Snare is just a bit too poppy, thoughts?

[jackobme]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dfnyctqzwzwyoct/Prestige 3:6.mp3?dl=0

I always have the problem of too much initial snap on the snare, idk if its my compression or what, but i've played with it for hours. In need of some outside ears.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Sounds a little too compressed, a little too bassy, and a little too scooped to my ear. Try reducing those things a bit individually and together and see what gets you the best result. It's also pretty dry- I can tell there's some reverb, but you can always load a spectrum analyzer up on your master bus (with the verb muted) and see if there are any valleys in the upper mids, and then crank a few db into the verb in that area to give it some space to breathe.

 

[MultiM]

Sounds like it's a slate snare, right?
Anyway, if it's too snappy you can use a limiter, but I prefer a transient designer/shaper plug-in to lower the attack.
You can blend it with a fat snare sample.

 

[HOFX]

If you're using Slate samples (or any VSTi drum samples, really, as they are all well recorded), use what they call the 'top down' method. Set up your drum buss with a buss compressor on it (eg, FG-Grey) and then work on your rough mix with overhead, kick, snare, hats and get a good sound (adjust volume and room/overhead level in the VSTi). Then you'll find that you won't have to 'craft' (as in EQ, comp) the kick and snare as if you went overhead, kick, snare route.

From here (assuming you have VMR), the easiest way to get the snare to crack through is a bit of FG-116 on the top channel and Revival with High cranked on the snare bottom. Very easy to get a natural snare sound from this approach.

 

[jackobme]

Yeah it's Slate 5 blended with 17. I was trying to get that "airiness" sturgis does so i had a high shelf boosting the air frequencies but i took that off. I have a clipper I'm playing around with, so we'll see how that goes. Never had much success getting Slate snares to sound fat, don't know what I'm missing.

 

[Line666]

Yeah it's Slate 5 blended with 17. I was trying to get that "airiness" sturgis does so i had a high shelf boosting the air frequencies but i took that off. I have a clipper I'm playing around with, so we'll see how that goes. Never had much success getting Slate snares to sound fat, don't know what I'm missing.

Yeah, I always had this problem with the Slate snares too, a lot of people can work with them but for me they never had the sort of body I was looking for in a snare as much as hyped upper mid attack - if you're not into it then it might be worth trying different samples. Overly layering snares, especially the slate ones, also can make them 'pop' a bit too much even without a lot of comp, you have to choose snares that compliment each other well when stacking otherwise they'll just poke through the mix in a slightly nasty way.

The transient designer suggestion is a good idea, the SPL one works well for that sort of thing.

 

[amarshism]

sounds fine jacob, probably needs more direct mic and less amb mics

 

[jackobme]

never thought of using transient designer to REDUCE attack, but it worked perfectly! thanks for the tip!

and marshy i miss picking your brain on putney's secrets

 

[amarshism]

I GIVE AWAY NO SECRETS