Recording the Snare

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saads

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I'm not having trouble getting a nice snare sound, but I can't pick up enough of it when I'm recording. I'm recording with 4 mics, 2 overheads, a kick, and a snare. I'm using a 57 on the snare, it's right there at the rim, pointing at the centre, I even made a little cardboard shield thing and stuck the mic through it, so it wouldn't pick up the hi hats. It's not just the hats though, it picks up too much of the ride and the rest of the kit too. I hit it hard enough too, so I don't know what the problem is. I played around with EQ, cut out some of the higher frequencies. It helps a little, but I'd rather have a good sound before editing anything. Any suggestions?
 
Bleed is gonna happen. You'll never get snare only in the snare mic. Without hearing what you have, and from your description, I'll blindly suggest lifting the mic up higher from the rim, and point it downward at the rim. It doesn't need to be pointed at the center. They tend to sound "donky" like that anyway. But play with it more and see what happens. If it really bugs you, gate the bleed out.
 
Yeah I get what you're saying. A little bleed is fine, but the problem is when I'm mixing the drums, if I raise the volume on the snare, everything else goes up too. Not too keen on gating drums, not the snare at least, so I'll raise it and point it at the rim like you said. I'll post what I have too.
 
I could never get a gate to sound right. Probably just me but...
I just edit the snare track. Everything that's not a snare gets erased.
Sounds much better without the bleed, imo.
 
Gating can wreak havoc on ghost notes and stuff, but if you're just banging away, gate that shit.
 
If you are really having a problem with the bleed in the snare mic after you change the angle, then you aren't hitting it hard enough, or hitting the cymbals too hard.

Listen to the overheads, is the snare too quiet in those? If it is, you need to hit it harder. With just overheads and a kick mic, you should get a balanced sound out of the drum kit. If you don't, then you are not playing the drums in a balanced way. The dynamics between the different drums and cymbals is out of whack.
 
How do you erase stuff form the snare track, like take it out manually? Sounds like a lot of work!

I thought I was hitting it hard enough, maybe not. The overheads do get the snare, not a whole lot, but it' there. I have them on -10dB anyway, so I don't know. I'll try hitting it harder though.
 
Obviously, without hearing it, I'm only guessing. But it sounds like a classic case of not playing with appropriate dynamics. You could be hitting the snare hard enough, while beating the crap out of the cymbals, leading to the same problem.

Basically, if a cymbal or another drum is as loud or louder in the snare mic than the snare is, you either need to hit the snare harder or back off on how hard you are hitting everything else. Yes, you could be getting a reflection off a wall or something, but still...
 
I have found that a lot of the newer SM57's are weaker signal mics that their predecessors . Try another mic that gives you a "hotter" signal.
 
saads said:
How do you erase stuff form the snare track, like take it out manually? Sounds like a lot of work!
.
Click to expand...

Yup...manually. ;)

And yeah, it's a little time consuming but I like it a lot better without the bleed.

With an average 4:00 minute tune with the snare on...say...every other beat, I can clean it up in about 15 minutes.
So not bad and I think the results make it worth it.
 
Evrything Greg and Farview said is pretty much right on.

Bleed will happen.
You're probably not hitting the snare hard enough or hitting other things too hard.
The snare should still be pretty prominent with only the overheads and kik.

I guess I take certain things for granted, but I've never had to gate/erase my snare or kik tracks. I never even realized it had the potential to be a problem.
 
Rimshot said:
I have found that a lot of the newer SM57's are weaker signal mics that their predecessors . Try another mic that gives you a "hotter" signal.
Click to expand...

I can't see how that would help. If a mic has a weaker signal, then everything will be lower. It's all relative. A mic with a stronger signal will just make everything louder.
 
RAMI said:
I can't see how that would help. If a mic has a weaker signal, then everything will be lower. It's all relative. A mic with a stronger signal will just make everything louder.
Click to expand...

Well he was saying that he was getting an inferior signal from his snare and that he was using a dedicated mic. I thought he was happy enough with his overheads and kick signal.
 
Rimshot said:
Well he was saying that he was getting an inferior signal from his snare and that he was using a dedicated mic. I thought he was happy enough with his overheads and kick signal.
Click to expand...
OK, I see how you were looking at it. If tha's the problem, the easy solution would be to just turn the snare mic up.

The way I understood it is that it's not so much that the signal from the mic was inferior. But that his snare was less loud than the other instruments even in the snare mic.
 
RAMI said:
OK, I see how you were looking at it. If tha's the problem, the easy solution would be to just turn the snare mic up.

The way I understood it is that it's not so much that the signal from the mic was inferior. But that his snare was less loud than the other instruments even in the snare mic.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it that's the case, he has a crappy snare or he's got the mic in the wrong place, All real easy things to fix.
 
saads said:
How do you erase stuff form the snare track, like take it out manually? Sounds like a lot of work!
Click to expand...

Dogbreath said:
Yup...manually. ;)

And yeah, it's a little time consuming but I like it a lot better without the bleed.

With an average 4:00 minute tune with the snare on...say...every other beat, I can clean it up in about 15 minutes.
So not bad and I think the results make it worth it.
Click to expand...

Greg_L said:
Lol. That's insane.
Click to expand...
Dogbreath said:
Why :confused:

nah...nevermind.

I'm ok widdit and it sounds better. ;)

:drunk:
Click to expand...
RAMI said:
I guess I take certain things for granted, but I've never had to gate/erase my snare or kik tracks. I never even realized it had the potential to be a problem.
Click to expand...
Interesting that this should come up. I have never had a problem with the bleed on the snare mic, you can barely hear anything other than the snare on it. But the kick mic is another story. Now, I don't mind bleed generally, I've found that it acts as a nice binder. But I've noticed that the bleed going into the kick mic is sometimes more potent than my overheads ! It's not so bad really, it can reinforce the snare and cymbals in quite a good way. But sometimes, I want maximum separation of that kick. So on a couple of occasions recently, I took a good clear bass drum thump or two and reinforced what was there (the wave of the kick is freaky to look at but easy to identify) by a little copy/pasting. But as I was in experimental mode, I thought I'd cut out as much of the bleed as possible and just leave the kick. Ha ha ha, what madness. It was insane ! It took me hours and a sore neck and boggled eyes and cold feet. But it was definitely worth it. I didn't feel that way when I slunked to bed at 5 in the morning though.
I won't be doing it too often !
 
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