Snares a la Last Kind Words, Doomsday, Resurrection, Godless Endeveour..etc.etc..

[GeertSamuel]

I have to say, especially on the last couple of CD's that Andy has put out the snares are incredible!!!
It's unbelievable how fat think round and heavy they sound through that wall of guitar!

I'm just opening a thread here for everyone to pitch in on their thoughts, techniques and whatever.

Cause after listening to those cd's I feel like every mix I try just fails cause of the snare sound (and not to speak of the rest of the instruments..)....

 

[cobhc]

I get this with most pro recordings. I make something that sounds awesome to me, then I listen to a commercial cd, and end up deleting the project and forgetting it. Because my mixes always sound like complete shit in comparison.

 

[broken81]

I get this with most pro recordings. I make something that sounds awesome to me, then I listen to a commercial cd, and end up deleting the project and forgetting it. Because my mixes always sound like complete shit in comparison.

You to huh....

 

[cobhc]

Yeah, Cubase mix projects usually last a few days on my comp, before I realise how shit it is, and delete them lol.

 

[deanbailey]

yeah me too sometimes..imo once you start compromising on the quality of the kick, snare and guitars, your mix weakens noticeably. Whereas the rest you can kinda of get away with it.
I struggle my ass off getting a good natural snare sound so i end up replacing it (which i hate doing because of the lack of good samples)

@ Funky Animal: Despised icons snare as well, but the beat in (titled song) "ills of modern man" around 02:58min kinda gives away the "replaced sample sound" so i don't feel too bad.
but still...fucking amazing...

 

[JeffTD]

I find a boost around 200hz combined with a fast release and slower attack time gives the snare a really nice front-end smack - very in your face and heavy hitting.

 

[deanbailey]

yeah me too, i also brighten it up a bit around 6-8 k to getting it to sound 'OK' (imo), but it never sounds as good as a "commercial CD" (I'm too fussy for my own health).
I'd sit for hours with just coffee as sustenance, with a snare track solo'd trying all sorts of techniques from the unorthodox to the standard because i cannot get it 'perfect'.
Tried adjusting Mic placement OVER and OVEr and OVer and Over and over, till i give up due to headaches from hitting the snare too much, and i can't get a friend to come in because they'd get headaches from me shouting "hit HARDER" 10 times a take...
I think it's lack of (better) equipment

anyway (fuck) i always go off topic

Andy's snare's

 

[smy1]

Ever tried sidechaining and ducking the guitars a bit on each snare hit?

 

[colonel kurtz]

more than anything, i'd venture to say that the great snare sounds on commercial releases are a result of a well-tuned snare in a great room

not to say that the rest of the signal chain and engineering tricks don't matter...but i've been noticing that the full-on SMACK of great sounding snares comes a lot from the OH and room mics...which of course is damn near impossible to achieve if you don't have the proper environment

 

[Aaron Smith]

Even though I always end up getting snare sounds that I'm entirely happy with, it generally takes me a little while to dial it in just right. I sit there with it soloed for a while too, but I've found that if I do that for too long, I really start to lose touch with what's good and what's not...like my mind can't handle it. I don't think our brains are designed to hear a loud transient smack over and over and over and...

more than anything, i'd venture to say that the great snare sounds on commercial releases are a result of a well-tuned snare in a great room

not to say that the rest of the signal chain and engineering tricks don't matter...but i've been noticing that the full-on SMACK of great sounding snares comes a lot from the OH and room mics...which of course is damn near impossible to achieve if you don't have the proper environment

I agree to an extent- definitely with certain projects. However, don't forget that Andy has mentioned how he will sometimes use a limiter to help kill the snare in the overheads, which is the exact opposite of using the overheads to enhance the snare sound. Just from working with snare samples enough and really getting a feel for working with them, I'm 95% positive that a lot of my favorite Sneap snares get most of their smack from the sample reinforcement. "Ascendancy" and "This Undying Darkness" come to mind...

While we're on the subject of snares though, when I met Adam D. this summer I was asking him a bit about the drums on "As Daylight Dies", and he said that the actual snare track is responsible for a lot of the sound you hear on the record. ...hard to believe because it's so ridiculously consistent sounding. Even when I put moon gels on a snare and do everything I can to eliminate the overtones I don't like, I have yet to track a snare drum that comes out sounding really consistent...and I have tracked some consistent drummers, too. I would love to really unlock the secrets of a really good sounding tracked snare drum, but I guess that will just come with more experience!

 

[deanbailey]

I have yet to track a snare drum that comes out sounding really consistent...and I have tracked some consistent drummers, too. I would love to really unlock the secrets of a really good sounding tracked snare drum, but I guess that will just come with more experience!

+1

 

[nwright]

I find a boost around 200hz combined with a fast release and slower attack time gives the snare a really nice front-end smack - very in your face and heavy hitting.

I have been doing this on my band's CD I've been working on and I really like it.

Our drummer likes a really thick low middy type sound. I tried just boosting the 200Hz to maybe bring some thickness out, but I found doing a little 1dB boost at 200Hz and a pretty drastic cut at 800Hz really brought out the thickness. I then boosted the highs just a tad, so it's still a dark sound, but I like it.

 

[ILLBYDESIGN]

I’ve had some success boosting the real snare’s mids and cutting some of the highs/hat bleed, then blending the upper mids and topend of a good sample, finally applying compression and eq to a grouped snare track. Kinda making two half’s into a whole, however I don’t know anything.

 

[greyskull]

I’ve had some success boosting the real snare’s mids and cutting some of the highs/hat bleed, then blending the upper mids and topend of a good sample, finally applying compression and eq to a grouped snare track. Kinda making two half’s into a whole, however I don’t know anything.

i like your thinking!!
i might just try that!

 

[RKelly]

An 'old' snare trick was to mult the snare and then process the copies differently. It's super eay in a DAW now to duplicate te track, or if you have outboard send the signal to multiple processors.

Basically, compress and EQ the 'main' snare a bit, get it sounding close to what you want. Then limit the hell out of a copy and boost the lows and highs, then a third, boost the mids an cut lows or highs etc. Keep going until you're happy with it and then blend them all together......

 

[Jackal_Strain]

An 'old' snare trick was to mult the snare and then process the copies differently. It's super eay in a DAW now to duplicate te track, or if you have outboard send the signal to multiple processors.

Basically, compress and EQ the 'main' snare a bit, get it sounding close to what you want. Then limit the hell out of a copy and boost the lows and highs, then a third, boost the mids an cut lows or highs etc. Keep going until you're happy with it and then blend them all together......

+1

Been doing that for years.

 

[Skinny Viking]

I was so happy with the way the snare was sounding on my last mix, actually thrilled ... bounced and burned to disc, went for a drive ...

about 1/2 way through the song, I felt myself steering my car towards the largest wall I could find ...

almost went back and deleted the whole fucking thing

different verb and EQ on the verb helped a LOT, but still nowhere close to sounding like a Sneap snare.

 

[LSD-Studio]

has been said often, but not too often :

-GOOD Drummer!
-Good and new Heads
-Good micing.

if the above 3 points are given it needs WAY less processing to achieve that sound.

on the recent alestorm-recordings (samples will be posted) we achieved a sound very similar to the doomsday snare, a big part of it was on the overheads and the right settings of the reverb (predeleay!).