Slammin' Door Snare

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punkin

punkin

Univalve & Avatar Speaks
A quartet of old farts came to visit me this week. They have a couple tunes they would like me to record for them.

The drummer was asking if I could help him with a snare sound he's after. He described it as a "door slam" a "wooden door slam". His best recommended listening reference was the Aerosmith, Janie's Got a Gun video. So I listened...he's right...every once in a while you'll hear the drummer rap the snare (so I presume) and it's got this great wooden ring to it.

I was thinking maybe the hits are done using two drums at the same time...any ideas how this sound is done? Is it tuning, equipment selection, playing technique or what?


Thanks,
sjl
 
I know exactly what you're talking about. I did a little searching but couldn't find any legit production notes on that particular song but first I would presume Joey Kramer used a DEEP Tama wooden snare drum tuned relatively low in comparison with the rest of the snare hits in that song. During the recording those days, he used a Tama Artstar drumset in the studio as I knew he was endorsing that line then and that was before the Starclassics came out. At any rate, I would say whatever snare drum he used would have to have been a deep (6-8x14") wooden artstar snare recorded in a big room BY ITSELF since that snare hit you're dicussing was an accented hit and was likely recorded by itself or hit with a 16-18" floor tom to give it some beef. I'm sure the engineers had to use a different technique to get that sound somehow or they just added a bunch of fat room reverb to that particular hit but I'm sure that the "big boys" like to do things on the real and use a real room instead of reverb units.
 
So, give the guy what he wants...just record a slamming door and be done with it!
 
Thanks gents,

I too am convinced that this "accent" snare was recorded on a seperate track. As I watch the video, there are no additional drums. Just wasn't sure if the sound came from a rim-shot or what.

Unfortunately, I don't have a deep/wooden snare available to me. I'm going to try a few detuned/eq'd accent tracks myself and see if I can get close.

Anyone know of a sampled drum product that might be useful for this?


sjl
 
Take a snare drum, tune the batter head as low as it will go, and record it on a track by itself.

Cut the mids on the EQ
Then, run it through a digital reverb (I would suggest a "Room" type of reverb).
Then Gate it. Then record this on another track.(this will free up the reverb unit, as well as the noise gate.)


The Gate will sharply cut off the Reverb Tail, so that what you get is that huge BLAM! in "Jamie's Got a Gun". (It's simulating a gunshot)


Finally, you may want to run this track through another reverb.


Tim
 
Thanks Tim,

When I get back to the studio on Friday, I'll give it a go.

I appreciate your time.



sjl
 
It sounds like there could be a floor tom mixed in. They could have also just slowed down a snare sample and mixed that in or a lot of different things. Compressing the reverb may help get a bigger sound.
 
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