Snare reverb goddamnit I can never get it right!!

Ola Englund

Ola Englund

Only gay in the village
Dec 1, 2001
3,998
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38
Stockholm, Sweden
www.olaenglund.com
I've always had a hard time dialing in a sweet reverb on snares when mixing. I mean what's the trick? In general I'm pretty descent dialing a pretty sweet reverb on other instruments but snares are my worst nightmare. What ever I do it sounds to fishy or it can't be heard at all in the mix. That makes just dial the volume of the reverb even higher until it sounds like complete shit.

Hit me with some of you best reverb tips for snare, what roomshapes do you use, times, decay etc...


EDIT: Ok here is another test for ya where it's easy to hear the reverb, what should I do to improve the sound?
http://www.oep.se/bandet/reverbtest2.mp3
 
Try using a big room with about a 1.6 second decay, no pre-delay.

Also try using the eq on the verb bus to filter out everything below a certain point... start at 200hz and start climbing until you get the desired effect of remving the low end mud part of the reverb.
 
I've been using 3 types of verb for snare (and drums in general):

1. Short slap back gated kind of verb - For giving a short and small snare presence in a mix, works great with cool impulses but also with non-convolution plugins. I don't like to use this trick but sometimes a mix/snare just needs it. Use some predelay. This trick can be heard very well on "Decapitated - Organic Hallucinosis".

2. Medium room type verb - Non-convolution plugin, no pre delay, about 1.5 to 2ms, no early reflection, using EQ to boost mids. For giving a snare that Sneap like kcchhhhh sound. I don't like using a convolution verb for this particular trick because they often sound to soothing and smooth and get lost in the mix. I use this verb to get the "Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine" sound.

3. Hall/room type convolution verb - To give it a kind of "real" ambiance, where the above 2 verbs are not really ambiance simulations but tricks to thicken up a snare, this is really for ambiance. Depends on how good and usable the real room sounds in the room mics whether I use this or not.
 
Tym_ex said:
I've been using 3 types of verb for snare (and drums in general):

1. Short slap back gated kind of verb - For giving a short and small snare presence in a mix, works great with cool impulses but also with non-convolution plugins. I don't like to use this trick but sometimes a mix/snare just needs it. Use some predelay. This trick can be heard very well on "Decapitated - Organic Hallucinosis".

2. Medium room type verb - Non-convolution plugin, no pre delay, about 1.5 to 2ms, no early reflection, using EQ to boost mids. For giving a snare that Sneap like kcchhhhh sound. I don't like using a convolution verb for this particular trick because they often sound to soothing and smooth and get lost in the mix. I use this verb to get the "Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine" sound.

3. Hall/room type convolution verb - To give it a kind of "real" ambiance, where the above 2 verbs are not really ambiance simulations but tricks to thicken up a snare, this is really for ambiance. Depends on how good and usable the real room sounds in the room mics whether I use this or not.
Click to expand...

+1, actually picked that trick up from the Charles Dye DVD.
 
Tym_ex said:
I've been using 3 types of verb for snare (and drums in general):

1. Short slap back gated kind of verb - For giving a short and small snare presence in a mix, works great with cool impulses but also with non-convolution plugins. I don't like to use this trick but sometimes a mix/snare just needs it. Use some predelay. This trick can be heard very well on "Decapitated - Organic Hallucinosis".

2. Medium room type verb - Non-convolution plugin, no pre delay, about 1.5 to 2ms, no early reflection, using EQ to boost mids. For giving a snare that Sneap like kcchhhhh sound. I don't like using a convolution verb for this particular trick because they often sound to soothing and smooth and get lost in the mix. I use this verb to get the "Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine" sound.

3. Hall/room type convolution verb - To give it a kind of "real" ambiance, where the above 2 verbs are not really ambiance simulations but tricks to thicken up a snare, this is really for ambiance. Depends on how good and usable the real room sounds in the room mics whether I use this or not.
Click to expand...

thanks for those tips, I will try them out!
 
Predelay gives you the ability to really have the verb come out as an element all in itself. Most metal mixes are so thick and frantic that you just can't really get the verb effect without putting a predelay on there. I commonly teeter around the 9 to 16ms mark. It depends, because I synch the predelay to the tempo of the song

The two sorts of snare verb I use are:

Short plate: This is a verb intended to create a sense of 'fatness' for your snare. It's essentially a verb unit emulating a room microphone. I would not high-pass higher than 150Hz with this. The idea here is just to have that feeling of having your snare resonate the room its in, and have that feeling translate in your mix. Works good in rock music.

Medium Hall: This is your classic Andy style verb. You're looking at about 1.4 to 2 seconds of decay. The verb has to have real character to it, which lends itself to the vibe of the band. If you really want it Andy style, then keep the verb quite bright, and don't go too drastic with your lowpass. Use a generous pre-delay to really pop out the verb and create a larger sense of space. If you don't have D-verb for this, then get Freeverb, because it works great.

I suppose to help illustrate my ideas a little bit I'll post two diff mixes I've done using both verbs.

Short plate: http://users.tpg.com.au/afiteam//tsunamian.mp3

Medium Hall: http://www.ermin.com.au/MP3/SepticAshes-TheDictator.mp3 (although this one isn't ideal, as the verb is still kind of drowned out in the back... it does however still add a sense of largeness to the snare).
 
Moonlapse, plate reverbs aren't supposed to contain "roominess" because they do not contain early reflections. I think this is an overlooked aspect of this type of reverb. They do not exist in the real world and that's what make them interesting imo.
 
You're right, I probably misrepresented the goals someone has when they put a plate verb on drums. With all that said however, it certainly worked for me in that respect with the last track I did. Added a nice sense of space and thickness to the snare that wasn't there with the OHs alone.
 
Our new Z4 ambience files will be the end all to reverbs for drums, they sound way better then the fake stuff. I'll have an audio demo of it soon, but for now, check out this example of a pop rock demo with the Z2 snare (has the ambience built in, where the Z4 will be JUST the real room ambience to adjust to taste)

www.stevenslatedrums.com/demo/stevenslate5.mp3
 
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