Snare Drum Mic picks up too much other crap

chessrock said:
Interesting way to steer it off-topic, guttapercha.

:D

Alright, then. I'll bite on it. Here's chessrock's short list:

> Abbey Road, Beatles
> Physical Graffiti, Led Zepelen
> Zenyatta Mondatta, Police
> Blood Sugar Sex Magic, RHCP

As for the second part of your quetion, I hate to say it, but the best way to approximate a given snare sound is to get a snare that gets you in the general vicinity of sound that you're striving for ... then tune it the way you like it, and hit it the right way. As this topic has so very well pointed out, you'll also want to be weary of how aggressively you're playing the hi-hat and that sort of thing.

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I couldn't help myself. I was really enjoying the thread and it got me thinking about great snare sounds. It was a pretty related topic, so I just went with it. Great records there - half of them are in my "desert island top 10".

I was just digging on Ghost in the Machine yesterday - think I'll throw on Zenyatta - you've inspired me.

You're right about the second part of my question; 99% of the sound will depend on the instrument. I definitely got carried away.

JD
 
move your set around!

any chance your drummer is 6ft 8" and has incredible arm length? move the hats away from the snare (even though that's uncomfortable..)

mic the hats so the bleed is less noticable (?)

it's rough, the whole drum recording thing.

mic the underside, so you can take the top outta the mix a little and balance it out with the bottem.

these are just suggestions, theres a ton of things you could try, but you will probably never be happy if you are a true home recorderererer. ;)

we're just never satisfied..
 
it doesnt hurt to have a snare collection ;)

i just have my 70's 5.5"x14" Blue vistalite in EXCEPTIONAL condition.. chrome is PERFECT. paid $400 for it :)

my boss (a real drummer) uses a Pearl Steve Ferrone, which i used once and it was incredible sounding! i want to buy one. i found it for around $400 new, but it had to be special ordered.

i also like the black beauty (a classic) and the Supraphonic 400 (another classic).

Bonham uses what, something like a 402 6x14?

i've played the Lars Ulrich signature snare, which also sounded really nice. we had it in my store for $500 USED... sold on ebay, the thing was a beast. real diamond plating on the shell, man it was heavy...

i would love to build a snare collection. oh, a snare mic collection would be nice too.
 
CHROME IS NOT PERFECT. It might just seem NOSTALGIC because nobody was really sure what was cool in the 70's...But nothing is cooler than wood. Period.

It's nice to throw names around....I used to do that when I was 14, too...but I found using my ears works alot better than naming every drummer I almost met.
 
i meant 'the' chrome is perfect, as in it is not flawed.

i guess you've never had the pleasure of playing with certain drums RAMI.

throwing names? hell, i dont listen to much of that older stuff, plus i dont know who steve ferrone plays for. i just like his snare drum.

lars ulrich is metallica, i think, and bonham is zeppelin. i grew out of zeppelin, they bore me, and i never really got into metallica.

damn you! i was just naming snare drums i like!!! ;)

surely, wood is good. :)



..but acrylic is better.
 
Sorry to bring an old thread back up. Just wanted to say thanks for all the good advice. I've talked to the drummer and taped the cymbals up a bit. That has helped immensely!
 
make a copy of the snare-track,
eq the body of the snare extreme (+) (below the frequencearea where most of your hihat is)
sidechain it and use it trigging a gate on the snaretrack, the one heard in the mix. mute the trigging track in some way, like putting its out to a muted bus or something.

if you´re not using waves C1-plug for sidechaining or any other plug, download "sidekick" for free and try. good luck with your extremely custom made gate ;)
 
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by the way, this three-mic-philosphy combined with playing drums soft will never make the sound for a more extreme rockproduction. don´t tell me that i won´t need closemicing. move them around forever while i finish a FAT drumsound :eek:
 
You don't need close micing to get a good drum sound for rock. I know you said not to tell you that, but it's true so I'm saying it.
 
i TOTALLY agree that in most cases you can avoid too much hats in the snare, given judicious use of instruction, mic choice and placement. but in cases where all else has failed and the hats have been so loud that i couldn't reverb the snare mic's track, this is a way i've gotten around that:

mult the snare track. gate the shit out of it, so that just the bulk of the body of the whack comes through and nothing else and crank the post-gate gain on the gate. implement drastic high and low rolloffs. radically eq and compress the snare mult.

the end goal is to have it so that just the "puh" comes through. it will largely sound like shit on its own and won't sound much like a snare, really. bring it up under the unprocessed snare track and if/when done properly you will be amazed at the MEAT that your snare track now has.

oh, and use that multed track for your snare reverb send. :D when combined with some of the same verb on the OH's, it'll sound great.


cheers,
wade
 
Some times it sounds good. Sepultura's Roots has hi-hat bleeding in the snare mic. But it's gated.
Listen to "Breed Apart", it's easy to hear it. Every time the snare hits the hi-hats get louder and pan to center. But it actually helps the snare sound more rhythmic. At first I thought he was using a double hi-hat setup.
 
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