Replacing snare in overheads?

[Jordon]

I searched around, but couldn't find anything relating to this.

Has anyone ever experimented with trying to replace the snare in the overheads of a kit?

I ask because at times, I'm handed projects where the snare on a kit is just absolutely sub-par, and I end up having to replace it. How do you guys deal with having a totally replaced snare in the kit while using the original overhead tracks? Side-chain compress keyed to the snare?

I've been kinda bored lately, and I'm taking a look at my approach to mixing drums.

 

[cloy26]

I know some guys suggest limiting the OHs in order to reduce the snare. I normally do but I am trying to shy away from replacing 100%.

 

[crillemannen]

sidechain the snare, so it ducks about 4-6db in the OH tracks.

 

[NSGUITAR]

Nope. I always end up filtering the snare frequencies out of the overhead mics.. Or I'll keep it in because it sounds nice =)

 

[amarshism]

Sidechain to a limiter. I believe Andy sneap was saying he has done this, or at least made suggestion to try it. I've never really had a problem with it. The snare in the oh track normally helps the sampled snare sound more like a part of the kit in my experience.

 

[006]

I've been doing zero snare replacement for a while, but when I was replacing the snare (or blending) I would use sidechain on the OH tracks to duck the snare with a limiter.

 

[reg3n]

The snare in the oh track normally helps the sampled snare sound more like a part of the kit in my experience.

+1 to this, i always find that with real drum recordings it sounds more natural if i leave some percentage of the original snare OR at least the overheads for it.

 

[Erik Monsonis]

I normally let the snare sound from the OH as well, but if it sounds awful (which has happened to me only twice), i just put a faster attack on the OH compressor and squash it a little more. In addition I add a limiter before the compressor and try to make any snare transients disappear.

Anyways most of the time it's the opposite: I try to get more OH snare in the mix, as it sounds really good when the raw tracks sound good.

 

[kaomao]

Uhm I was thinking this: Did you sample the whole kit?
trigger the snare track with the a sample taken from the "OH snare track", basically the OH track with just the snare bleed, and print it.
Shift it a little backward so it alignes with the actual OH track.
Reverse the phase on the OH snare track you printed before, see if it sucks the snare.
NEver tried this but maybe it can work... who knows. I gotta try it

 

[006]

I think that might work for some of the hits, but maybe not all hits as the timbre will be different sometimes depending on where the snare is hit. Or I may be wrong, who knows!

 

[kaomao]

I think that might work for some of the hits, but maybe not all hits as the timbre will be different sometimes depending on where the snare is hit. Or I may be wrong, who knows!

Yes true!!! I forgot that

 

[espartaco]

Uhm I was thinking this: Did you sample the whole kit?
trigger the snare track with the a sample taken from the "OH snare track", basically the OH track with just the snare bleed, and print it.
Shift it a little backward so it alignes with the actual OH track.
Reverse the phase on the OH snare track you printed before, see if it sucks the snare.
NEver tried this but maybe it can work... who knows. I gotta try it

thats sound like a interesting aproach, but maybe not just making a sample of the OH snare but a filtered copy of the whole oh track where theres only the fundamentals of the snare can work better, i never tried this too but like you say.. who knows

 

[Jordon]

Looks like there's no need to change my approach to them. Just the ramblings of a man working on little-to-no sleep.