Mixing snare drums

M

M-Bass-M

New member
A lot of the tracks that I have been mixing tend to have both top and bottom snare mic tracks. Currently, the way I have managed my workflow is to just send both tracks to the drum buss, and then applying eq / compression etc to the individual snare tracks.

This feels like a bit of a bind, for example if you want to increase the snare in the overall mix then you have two faders to adjust. I'm thinking that a more sensible approach being to send both tracks to a snare buss, which is then sent to the drum buss. That way I can apply eq, compression etc to a single snare buss, and use the mix of top/bottom to shape the overall sound.

Which method is more generally accepted? Are there pros/cons of either approach that I haven't identified yet?

Cheers

Mark
 
Well that makes sense to me. I'll do the same thing when using mulitple mics (or mic + DI) on an acoustic guitar.

Back to snare - I hear a lot of commercial tracks that put a huge reverb on the snare (only) and it may sound ok for the way the track is done, but to me it makes it sound artificial, not in the same 'place' as the rest of the drums/instruments.
 
Yep, I send mine to a snare bus and then on the the drum bus.

I do the same with two mono overhead mics if they were tracked that way, double tracked guitars panned hard L/R, bass cab+DI, doubled back ground vocals, you name it.

It saves a ton of CPU this way, not to mention the head ache of having to adjust all those individual faders. Set the balance of the two tracks, bus em together, only one fader to move, eq, compressor, reverb send, on and on. :thumbs up:

If you want to do some separate processing before the busing, there's no wrong in that either.
 
Also, don't forget that, because of the fact that the mics are facing each other, you almost always have to flip the polarity on one of those snare mics.
 
In Pro tools I'll set the balance between the two and then group them.
That just means if I move one of the faders, the other comes with.

Same thing but different.

If I want to effect the snare as a whole, I'll use a bus like you described.
 
Thanks for the responses. Good to know that if it seems like common sense, then it's probably one of the best ways to do it!

Hadn't thought about an overheads buss before, but can see that it makes sense too.

One further question: I get that you can use compressors to significantly shape the snare sound. Given the difference in sound between the top and bottom snare mics, is there any obvious value to compressing each individually, or do you get the same effect by just compressing the snare buss?
 
It'll be a taste thing.
You might find that the bottom is all snap and there's nothing to gain from compression, whereas the top might benefit from compression if you want it to ring out or sound fuller.
You can get away with pretty heavy shaping of the top mic because the bottom mic will keep the overall sound realistic.

The sound and character of a snare top and bottom are so different that I don't expect I'd want to compress them together.
You might limit them together....idk, it depends on their levels and what you want to hear. :)
 
Here's what I do for a rock snare that has some quiet ghost notes/rolls in the groove. It works for me, but I'm not saying this applies to your specific situation...

1- While monitoring in mono, pull up both snares on separate tracks with OH's playing and check for polarity. Pretty much always flip one of the snare mics.

2- Get a good balance between the top and bottom, volume wise

3- Set a tight gate on the snare top mic. If set properly, you won't hear adjacent tom/kick/cymbal bleed much.

3 - Set a milder gate on the bottom snare. Set it so it allows all the little dynamic roolls/ghost notes through. Bleed from other instruments won't be very apparent in this mic. You may choose not to gate it, but instead, only have it duck out when the kick hits (if the bottom snare mic is loud enough, when the kick hits, the high frequency of that snare rattle almost gives the impression that the kick transient is distorting, when monitoring in a full mix). Bottom snare mic with no gate (or a light one via using an expander) is AWESOME kit glue...for me anyways! I like it sounding as if I'm there playing it. Quiet buzzes when other things are hit, etc

4 - Use mild subtractive eq on each snare track to get them getting along together a little cleaner. This usually always entails a high pass on both, with a little more exaggerated high pass on the bottom mic. It also entails killing any slight mud and/or boxiness on each track. Usually I find the bottom snare doesn't need much cutting of mud or boxiness, but usually somewhere else in the upper mids to get rid of some "cheap" raspiness but maintain the clean crispiness.

5 - Send them both to a mono "bus". Call that SNARE. Hide the other two tracks (but keep them active of course). Now you have one already decent sounding snare track to work with.

6 - Its on this new snare bus that you can apply all your favorite inserts and sends. An eq almost always, to now sculpt your main snare sound based on the cleaned up, summed tracks. You may only need to apply some boosting here as you've already gotten rid of the junk beforehand on the individual tracks. Boosting such as somewhere in the 200's for beef, and/or somewhere in the upper mids for snap and crack. Of course, now compression of choice if desired/needed, and send that to whatever parallel effects busses you want such as a parallel compressed "slam" track, reverbs busses, etc.
 
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Snare

Here's what I personally like to do:

First I apply filtering to drop out any unnecessary information (basically High Pass Filtering).
I may do some light EQing/Dynamics to the individual tracks. Usually very subtle and subtractive.

Then I buss them to a Snare Buss. This buss is where I do more colorful things like applying drive, or colorful EQ (Waves API 550s, etc...). I'll also base my individual snare verb off this buss.

Then I'll buss all of the shells together into their own Drums Buss (Kick, Snare, Toms). I can then comp this pretty hard or apply some heavy handed stuff here (I mostly record metal and hardcore, so I can make the shells hit pretty hard).

I'll buss all of the overheads (hats, overheads, ride, rooms) to an OH Buss, as I prefer not to process overheads with much compression as shells, as they tend to take up too much high frequency information and sound distorted or sloppy in the mix if you hit them too hard.

I'll then sometimes buss the Overheads and Shells together with some light compression at this point to tie things together, and I'll apply some light verb to the entire kit at this point to make it all seem like it lives in the same space.



This is the beauty of our art though. This works for me, but you may consider this way overboard, and prefer to just use a 3 mic approach and very little in terms of processing. It's all preference, and no matter what, as long as YOU and the CLIENT like it, that's all that matters. :)
 
I keep them separate because I compress the top differently and EQ differently. If I want more attack, I may only choose to raise the level of the top mic. If I want more depth or buzz, I move the bottom. If I just want more volume, I will move both faders. JMHO :)
 
on a snare drum i like the attack it has so i would never gate either track.

as for top and bottom i would use the top mic to get all the punch and fullness while using the bottom for all the crack then i would send both the individual tracks to the snare reverb track at different levels to get the reverb to sit how i wish then would send all tracks to the drum buss.

i would very rarely use a compressor on any drum due to the fact i prefer parallel compression over individual compression but thats just taste
 
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