Snare bleeding into overheads...

C

copperandstars

New member
Hello Everyone,

I have a question regarding the snare drum bleeding into the overhead mics. I have tried a couple different overhead placement techniques but the snare drum always ends up incredebly loud...loud enough to make the snare drum mic pretty much useless because it is overpowered in the mix. This makes it quite hard to add reverb and whatnot...the overhead snare sound is always louder then (or about equal to) the snare mic. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should try?

Thanks a bunch.

Ryan
 
I'm not exactly sure what to tell you because most of the snare sound DOES come from the overheads.

The only thing that you can do is try to move the overheads closer to your cymbals, or farther away and see what that gets you. If you can get your cymbals louder in the overheads, then you could lower the overhead tracks.

You could also try to EQ out the snare, but that will probably wind up making your overhead tracks useless.

Normally, what I've wound up doing, is I set all my Eq's exactly the same, and then just adjust the levels to get everything balanced the way that I want it to sound....but that may not be anything like you are after.



Tim
 
Tim Brown said:
I'm not exactly sure what to tell you because most of the snare sound DOES come from the overheads.
Click to expand...

hmm...funny. every time I take one of my mixes and solo the snare and then solo the overheads, most of the snare is coming from the snare track not the overheads. If most of your snare sound was supposed to come from the overheads, you would have greatly reduced attack.
 
Hmm. I VERY much agree that most of the body of the snare sound comes from the overheads. The tight mic provides the crack and snap sound of the snare but in my experience, that's what it is. If you're trying to keep the snare or any of the other drums out of the overheads, I feel you're barking up the wrong tree. Just my humble opinion.
 
Thanks everyone.

I am not excactly trying to keep the snare out of the overheads, Track Rat. I just want to be able to add reverb to the snare...and right now the snare mic is always over powered. I guess I could just go with the overhead snare sound and not use a reverb.
 
What kind of mic's are you using? What kind of placement?

You can still add reverb to the snare track, you just need to lower the volume of the overheads, and raise the volume of the snare track...you could even just raise the reverb level. Also, if you can, you can gate and compress the signal going to the reverb.

Generally, I will gate and compress the snare track during mix, just to make it a little fatter underneath the overheads.



Tim
 
I don't have time to read the other posts, but most of the snare sound you WANT comes from the overheads. They are crucial.
 
I usually eq most of the beefy body of the snare from the snare track. Then some of the higher frequencies from the overheads even the spectrum out. Most of my crispness from the snare comes from the overheads. Add your reverb to the snare track only.
 
copperandstars said:
Thanks everyone.

I am not excactly trying to keep the snare out of the overheads, Track Rat. I just want to be able to add reverb to the snare...and right now the snare mic is always over powered. I guess I could just go with the overhead snare sound and not use a reverb.
Click to expand...

Just put reverb on the snare mic track. That's why it's there. Even though it's still dry in the OH you can still make the snare sound it is in the grand canyon.
 
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