SNARE thread - EQ, compression etc...

[Rob Logic]

Oh, I forgot one damn important thing:

Tom-tracks!

Don't edit them out, if the drumkit was recorded proper you can feature the snare a lot with the tom-mics... Usually you have to lower everything but the hits a couple of db.

Voila - much more glue, much more organic drums.. less artefacts from nasty crashes bleeding through fill ins cause the crashes are already there

Nice point there.

 

[GuitarMaestro]

Great thread! With snares I always encounter the same problem:
I usually use Drumagog and blend the original snare with about 70% sample in order to make it more consistent and add what the original snare lacks.

The problem though:
What to do with ghost notes? You cant lower the sensivity far enough for Drumagog to catch the ghosts, or it will trigger on the bleed from the other mics. I know you could generate a midi with drumagog and edit out the false hits, etc.
BUT then the ghost still triggers a real snare sample which sounds like shit. Because well it is supposed to be a ghost note.
And if you leave ghost's untriggered they are not loud enough in comparison to the snare sample and they sound so different from the sample it's too obvious...

How do you work arround that?

 

[Zombietakeover]

Samples can be processed up to taste, so maybe it is cool to just put a distortion on it... Not kidding..

Hey dude what's the method and processing you go about when doing this?
thanks in advance

 

[Jaymz]

Hey dude what's the method and processing you go about when doing this?
thanks in advance

Try pushing a saturation plugin abit harder than usual.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

Great thread! With snares I always encounter the same problem:
I usually use Drumagog and blend the original snare with about 70% sample in order to make it more consistent and add what the original snare lacks.

The problem though:
What to do with ghost notes? You cant lower the sensivity far enough for Drumagog to catch the ghosts, or it will trigger on the bleed from the other mics. I know you could generate a midi with drumagog and edit out the false hits, etc.
BUT then the ghost still triggers a real snare sample which sounds like shit. Because well it is supposed to be a ghost note.
And if you leave ghost's untriggered they are not loud enough in comparison to the snare sample and they sound so different from the sample it's too obvious...

How do you work arround that?

Stop recording jazz? haha. Sorry, I actually have encountered the problem myself. Multi samples with drumagog help a lot.

 

[GuitarMaestro]

Multi samples with drumagog help a lot.

No Jazz lol. I would not dare to confront a jazz drummer with sample replacing haha! But honestly which metal sounding snare sample pack has ghosts? And even if it does it should be damn impossible to get Drumagog to always trigger the correct sample for the correct hit?

 

[Metaltastic]

Metalhead28 did some pretty convincing ghost notes with DFHS in his "Veil of Maya" (the Cynic song, not the band of the same name ) cover; I think he said he just used super-low velocities!

 

[Machinated]

Great thread! With snares I always encounter the same problem:
I usually use Drumagog and blend the original snare with about 70% sample in order to make it more consistent and add what the original snare lacks.

The problem though:
What to do with ghost notes? You cant lower the sensivity far enough for Drumagog to catch the ghosts, or it will trigger on the bleed from the other mics. I know you could generate a midi with drumagog and edit out the false hits, etc.
BUT then the ghost still triggers a real snare sample which sounds like shit. Because well it is supposed to be a ghost note.
And if you leave ghost's untriggered they are not loud enough in comparison to the snare sample and they sound so different from the sample it's too obvious...

How do you work arround that?

What I do on parts like this....

If I'm using samples, on the quieter parts or more fiddly fills I'll lower the trigger track and raise the original mic'ed track. Usually when drummers are playing stuff with ghosts the music doesn't rely on the use of samples so much so you can use the original tracks. If the mic'ed sound isn't great, just set it so the samples are only triggered on the strong hits, so the ghost notes etc are covered by the snare top and bottom mics.

 

[GuitarMaestro]

Interesting idea machinated! I'll have to try that!

What I do sometimes:
1. Put a your Drumagog on the top Snare mic with about 70% blend and set it to not trigger the ghosts
2. EQ the bottom Snare Mic so that it does not interfere with the snare sample on heavy hits that much and sounds good for the ghosts (where you get only 30% natural snare from the top mic)

If the drummer uses a snare with a pronounced "carpet" (dont know how the metal thing on the bottom snare skin is called in english?) this works well, because the ghosts tend to trigger alot of rattling here...

 

[fade_2_black]

I have the with my room mics too. Much more aggressive sounding through my room mic.

 

[Erik Monsonis]

I do pretty much what the pro's have said before.

Boost 150hz works for my taste.
Cut a little of 300hz
Boost 1-3khz (depending on snare tone)
Boost 6-8khz with a shelf

Then compress it with the standard settings, paralell compression, clipping, limiting.. everything is possible if your CPU can hold it
Then some nice reverb.

I don't usually touch the ambience, just a hi-pass at 400hz or so, no compression at all. Just the little compression at the drum bus.

Cheers!

 

[abyssofdreams]

I REALLY love roomy snare sounds

BIG +1

IMHO a good roomy snare adds sooo much to the whole mix.
I usually boost the mids there also for additional ambience.

About the transients in room tracks.
Duplicate that room track, take the first for the usual compressing/limiting and take the second, cut out all the snare transients (easily done with detect silence in 2 seconds), put a transient designer on that track and fiddle with some compressor... after that just fade it in with the other tracks and voilá, magic!

Yes yes, you can thank me later

 

[alexrookie]

i do a lot of grouping/bussing with more extreme settings.

i normally have my "dry snare group" set up with just a bit of expander/eq/comp.
from there i create some more prl. groups/busses with everything i need for a modern sounding snare:

prl. compression group

prl. transient group

prl. distortion group

prl. trigger/sample group(s)

all ending in my "final snare group" routed into my drum group.

in the end i have 5-6 snare groups with different settings and a lot to control simply by touching the faders.

 

[brandy]

Yea - I do this similar, but lately I try to go back to a more easy / back to the roots / natural way... Well - I know what it means to have half of the screen full with snare-faders for just ONE snare

I think it is possible to create a cool snare sound with just 2-3 faders - maybe I will find a way, hahaha!

 

[The-Zeronaut]

Haha, Snares often made my hair grey... Every snare I mixed --> one or two grey hairs! I already have a lot of grey hairs


Combine that with suboptimal drumming!!

If you have an AC/DC style song/drummer than you will have no problems to get a cool sound, maybe with lots of room...

But usually those kids are playing stuff which they can't perform propper, here a slow and heavy part, there a blast with the snare barely touched... then a Entombed Riff, after that a short blackmetal passage... then that riff composed by the bass-player who is actually a huge Metallica-fan.. You know what I mean.

It is not only difficult to create a cool snare sound AT ALL, it is often nearly impossible to create a snare sound which fits all those riffs in that 8 min song...

you just described my life...

 

[brandy]

LOL

 

[LSD-Studio]

sometimes I'l m compress the bottom snare REALLY hard with a rather fast attack, set up a gate on the bottom track as well (triggered by the top-mic), that gives me a lot of "KCHSCHHHHHH".
then bussing the compressed bottom and unprocessed (other than perhaps a small notch to get rid of ring) top to the snare bus and treat it with comp/EQ.

sometimes I'll duplicate the snare-track and hipass is, then distort it (quite a bit) and blend it in.

sometimes I do hardly any processing at all, just a touch of comp on the group.....

I usually don't like extreme EQ on snare as it brings up the hats to much, or too much of the undesireable snares-sizzle...I really don't have a certain way of treating snares...but it's always a bitch to get them right, often I think they sound great from the start (when there's zero processing on any of the tracks, just they plain tracks directly after having reorded them), but when I start processing, gating etc the snare becomes less pleasant and I start tweaking.

therefore, when I'm after very natural sounds, I won't even gate the snare.

Haha, Snares often made my hair grey... Every snare I mixed --> one or two grey hairs! I already have a lot of grey hairs

I personally find it difficult to create a satisfying snare.. Maybe because I start from scratch every time, using either the mic-track or samples I made with that snare and which I never used before or combine both with another sample. And maybe because of I am a drummer, so I am not that easy to please with "just a snare".

Combine that with suboptimal drumming!!

If you have an AC/DC style song/drummer than you will have no problems to get a cool sound, maybe with lots of room...

But usually those kids are playing stuff which they can't perform propper, here a slow and heavy part, there a blast with the snare barely touched... then a Entombed Riff, after that a short blackmetal passage... then that riff composed by the bass-player who is actually a huge Metallica-fan.. You know what I mean.

It is not only difficult to create a cool snare sound AT ALL, it is often nearly impossible to create a snare sound which fits all those riffs in that 8 min song...

IMHO a somewhat "real" snare fits way better here than a hyped one which will suck in the blast beats or those fast rolls...

I fully agree!

 

[FourFour]

For me it's:

lol for weird descriptions...

100hz - boing (cut some)
200hz - thoing (cut this quite some bit)
500hz - pop/pap (boost a little)
5khz - crack/smack (boost a little)
10khz - sizzle/crisp (cut quite alot)

I compress my snares to hell.

I dunno how correct this is but works me haha.

 

[Jaymz]

For me it's:

lol for weird descriptions...

100hz - boing (cut some)
200hz - thoing (cut this quite some bit)
500hz - pop/pap (boost a little)
5khz - crack/smack (boost a little)
10khz - sizzle/crisp (cut quite alot)

I compress my snares to hell.

I dunno how correct this is but works me haha.

Wow you cut 200hz & 100hz?

Where's your beef??

 

[Metaltastic]

Whatever sounds best is the most important thing, but I would nominate that "smack" lives around 1k, and that 100 and 200 are more just mud than any sort of "boing" or "thoing" (much as I love the onomatopoeia - and THAT'S THE FIRST TIME I'VE SPELLED THAT RIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY!!!! Go me )