'd be another story.

 

[The StabbinCabin]

well one problem is i rarely meet a real drummer

i meet scene drummers who think they're real drummers. yeah they just got the new truth kit and their snare is so warm yet so punchy! whatever the fuck that means. its been a long time since i've met someone who knows what a snare should really sound like in person, and how to get it there. let alone someone that knows their own snare well enough to make that happen. most people are coming in complaining they dont have money for new hi hats, which are nicely cracked to hell and back.

these bands are on LABELS and tour 10 months out of the year. its sad, really.

lol Joel Piper...?

Sucks that you don't seem to catch a break even with bands under pretty well known labels, you still manage to make it sound good though

 

[LeSedna]

It's about a grand for the API pack. Sure it's expensive (I don't have it), but it's not THAT expensive to assume there's no way he could afford it. If he boasted about having Mercury though, that'd be another story.

i think he said that because it's the evaluation version of reaper

 

[jangoux]

Joey, why dont YOU learn to tune drums? I´ve learned myself better than 90% of the drummers i record (actually i´ve only met a couple drummers who know how to tune and even then if you know what they´re doing you can help improve it) and its a great help. Even if you dont have much time, you can tune a full drumkit in about 45min-1 hour and to me that quick in comparison to fixing things mix time.

 

[006]

The only thing I can think of when "excessively" EQ'ing a snare is pretty much every source has it's threshold of how much EQ you can do to it before it sounds weird. I've never had to use more than 4 or 5 bands total of EQ on a snare. Not to say my snares rock or anything lulz

 

[Lasse Lammert]

for me it's all in the
-Tuning
-playing
-skin
-room

if one of those is shit you'll never get a good snare sound

 

[egan.]

cuz in the mix, it was honkin like no tomorrow.
where the oh's and room's sounded fine

I would play with mic position and mic choice then. I have put all kinds of stupid mics of snare and some work better than others. Moving the mic back and forth an inch or two can help eliminate that tub of lard sound. I'm a big fan of the i5 and the beta87 of all things.
But yeah, snares are much harder than people try to pretend.

 

[~BURNY~]

Avoid to aim the mic at the edge of the skin at any cost, that's where most nasty overtones lives.

Birch is cleaner than mapple or steel. Birch is what you want. I heard good things about bubinga too but never tried myself.

Small untreated rooms = problems, no matter how close the mic is from the source.

Find the right compromise between bleed and distance. Sure you want the less bleed possible but not at the expense of the sound. This is very important.
Narrow Q + strong attenuation = resonance peaks on both sides of the dip. Your choice.

I5 always work best for me. Not sure why... Its off-axis response always seem nicer plus it has that nice sharp attack.

Here's a small exemple (I5, 14x7 birch snare, big room, quite a bit of bleed yes but no processing at all)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2973685/SDtop_33.mp3

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Haha, dude- what's the deal with people feeling stupid doing surgical EQ cuts? Sure you can reduce some ringing in advance, but I always tune the snare, I always use moon gels, and I always notch out the offensive ringing frequencies. I think it's bizarre that people are acting like surgically EQing your snare is off-limits somehow. What's the deal, people?

The deal is I actually don't do tracking, but mix tracks recorded by others. And at least here (Spain, not Hungary), there's only a couple of studios that can actually make good raw drum tracks.

 

[colonel kurtz]

Joey, why dont YOU learn to tune drums?

i can attest that joey pretty well knows how to tune a kit, lol

 

[joeymusicguy]

Joey, why dont YOU learn to tune drums? I´ve learned myself better than 90% of the drummers i record (actually i´ve only met a couple drummers who know how to tune and even then if you know what they´re doing you can help improve it) and its a great help. Even if you dont have much time, you can tune a full drumkit in about 45min-1 hour and to me that quick in comparison to fixing things mix time.

because im producing engineering and mixing

someone else tune the shit