Snare oh snare

[neilsby]

Just a quick question, more of a sob really.

What processing do you perform on a snare take. We're talking energetic, controlled, metal drummer snare. I keep going from a boxy snare to a crack stike between the eyes snare. I've tried reigning in the variation in strokes (i appreciate that the dynamic should change) but it only brings up the hi-hats.

The snare was close-miked with a 57 beta.

Well if anyone has a rule-of-thumb technique or a must-do eq they start from then i'd be really thankful.

[Drumsound]

You might want to mult the snare and apply different processing to each channel. A blend of the two might be what you need.

[LTA]

Originally posted by neilsby
We're talking energetic, controlled, metal drummer snare. I keep going from a boxy snare to a crack stike between the eyes snare.

Well if anyone has a rule-of-thumb technique or a must-do eq they start from then i'd be really thankful.

Sounds like you have a mixture of strong rimshots and lighter off-center snare hits. You can't make a toney snare hit sound like a rimshot with eq or compression, although you can try.

Best bet would be to pick out a few "ideal" snare hits that are fairly isolated from the rest of kit, and layer those in on the strong beats of the music only.

[enharmonic]

Hmmm...

Are you having big troubles with the snare? If so, I would personally use the original snare to trigger a new snare and just replace the offending hits.

This becomes exponentially more difficult if you have a lot of technical snare work going on though...at least for me.

[neilsby]

I thought about triggering it but i'm using logic platinum and i don't know how to do it in that. I've got the snare sounding better by gating it and thus having more freedom to manipulate it without affecting the other sounds picked up. All the strokes are rim shots, there are a few passing notes. The dynamic isn't bad, it gets about out of hand on fills.

If someone is feeling kind enough to explain how to trigger in logic i'd be very thankful again!

The toms are sounding a bit flat now, all hit no tone. i hate drums.

dfh is looking more and more enticing.

Nelson.

[chickenbop]

Hi Nelson,
You can use the "audio to score" function in logic to make a midi sequence out of your snare and then send that to the exs24 or another sampler.Check out the sonikmatter logic forums for a lot of good tricks and advice.
If you can live with the snare sample being mono,you should check out www.apulsoft.ch for a trigger plugin.It's easy and works great.It only costs $30.

[Roland]

Originally posted by neilsby
I thought about triggering it but i'm using logic platinum and i don't know how to do it in that. I've got the snare sounding better by gating it and thus having more freedom to manipulate it without affecting the other sounds picked up. All the strokes are rim shots, there are a few passing notes. The dynamic isn't bad, it gets about out of hand on fills.

If someone is feeling kind enough to explain how to trigger in logic i'd be very thankful again!

The toms are sounding a bit flat now, all hit no tone. i hate drums.

dfh is looking more and more enticing.

Nelson.

Use Drumagog, easy to set up and comes with either a pretty decent library of sounds or use your own sample discs. You can sample a couple of your drummers own hits and repalce the lot with them this is really cool and can save your bacon!

Regards


Roland

[SONGDOC]

Originally posted by Drumsound
You might want to mult the snare and apply different processing to each channel. A blend of the two might be what you need.

I agree. you can heavily gate the duped track and EQ it to accentuate the main snare. Or, i'm used to protools, if you have a good sound replacer plug-in you can drop a sample along side the main snare and blend them to taste.

[johnnyblotter]

I know it's after the fact, but I've never...ever....liked a 57 on the top head. An SM-7 pointed at the sound hole works much better for me.

[Midlandmorgan]

Another vote for Drumagog...you can blend in how much direct/replaced signal you want....set varying thresh holds...and there are some slap KILLER drum sounds in there...

[BoogiepopJDM]

A very fast and alot of times effective technique is to add white noise with your signal generator and gate it to the snare, try to match the freq (1-6kHz). and boost about 6db. this technique i remember being used on "Beat It" from MJ. try to key this as best a you can.

[Jay Kahrs]

How about a mult? Leave the original snare as it was tracked or as close to that as you can get and then pummel the mult at 6:1 or 10:1 and maybe put an expander on it. As long as the hits are solid who cares if the ghost notes get a bit lost? You can always ride them up with automation.

[PaRaNoId]

lately i have been putting an analog tape simulater effect on the snare to get a "different sound", itw an easy way to get the sanre to sound loud without actually tweaking out the volume. Personally, I use SONAR 3 and it came with cakewalk's TAPE SIM plug-in, which is the effect i speak of. On some sources it really does add that analog sound (slight limiting, distortion, creamy mids) but on some sources, it sounds like a burning, used tampon...not good

[djui5]

For me the trick to great snares is mostly about the room the snare is recorded in. If it's a closet then the snare is going to sound like a box....but in a bigger room the snare has room to breath and come alive

[Alécio Costa]

THis has done pretty well with me:
Keep the original track with all its leakage. MAke a clone of this track and heavily edit it, I eman cut/erase, not ainsert a plugin gate.

Keep the unedited track at a very low level, but blending both tracks so as not to lose ghost notes and remember, some cymbal leakage is nice also.

Now, look for a few well hit snare audio clips from the same session (regions) and sound replace the weak ones/with too much bleed.

It is a good idea to record the drummer at the very end of the session, playing isolatd kick/snare hits. Record the overhead mics also.

With this way, you kept the original drummer feel, just added some anabolyzers

[roughly]

www.drumagog.com - you'll be happy you did and yes there is a demo-download and help on the site

[chickenbop]

Aptrigga just got to version 2 and it now works with stereo samples,9 different velocities,crossfading etc.It's only $39.
www.apulsoft.ch

[beechstudio]

Have you tried to re-amp the snare?

Pic here: http://www.michaelwagener.com/wspixh...e%20reamp.html

On Metal I find replacement is the best solution.
The music is not suited for dynamics IMHO.

Kick and snare would always get replaced OR at least mixed with a replacement. Most Metal albums/CDs have some good clear fill you can "snag" from. Ask the drummer who he likes and suprise him with the sound he always dreams of.


On the other hand......My stuff has never charted.
Don't listen to me!

D

[toolskid]

Originally posted by Alécio Costa
It is a good idea to record the drummer at the very end of the session, playing isolatd kick/snare hits.

I always do this + every other element of the kit + combos (cymbals+ kik - snare+cymbals kick and hat etc etc)

This has proved to be invaluable for edits + replacing problem hits + adding cymbals or extra beats + removing earbleeding loud click bleed from cymbal and tom decay at stops + obviously retriggering the whole bloody lot if the drummers internal dynamics suck or you want that dynamically super-rigid sound!

[Alécio Costa]

I am building a private sound lib just for those moments where everything the drummer does is crappy!
Kicks with processing, no processings, snares, rim shots, snares + overheads, because overs are part of tone/vibe. Room here represents a very strong role.

[s.d.finley]

Rick, i have re-amp basses and gits, but not a snare. The jpeg looks to be very interesting......please tell us more!!

IE...i am guessing you need a power amp to runs the speaker...duh..

What about the speaker type?

I normally reach for soundreplacer in PT if needed. Latley, i have been using a e609 silver on snare, about 2" off the side, more toward the top skin than in the middle w/ good effect.

rock

sdf

[studjo]

When I stopped recording the bottom snare mic I used the snare reamp technique quite a bit.
I was mainly using a crappy guitar cabinet powerded by a tube amp (I love vintage snares ). It worked very nice. I could tune my "rattle" in the snare quite easily.

Try it for yourself - always nice to learn something new.

Jo

btw my browser couldn't load Michaels pic - I should get a more High End computergrudge

[toolskid]

just mailed wavemachine labs and they've confirmed a mac version of Drumagog (4.0) in the next couple of months (RTAS, VST, AU)