recording my snare

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farewellending

New member
I am using a Pork Pie acrylic orange snare drum with a Shure SM57. And no matter what I do, I cannot get the sound I desire on snare. Everybody I know has told me recording snare is easy with the 57, but I just can't get a good sound, everything sounds so pingy. I suggest recording with a muffler on it like moongel or a ring but my drummer says nobody records with it on. So what do you guys suggest, plus any miking techniques on the snare? thanks a million
 
I suggest tuning the drum more to your desire. Also don't listen to someone who says you can't do this or that while recording. I use moongels for some light muffling all the time on my recordings. There's no real problem with it. Try moving your mic to underneath your snare. Best thing to do is just experiment. Without being there it's hard to tell you exactly what to do.
 
farewellending said:
I am using a Pork Pie acrylic orange snare drum with a Shure SM57. And no matter what I do, I cannot get the sound I desire on snare. Everybody I know has told me recording snare is easy with the 57, but I just can't get a good sound, everything sounds so pingy. I suggest recording with a muffler on it like moongel or a ring but my drummer says nobody records with it on. So what do you guys suggest, plus any miking techniques on the snare? thanks a million
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tune it differently, your drummer is well uninformed about damping etc etc because a lot of us use moongel, O-rings, bog roll & gaffa tape etc etc

if you've got the inputs try mic'ing the underside of the snare, recently I've been using a hyper cardioid condensor on the top & a beyer M201 dynamic underneath

if your drummer is a stubborn mofo then try & EQ the pingyness out of it or trigger a new one (although I would only suggest this as a last resort)

but start off by changing the tuning & beating the dude with a brick untill he says yes to some form of damping
 
i only use one mic on the snare, when I used two it really didnt sound that good. My snare always sounds way too tiny and brittle. No matter what I do its never meaty and full.
 
farewellending said:
i only use one mic on the snare, when I used two it really didnt sound that good. My snare always sounds way too tiny and brittle. No matter what I do its never meaty and full.
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Well that's becaue you don't know what you're doing. I'm not trying to be harsh but it looks like it's the truth. There are two things that are absolutely key to a good drum sound, 1-tuning 2-playing. If you can't tune the snare and the drummer sucks then getting a good tone is going to be near impossible. Next you need to learn how to double mic a snare, many many people do it and most of them rely on it, I'm not saying you have to double mic I'm saying if you're going to you need to learn how. Now before you do anything else try just micing the bottom of the snare, then get back to us.
 
I had the same problem because the room I record in now doesnt have the greatest accoustics.

Things that worked for me on my DAW:

Using a noise gate and compressor to zero in on the snare itself.

Then EQ it to your liking. Knowing which frequencies control the boings, snaps and cracks of the snare help of course.

Then adding just the right amount of reverb will bring it back to life again after the gate strips away the natural decay.
 
lately ive been almost resting the mic on the head... seems to beef it up a bit.. ive had bad snare ping in the past and had no luck getting it under control with an eq...

gl
 
farewellending said:
I am using a Pork Pie acrylic orange snare drum with a Shure SM57. And no matter what I do, I cannot get the sound I desire on snare. Everybody I know has told me recording snare is easy with the 57, but I just can't get a good sound, everything sounds so pingy. I suggest recording with a muffler on it like moongel or a ring but my drummer says nobody records with it on. So what do you guys suggest, plus any miking techniques on the snare? thanks a million
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Acrylic drums don't record as well as wooden ones right off the bat. I played Ludwig Vistalites (Acrylic) drums for years, and used an Acrylic snare, and you have to do some serious tuning to make sure you've got rid of the ringing in the snare, the best bet is to muffle it, or do what I did - which was moved over to a coated pinstripe head on the snare, so I didn't have to really worry about putting additional muffling on the head. A coated emperor would work well, but wouldn't have the muffling effect that the Pinstripe has.

As much as I hate 57's, they are pretty much failsafe on the snare - you should be able to stick it on the snare and get a usable track right then and there. The drum should sound decent through it prior to EQ'ing, so work on the tuning and muffling by listening to the signal coming through the system.


Tim
 
seismetr0n said:
lately ive been almost resting the mic on the head... seems to beef it up a bit.. ive had bad snare ping in the past and had no luck getting it under control with an eq...

gl
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Do you have a parametric EQ?

If so, you can thin out the bandwidth, and sweep it until you find the frequency (I use a DOD spectrum analyzer for visual verification of this) and then begin spreading out the width of the Eq's bell, just enough to take out most of the ping - I still would leave a tiny bit of it in, just because it will add some character to the snare.



Tim
 
farewellending said:
I am using a Pork Pie acrylic orange snare drum with a Shure SM57. And no matter what I do, I cannot get the sound I desire on snare. Everybody I know has told me recording snare is easy with the 57, but I just can't get a good sound, everything sounds so pingy. I suggest recording with a muffler on it like moongel or a ring but my drummer says nobody records with it on. So what do you guys suggest, plus any miking techniques on the snare? thanks a million
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My experience with a 57 close on the snare is that you tend to get a pop gun sound out of it. What worked for me was
1. Move the 57 further away, say 3-4 inches from the rim rather than right on top of it.
2. Compress it quite hard, with a real short release. Alternatively copy the snare track and smash that one to bits
3. Blend the overheads in for more top end
4. General EQ tweaking on the snare & overheads to encourage the desired sound

I've never been a fan of damping or gating. I love all the little overtones that get lifted out by compression. I tend to play a lot of hard rim shots and the above worked for me. They may or may not work for your drummer, depending on how he plays
 
when i record drums, the snare mic track alone sounds almost like a tom, but when mixed with the OHs it souds like the snare you hear..i think its because the sound develops as it travels or somethin. are you recrdogin jsut snare or a whole kit?
 
tom18222 said:
when i record drums, the snare mic track alone sounds almost like a tom, but when mixed with the OHs it souds like the snare you hear..i think its because the sound develops as it travels or somethin. are you recrdogin jsut snare or a whole kit?
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Your right about that . The top snare mic is picking up the attack . The transients are so large that you don't hear the snare buzz unless you compress the hell out of it . The overheads pick up the buzz as they reflect off the floor . Room mic's pick it up well too . And like you said , blending those tracks will get you back to the sound " you " hear from across the room when the snare is being played .
 
i have a vistalite kit... recording the snare is hard.

the trick is to tune it to hell and back. i don't like the way my snare sounds live now, but it sounds good on a recording. also, i had to put the internal dampning on it hard, and 2 moongels. don't forget the bottem head.
 
Pig lyte

I own one of these snares and it records fine. The problem sounds like the tuning. Whatever you do DO NOT put a coated pinstripe on it. I use Evans G1 coated on mine, ambassador is about the same. Try a little moon gel if the tuning still isn't great, but don't eq the ping out. EQing out ring on a snare usually thins out the sound too much. Hope this helps.
 
jonnyc said:
Well that's becaue you don't know what you're doing. I'm not trying to be harsh but it looks like it's the truth. There are two things that are absolutely key to a good drum sound, 1-tuning 2-playing. If you can't tune the snare and the drummer sucks then getting a good tone is going to be near impossible. Next you need to learn how to double mic a snare, many many people do it and most of them rely on it, I'm not saying you have to double mic I'm saying if you're going to you need to learn how. Now before you do anything else try just micing the bottom of the snare, then get back to us.
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i agree. he's right. i personally have never tried it because i never had to, i've always been happy with my sound so far, but i've always wanted to try it.

the sound has a lot to do with the tunning/ heads and how good the drummer is. talent shows in how good a recording can sound, a $4 billion dollar mic still wont make a 2 year old sound perfect
 
How does the snare sound to your ears when you're in the same room with it?

A 57 will give you a fair representation of your snare sound. If your sounds like doo-doo no mic in the world is going to fix it.
 
jonnyc said:
Well that's becaue you don't know what you're doing. I'm not trying to be harsh but it looks like it's the truth. There are two things that are absolutely key to a good drum sound, 1-tuning 2-playing. If you can't tune the snare and the drummer sucks then getting a good tone is going to be near impossible. Next you need to learn how to double mic a snare, many many people do it and most of them rely on it, I'm not saying you have to double mic I'm saying if you're going to you need to learn how. Now before you do anything else try just micing the bottom of the snare, then get back to us.
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It's true. You don't HAVE to mic the bottom, but when you hear your snare live, you hear both heads, the snare wires, and the wood. By mic'ing the top head, you're obviously not going to get the sound that you hear live.
 
I use one mic on the snare and it sounds fine. No problem with the high end. If the snare sounds "pingy", the mic isn't creating that. It says something about the sound of the drum itself.
It should sound pretty good before any eq-ing and compressing. If you HAVE to compress the hell out of it just to get it to sound good, then it's not right.
Gating is not always a good idea. If the drummer plays with any dynamics, like ghost strokes on his snare, you'll have a hell of a time gating some things out while trying to keep those strokes in.
 
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