Trying to get a nice cracky snare sound out of SSD

[_wayfarer]

Hello,

I've been doing quite a bit of changes to my mixing process lately and one particular place I realized I wasn't fond of was my snare mix. I don't think SSD is very well known for having great poppy/cracky snares (they have a decent piccolo but that's not what I'm looking for) and I actually really like the raw sound of their 11a snare. I just wanted some feedback on how this snare mix sounds. Is there enough crack and punch? Does it have too much body or too little? Etc.



Cheers

 

[RevoltStudios]

May I suggest the Nashville Snare series Link in my sig. I too find slate to just be a pshhh sound with an aggressive smack that's all top end. Not much body. See if my stuff strikes your fancy. The Nash May Fire certainly gets you there.

 

[RedDog]

Sounds like a rubberband slapping a tabletop.

Go pick around for some samples. CJ has some really great single shots available @Seraph Recordings

 

[Chainsaw Calligraphy]

Assuming you're working with SSD 4 I've always found it's best to work with the raw snare samples from the deluxe kits then blend in one or two of the preprocessed samples after. This way you can sculpt the sound you want and still get a bit of that slate character in there. Also, as there's no bleed even on the raw samples you can do some pretty extreme processing that you couldn't get away with on recorded drums.

If you're chasing snare sounds with a lot of crack then heavy compression with 10-25ms attack times, transient designers, a bit of clipping and boosts between 5-8k should get you started. I find that if you sidechain the snare to a compressor on the rhythm guitar buss (or just the two inside tracks if you're quad tracking) it can really add a lot of impact to the snare and give it that 'pop' effect.

 

[Ericlingus]

I second the nash may fire snare sample. Great sample. All of his are actually. I plan on buying more in the future.

 

[oroinvictus]

+1 to Chainsaw Calligraphy, try some of the snares from the SSD deluxe kits. It sounds like you're only using the crack hits with no room and EQ'd all the meat out of it.

 

[_wayfarer]

I will try out those deluxe kit snares. I understand my snare doesn't great right now but perhaps we like different snare sounds as well. This is the snare sound I'm going for (and this band uses SSD with the 11a snare).