Snare EQ: WTF do you guys do?

[Glenn Fricker]

Hey there,

I've been under the "cut only" method of snare eq-ing for a number of years now. But in a modern production, I'm finding things just aren't quite what I'm looking for. How do you guys approach snare EQ on the ultra-heavy shit? What frequencies are you boosting to get the crack? What are you cutting to get rid of the "paper" sound?


Thanks,
-0z-

 

[ryanojohn]

I'm not really the person to answer this since I still suck... lol

I usually push around 200Hz to trigger the comp, and about 7kHz for the crack... and cut offending ringy crap... of course all depends on the drum itself.

 

[Seizure.]

Crack: 5/7 Khz
Paper/box: depends.. mostly round 300/900 hz
Weight: 240/200 depending on snare.. and ssoommeetimes some 125 hz..

And i allmost allways add some eq after HEAVY compression haha

 

[AStacy2]

I like a deep punchy snare. I usually boost around 200hz for body, 8khz for the crack and around 2.5-3khz for the attack of the snare and then go into a comp.

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Thanks for the tips, guys. It was that 5-7khz boost I was looking for!


Much appreciated!

-0z-

 

[Tym_ex]

Around 2KHz is my magic spot. And 200Hz for the body.

 

[Ermz]

Yeah it seems a very similar process. The boxy sound is usually around 300 to 500Hz. 600 to around 800 is the papery, flat, 2d element.

I normally high shelf the snare a generous amount (because shelving EQs sound more natural than bell boosts) then I augment the high-end where I feel is necessary. Usually that implies a boost around 5 to 8kHz.

Usually put a low shelf at around 200Hz, and maybe a bell boost at 150Hz if necessary. Everything else you play by ear, and adjust depending on the snare sound at hand.

With compression, I've been using the SSL Echannel comp section for most of my drums, so the controls aren't very flexible. Basically a slow attack and a release at around 100 to 180ms. Ratio usually anywhere from 4 to 8. On a normal comp my attack setting would likely vary anywhere from 18 to 25ms.

Some very slight clipping on the master bus will let that attack get through, rather than getting totally cut by the limiter. Too easy to go overboard with clipping though.

 

[~BURNY~]

No eq related but another important thing is to keep the sd bottom track very low, barely audible. Too much snare bottom sounds so dated.

 

[Daunt]

You will get a different flavour by doing the boosting in your parallel compression track.

 

[ReliXKeepeR]

This one opens a nice question. Do you guys EQ the bottom and the top together or not? I always want to make different EQ for them, but usualy I don't need it.

 

[colonel kurtz]

i EQ/compress the top and bottom separately...i'm trying to squeeze different elements out of each, which means that they must be fucked with indepenently

 

[Gaspard]

i EQ/compress the top and bottom separately...i'm trying to squeeze different elements out of each, which means that they must be fucked with indepenently

+ 1, the bottom snare should usually be boosted in lower freqs than the top snare, but that's just my opinion. It way sound stupid, but the snare bleed on my OH mics got this weird sound because of the EQ cut i used to bring the bleeding down, and that ticky sound from the OH mics really went well with the actuall snare mics.

 

[ReliXKeepeR]

i EQ/compress the top and bottom separately...i'm trying to squeeze different elements out of each, which means that they must be fucked with indepenently

Which elements? I ask not only you but everybody here, ofc.

 

[Ermz]

I don't commonly use bottom snare anymore. I don't really like the sound. I find that boosting the highs on the top gives enough snap, provided the room is lively enough.

If I were to deal with bottom snare though, I would likely high pass it to around 600Hz and then bus it with the top snare, and treat both together. The idea behind the bottom snare mic, to me, is to capture the sizzle from the snares, so anything below 600 cycles is more or less useless.

 

[Condenado]

Hi, I have a question. If you EQ the snare (or another instrument) during the mix, won't it change the sound during the mastering, if it´s so, why the reason for EQ in this moment of the process? Thanks for all your tips, its a great help!!!

 

[nwright]

^ you don't use mastering to EQ your instruments, IMO. That's what mixing is for.

 

[cobhc]

Hi, I have a question. If you EQ the snare (or another instrument) during the mix, won't it change the sound during the mastering, if it´s so, why the reason for EQ in this moment of the process? Thanks for all your tips, its a great help!!!

Mastering EQ is generally small cuts and boosts that change the sound in an audibly pleasing way, but don't hugely affect the original mix. When a mastering engineer gets a good mix, he won't touch the EQ much at all.

 

[cobhc]

Which elements? I ask not only you but everybody here, ofc.

The way I see it is that you can get different sounds from each mic, the bottom snare is usually more of the snap, and the top mic is the meat of the tone. By eq'ing/comp'ing these seperately, you have many more snare tones available to you.

 

[AStacy2]

If I use a bottom snare mic, it's definately going to be EQ'd a lot different from my top snare mic.

 

[colonel kurtz]

Hi, I have a question. If you EQ the snare (or another instrument) during the mix, won't it change the sound during the mastering, if it´s so, why the reason for EQ in this moment of the process? Thanks for all your tips, its a great help!!!

mastering = forest
mixing = trees

you want to take care of the individual trees before you go spraying something on the entire forest