Recording a snare?

[Sentridoh]

Whats the best way to record a snare drum with a Shure SM57?

[elevate]

I usually have mine about 4 inches above the rim pointed at the center. You usually need some distance to get more tone out of your drum. You'll basically need to experiment a little as there are a lot of factors that go into a snare's sound, plus what you want your snare to sound like.

[tmix]

I totally agree with elevate, most people try to put the mic too close which will give you a very muffled mid range thwonk.( unless thats the sound you are going for!)
The only other thing I have done is if the snares on someones drum dont have enough sizzle you might add a second mic underneath and blend a very small amount of this into the snare track. Be careful with this mic set up because sometimes if the mics are out of phase it will actually rob the sound of snap.
tmix

[Tom Hicks]

Keep the height of the mic under the hihats pointing away from them for best isolation.
Tom

[LongWaveStudio]

the position of the mic will be dictated by the tone of the snare you want to go for. a further away mic makes the snare breathe more, a closer mic gets that upfront tight sound.

angling away from hi-hat will give you some rejection from it.

if you can, MIC UP THE BOTTOM OF THE SNARE!!! i use a C414, condensors sound awesome on bottom.
flip polarity though.

Romesh

[Downside Studio]

if you can, MIC UP THE BOTTOM OF THE SNARE!!! i use a C414, condensors sound awesome on bottom.
flip polarity though.

Romesh, I totally agree about the top/bottom method. If trackcount alows this it's a defintly go for launch. I do have some comments about the polarity flip.

it's not always the case. When recording snare top and bottom its very dependend of the position of the mics. If the mics were both position vertical and one facing down and the other facing up with both the same distance to the heads, you'd have the perfect out of fase signal.

Fact is that the mics are normally not positioned in the above way (if they are don't ask me for further advice, you're on your own). Top mic is often under a small degree (30-50) from horizontal alignment (eg coming from the side pointed at snarehead) while the bottom mic is in a high degree (70-90) from horizontal alignment. This results in a partly out of fase signal.

Switching between in and out fase is the only way to know which sounds best. If both colour the signal in a drastic way, you'll have to move them around untill the fase problems are less noticable. you'll never get it 100% in fase, but you should be able to get close.

[LongWaveStudio]

im most cases, you will need to flip the polarity. when im micing the bottom of the snare, its never angled, i have a c414 flat against the snare (obviosuly not right against it, but the angle is straight).

the top mic varies, depending on the snare, the song, and the drum sound. but you will usually need to flip the bottom. yes, listen and see, but more times than not, you will end up flipping.


but it's soo important to mic the bottom. on mixdown you have much more flexibility.and considering that a vital part of the snare sound is made from the bottom, its a good idea to mic it.

[Downside Studio]

I agree that most of the time you will indeed have to flip fase. I also do agree that having bottom is a real luxury. You can live without, but once used to, you can't live without.

[LongWaveStudio]

ABSOLUTELY! i ALWAYS record the bottom of the snare. in the mix, sometimes it can create a whole new sound to the drums. i hardly use the top of the snare if there isa good sound from the overheads.

[postalblue]

have you guys ever tried gating the under mic? it's good because you can use more of it without getting a LOT of sympathetic buzz.

[LongWaveStudio]

i use large diaphram condensors on the bottom of the snare so i need to gate the signal anyway. i get a lot of leakage from all of the kit. i sometimes compress the fu*k out of the bottom part of the snare, makes the snare nice and tight. (obviosuly, vice verse if you want a looser sounding snare).

[John Sayers]

The problem with snares is that a close mike doesn't sound like a snare I always like to use some overhead in a snare sound cos the oheads pick up the life of a snare.

I have used a gate (triggered from the undersnare mike) to open a shotgun mike hanging around 6 - 8 feet above the snare so when the snare is hit the shotgun opens as well but closes for the kick and rest of the kit.

cheers
john

[LongWaveStudio]

same here john,

the overheads are where i always look for the snare drum sound, it sounds more natural. i will add the snare drum close mic for that "feel" , especially around 300-400hz.., with deep snares, you want to capture that weighty sound, the overheads wont always have that.

[Downside Studio]

This reminds me of a studiosession with a drummer, who helped me place the mics (? don't touch the mics I thought), asked me to hit the record button on the tapes and spend two hours of running back and forth between recording and control room. Everytime he listened for two minutes to the recording, went back to tune and alter the kit, ran back for listening, ran back for tuning and replacing, etc etc. Funny part is that the mics itself actually didn't move.
After two hours we had a killer drumsound made out of 10 (!) mics with only a very little eq on the (close)kickdrum mic.
Now this dude had about 8 different sounding snares to record the session.
This reminds me that placing the mics can be very different for recorsing quality, but in the end it all comes down to the player and his skills. We are just their to capture the magic.

[Downside Studio]

Mayby also interesting although covered by many, many times.

These days I always record the kick with double mics. One RE20 pointing inside the soundhole towards the beater, and one Beta52 about 20cm (??inch) in front of the kick. Combined together should do the trick. It;'s unbelievable how much air is gained with softly moving up the Beta52 fader. Like recording the snare thru overheads.