Any tips for recording hand-claps?

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Greg_L

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Like the title says, I'm recording hand-claps and not having much success. Seems like it should be easy, but all my claps sound like I'm slapping my buttcheeks. They're thin and weak sounding. I'm using a LDC about 2 feet away from my claps and various EQ and reverb settings, but no dice so far.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a big, vintage hand-clap sound? EQ? Reverb ideas? Maybe chorus? :confused:
 
Yeah and stomps, if you could help out with claps and stomps, like "we will rock you style" id like to know some tricks also
 
Yeah, stomps too. Stomps are cool in the right places.

But mostly please help me with recording HANDCLAPS. ;)
 
Greg, I put finger snaps in my last song, and have done hand-claps on a few tunes..One being a cover of the Beatles "Everybody's got Something to Hide Except for me and my Monkey...." (jesus, that title took an hour to type). I need a rest.....

OK, I'm back.

What I did was pretty much what you did. Stood about 18" to 2 feet away from a condenser and clapped. I put a very little compression while tracking, and did about 4 tracks ( I don't remember). After that, I cut the lows, added a very quick reverb (you might want to try a quick slap-back, too) and EQ'd. Check the levels while you record, because sometimes one clap can really peak way more than the rest, depending how your hands come together.
 
Thanks RAMI. Thats one thing I'm really noticing is that my claps are very inconsistent. I want some inconsistency for a more natural sound, but my shit was all over the place. I need to go back to pre-school and learn to clap correctly. If you're happy and you know it.............

Anyway, thanks for the tips. :)
 
have you tried a SM57? works on snare, maybe could be OK for claps too...
 
get 3 to 4 people to do it together. do 3-4 passes. pan as you see fit...and roll off the lows....
 
zed32 said:
have you tried a SM57? works on snare, maybe could be OK for claps too...
Click to expand...
Good idea...You'd probably have to worry about crazy peaks a bit less.
 
Yeah, my first instinct would be to get a number of people together with headphones and do it like that... would give ya a deeper sound, as long as they all have some semblance of rhythm... otherwise it'll sound like crap :(
 
Lol. I don't have anyone handy that I can trust to clap a simple 4/4 beat without screwing it all up. The 57 sounds like a plan though. Thanks yall.
 
Greg_L said:
I want some inconsistency for a more natural sound, but my shit was all over the place. I need to go back to pre-school and learn to clap correctly.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to inform you that if you're white you'll never get the hand claps down. Your natural tendency to clap on the up will hinder the process.
 
Just clap "white" and then shift the track over to "any other race"...it will funk. :D
 
Well I'm black from the waist down, so that has to count for something :cool:


Anyway, I did a few tracks with a 57 and it worked out much better. They're a lot more even. Bounced them down to a stereo track, re-imported it, rolled off the lows, slapped some quick delay on it, and tripled it. I shifted each track a few milliseconds and it seems to have worked fairly decently. We'll see how it all sounds in the mix later.

Thanks for the help. If anyone else has any suggestions I'm all ears.
 
Greg, I think you'll get better results (not that I heard the results you got...they might be great) if you don't do all that tripling and delaying...Try doing 4 or 5 tracks of you clapping together. I think you'll hear it sounds more natural. It will probably sound good dry or with a bit of reverb.
 
yeah i kinda figured the voicing of a '57 would be more flattering toward hand claps than a LDC. even a SDC might be preferable i would think. glad to hear my bright idea worked!


:D :cool:
 
You know...there is a cool trick I learned to create this big, "We are the World" kina hand claps.


Ever thought of triggering white noise (lowpassed) to the hand claps? It takes experimentation with layering and such, but very cool results.
 
Best claps ive got took no less than three people at the same time in a reflective room with an omni pattern, condenser mic.

I believe each person was about 2 yards from the mic.

I then double tracked, and panned the takes out,
rolled off some lows, and some 8-10k, then compressed it lightly to even the claps out. Oh and i also stuck a slight bit of verb on it as well.

It worked.
 
if only everyone had a reflective room my shit is dead as hell. Anyway you can always sample some handclaps if you arent getting the sound you want but it seems you got something thats useable.
 
boss_handclapper.jpg


I guess that doesn't really help much.
 
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