Snare Drum weak after Mastering

I know I am going to get slammed here by some but the approach I am taking more and more is to get the mix as close as I can to how I want it to sound, then apply a mastering compressor on the main buss and tweak from there. That way by the time I get to the final mastering stage that will get burned on cd's there are less surprises and the outcome is more predictable. Now to clear some things up I work a lot with purchased backing tracks and then add vocals on top of them so most of the time I do not have individual instrument tracks to work with. Sometimes I get a stereo music only track and a stereo drum track to work with but that is about it. The ability to go back and fix individual instrument tone and volume is not an option. I have to take what I have and shoot for the best OVERALL sound and search for a "sweetspot". So I guess I am kind of remastering the music tracks and adding/blending the vocal tracks on top/with the music. If I were working with 48 individual instrument and vocal tracks [ and I have] I would do it differently but for these projects it seems like I get the best overall sound by using mastering compressors during the mixing stage. I will continue to experiment with both methods but have to go with what sounds best in the mean time.
 
I know I am going to get slammed here by some but the approach I am taking more and more is to get the mix as close as I can to how I want it to sound, then apply a mastering compressor on the main buss and tweak from there. That way by the time I get to the final mastering stage that will get burned on cd's there are less surprises and the outcome is more predictable. Now to clear some things up I work a lot with purchased backing tracks and then add vocals on top of them so most of the time I do not have individual instrument tracks to work with. Sometimes I get a stereo music only track and a stereo drum track to work with but that is about it. The ability to go back and fix individual instrument tone and volume is not an option. I have to take what I have and shoot for the best OVERALL sound and search for a "sweetspot". So I guess I am kind of remastering the music tracks and adding/blending the vocal tracks on top/with the music. If I were working with 48 individual instrument and vocal tracks [ and I have] I would do it differently but for these projects it seems like I get the best overall sound by using mastering compressors during the mixing stage. I will continue to experiment with both methods but have to go with what sounds best in the mean time.

I wouldn't slam you for your technique and how you work with tracks at all.

I might be the dick that would ask you to use a paragraph or two tho. :)

In regard to your situation, have you tried finding sites with individual recorded tracks for the songs you are adding vocal tracks to? There are many of them. I have done this with quite a few clients.
 
In regard to your situation, have you tried finding sites with individual recorded tracks for the songs you are adding vocal tracks to? There are many of them. I have done this with quite a few clients.

Any suggestion on the sites. I have seen some with some breakdowns but not full. Some of the tracks a great. some average, some sound like Karaoke. [ Not good]
 
I'm curious, whether you DON'T apply any compression to the MBC to remains the quality of each instrument like my case, the drums?
 
I am using the Waves L3-16 on my master mix buss and again on the master buss of the CD project. If I have done my mixing properly all I should really have to do in the final mastering stage is adjust the volume levels of each song a bit and maybe just tweak the overall tone a touch so each song sounds like it belongs on the CD. A lot of people HATE mutiband compression and I get why, it is complicated and some of the changes are almost surgical but when used properly they can really put some life in a dull mix. That being said if you are not careful you can wreck a good mix real fast with improper settings or overdoing it. If your drums lost their life it is most likely because the mix got squashed either in volume or critical frequencies or both. Also a little longer attack on the master compressor may put some snap back in. This can be fixed if you still have your 2 track mix but you would have to remaster.
 
Awesome reply with very practical input, Songsj! I got your points and my solutions then. Can't wait to give it a try!

In fact, when we come across Multiband Compressor, will you really apply the compression on each specific frequency range? Or you just make use of the range to roll of the dull?
 
That depends, I use the Waves C4, C6, C3 Mulitmaximizer and the L3-16, Not all at once of course. These compressors have some pretty good presets. I usually find a preset that gets me close and tweak from there. One of my issues has been to get the low end of my mixes to transfer well to all or most audio playback devices. Everything from studio monitors to cheap computer speakers. The multiband compressors have allowed me to zero in on the low frequencies and compress only them without effecting the rest of the mix. I deal with stereo backing tracks a lot so I cannot go back and re-eq the bass guitar and kick drum which are usually the offenders in my case. I have to work with the entire mix. In your case I really would also look at the attack and release settings as well as the ratio on the mastering compressor. If those drum hit signals are hitting the compressor to quickly or hard it will squash the life and pop out of them. Also with the Waves Multiband compressors you will see how much each selected band is being compressed in real time during playback on the plugins graph. I imagine other brands work in a similar manner.
 
The problem with the snare is that it gets all it's power in the mix by being much louder than everything else. Then, during mastering, it is smashed back into line with the rest of the instruments and starts to sound small.

The easiest remedy to that is to compress the snare track individually. That way it will hold its own in the mix and not have to be so loud. So the mastering won't be changing it so much.

What the compression will do is make the snare sound longer in duration, so it doesn't get lost. It will mimic the effect of having it way louder than the rest of the instruments. The reason you had it so loud in the first place is so you could hear the decay. The compression brings the transient and decay closer together, so the transient doesn't mess with the limiters as much.
 
Farview,
This sounds interesting and I believe I might help me a lot.
Do you mind to do some further explanations or quick tutorial on how it works?
I'm appreciate so much!
 
Sometimes when you have a dead snare, that has no ring or decay, you will naturally place it too loud in the mix in order to hear what there is of it above the rest of the instruments. If you run that mix into a limiter, the limiter beats back the snare and brings up the rest of the instruments and the snare gets buried again.


You will have to experiment But just to illustrate how it works in an obvious manner, take a limiter and insert it on a snare track. The harder you limit it, the longer the snare 'speaks'. It might sound ridiculous by itself, but in a dense mix it will last long enough to be heard.

Now, do the same with a compressor at 4:1 with a fast attack and release. This should make the snare more powerful in the mix. If it doesn't, the snare is wrong for the song.

You can also get a lot of mileage by compressing the overheads to make the drums seem 'bigger'.
 
Sometimes when you have a dead snare, that has no ring or decay, you will naturally place it too loud in the mix in order to hear what there is of it above the rest of the instruments. If you run that mix into a limiter, the limiter beats back the snare and brings up the rest of the instruments and the snare gets buried again.


You will have to experiment But just to illustrate how it works in an obvious manner, take a limiter and insert it on a snare track. The harder you limit it, the longer the snare 'speaks'. It might sound ridiculous by itself, but in a dense mix it will last long enough to be heard.

Now, do the same with a compressor at 4:1 with a fast attack and release. This should make the snare more powerful in the mix. If it doesn't, the snare is wrong for the song.

You can also get a lot of mileage by compressing the overheads to make the drums seem 'bigger'.

yep same as it always been. I had to thank you because my first teacher/mentor said that to me 30 years ago.
 
Yes your compressor/limit settings sound like a problem. BUT I also suggest this. Bring down all channels but your drums. Set the drums volume to just barely trigger your compressor (master out). I call it tickling the compressor. Then start bringing up the other tracks stopping short of overwhelming the drums and drastically changing the compressor response. If you cant do that, your settings are wrong. And this is also a good exercise in learning to mix around the drums first.
 
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