crashing snare sound?

F

fuquam

New member
How do you get that big crashing snare sound (think Def Leppard or the Cure)? I've played with EQ, compression and reverb (in that order) and while I'm able to bring it up with compression the reverb just seems to move it back in space and thin it out. My problem has always been a snare that sounds to weak in the mix. If someone can maybe describe a technique and the signal chain they use in the mix that would be helpful. Thanks.
 
Make the other parts more thin. Also, put some predelay on the reverb to allow the initial snare hit some room to breathe. Layer electronic hits below the acoustic snares.

Oh, and in case you missed the first sentence, make the other parts thinner.
 
One more thing about reverb. I have yet to hear a plug-in reverb that works well with percussive sounds, specially snares. They all have a certain metallic grainyness to them that may work OK with sustained sounds such as strings and vocals, but they really fall apart with snares.

Even with convolution reverbs they don't seem to necessarily work that well, partly because some of the reverb algorithsm are again not that great, and partly because the IRs aren't sampled that well.

However, if you can have access to good hardware reverb, such as a Lexicon PCM91 or such, what you want to do is decrease the level of early reflections, perhaps completely take them out, and just use the dense late reverb tails.
 
First off, those were not real drum sounds. Try to find a vintage drum machine, that will probably have the sound you want, or at least the tail you are looking for. You can stack that on top of the real snare you have recorded.


Another thing to try is to send the snare and the verb to a buss and compress them together. The verb will probably need to be gated, keyed by the snare.
 
What Farview said, plus, a bit more about Gated Reverb.

Thanks to the majority of the DSP brain trust leaving the industry right as daw's were taking hold, we really dont have the type of reverb algos to do it

If you have a convo reverb to use try these, they will get you close. Remember to stretch or shrink them so that the snare reverb ends just before the kick hits, if you are looking for like the pyromania sound

http://pipelineaudio.net/impulses/pipelineaudio_Snaregates.zip
 
The type of snare drum is probably the most important part in getting the sound you want, as with most instruments.

Start at the source then work from there. ;)

Eck
 
I got close to the sound i want using everyone's advice. I tried overdubbing an electronic snare hit just for fun. It worked but it felt like cheating. I added a gate and raised the predelay on the reverb. This did the trick. I actually need to tone it down some now. Thanks everyone who replied. Good advice.
 
Exactly, Farview. Using the same method that was used to create the sounds you want to emulate is not cheating.
 
The biggest problem with drums is that there is a LOT of peak energy that you cannot have in a finished recording. In the good old days of analog tape the compession and saturation of the format took care of it. Digital is a whole new ball game and requires carefull limiting and compression to give you the energy wihout the peaks.
Saturation plugins like JB ferox can help create the vintage tape saturation.

For the massive snare sound start with over/under micing of the snare. A well placed overhead will also build the soundscape. Try bussing the top snare mic to Glaceverb (a free plugin).
Gating is important but not essential. Depends on the tempo and style of the song...
 
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