Snare Drum Compression?

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JenniferNorth

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Hi,

I'm having a little trouble recording a snare drum. The sound I'm getting is very high and ping-ish like a tight tom, rather than the snare crack. And, I'm thinking the problem is my compression settings...I'm using a shure SM57, I've tried to mic above and below. But, the sound is still terrible. So if anyone has any advice for compression settings, It would be appreciated.

thanks...
 
JenniferNorth said:
Hi,

I'm having a little trouble recording a snare drum. The sound I'm getting is very high and ping-ish like a tight tom, rather than the snare crack. And, I'm thinking the problem is my compression settings...I'm using a shure SM57, I've tried to mic above and below. But, the sound is still terrible. So if anyone has any advice for compression settings, It would be appreciated.

thanks...
Click to expand...

Do you already have some sort of compression on? What does it sound like when you bypass the Compressor completely? Go into the room and listen to the sound of the drum itself. My immediate reaction to the problem is tuning. That's where I'd start. If you like the sound of the drum by itself, the next step would be mic placement. It's not just a matter of top or bottom, but also angle and distance. Mess around with that next.
 
Compression isn't going to get rid of "a very high and ping-ish like a tight tom". That sounds like a tuning and or/micing problem. It should still sound like a snare even with no compression on it.
 
If the snare sounds like that in the room, there is nothing you are going to do with a mic and a compressor that will change that. It sounds like a tuning issue, and possibly a setup issue with the snare wires.
 
The sound of a close-miked snare often lacks much rattle from the snares and is mostly just the attack of the stick hitting the drum. Miking the bottom should get you closer, but you really need to blend in the overheads/room mics to get a better representation of the snare sound. YMMV.

The Blockfish compressor has a decent snare preset, and the SSL LMC-1 compressor kicks some butt on snare, too.
 
It sounds like a tuning issue to me to. But one thing I do sometimes on the snare to get rid of ringing is to lay a small rag on the edge of the snare right under the mic. You might try that. Sometimes I will also use a little piece of duck tape on the snare too. Whatever works.
 
The drums sounds great in the room. I used an evans torque drum key to tune it...I am using compression. But, I'm new to compression...so I'm using a compression settings sheet that I found on-line for all of the settings. I have to tune the snare really low-loose to get a descent sound with the comp setting I found. Without compression the drum sounds better but, not really what I'm wanting. So far I've totally relied on my overheads for the snare sound. I just can't seem to get a good sound with the mic placed near the snare.
 
JenniferNorth said:
The drums sounds great in the room. I used an evans torque drum key to tune it...I am using compression. But, I'm new to compression...so I'm using a compression settings sheet that I found on-line for all of the settings. I have to tune the snare really low-loose to get a descent sound with the comp setting I found. Without compression the drum sounds better but, not really what I'm wanting. So far I've totally relied on my overheads for the snare sound. I just can't seem to get a good sound with the mic placed near the snare.
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Don't tune your snare to fit some compression setting. That's backwards. Compression should be used to flavor the snare once it's already set the way you like it. I would suggest going to back to tuning the snare so it sounds good in the room, and experiment with mic placement, and just ignore the compression completely for the tracking phase. Or at least get everything as good as you can without compression, and then experiment a little bit with it at that point.

How are you pointing the mic at the drum? Do you have two mics to be able to mic the top and bottom, maybe that will help get you to the sound you want. Remember it's not just a matter of tuning the heads, the tightness/looseness of the snares will also affect the sound.
 
RAK said:
Don't tune your snare to fit some compression setting. That's backwards. Compression should be used to flavor the snare once it's already set the way you like it. I would suggest going to back to tuning the snare so it sounds good in the room, and experiment with mic placement, and just ignore the compression completely for the tracking phase. Or at least get everything as good as you can without compression, and then experiment a little bit with it at that point.

How are you pointing the mic at the drum? Do you have two mics to be able to mic the top and bottom, maybe that will help get you to the sound you want. Remember it's not just a matter of tuning the heads, the tightness/looseness of the snares will also affect the sound.
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I'm just not sure how the different controls of a compression rack change the sound. I'll try that, thanks.
 
JenniferNorth said:
I'm just not sure how the different controls of a compression rack change the sound. I'll try that, thanks.
Click to expand...

Well let me start here. Do you know what a compressor is suppose to do, or why it is used? A Compressor is a type of dynamic signal processor. I don't want to go into too much detail if you already know, but understanding what it does is step one, understanding how to work the controls is step two.
 
RAK's question is very valid. A compressor doesn't really "change the sound" of anything. Of course, anything you apply to a sound will change it in some way, but a compressor affects the volume and/or volume envelope of a sound more than actually changing the sound itself. Your question seems to apply more to an EQ or a reverb, etc....
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I understand what compression is used for. I want the snare to keep a similar volume through the song. And, bring it up a bit in the mix. But, I have recorded at studios were the engineer used compression to add some punch to the snare mix (That's what he told me). I could tell a difference in the sound. I'm fine with compressing vocals, bass, guitar...I have good grasp on that. But, the snare is something I'm really picky about.

Thanks for the advice though. I'm going try a few things tonight that you have suggested.
 
if you want a compressor to add some beef to your snare track, you'll want to run it parallel vs. in-line

in simple terms, double the snare track and compress one of them while leaving the other un-touched, rather than applying the compressor to a single snare track
 
JenniferNorth said:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I understand what compression is used for. I want the snare to keep a similar volume through the song. And, bring it up a bit in the mix. But, I have recorded at studios were the engineer used compression to add some punch to the snare mix (That's what he told me). I could tell a difference in the sound. I'm fine with compressing vocals, bass, guitar...I have good grasp on that. But, the snare is something I'm really picky about.

Thanks for the advice though. I'm going try a few things tonight that you have suggested.
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Good luck! If you understand how to use the compressor with the bass, guitar, and vocals, then you should be okay there. Same concepts on snare (although obviously the attack/decay times would be different), but as long as you understand the concepts, that's the important thing.

I would definetly say tuning is first step, Also you can experiment with EQ to bring out a little snap, but that should be secondary to tuning and mic placement. Just remember anything you put to tape can't be undone. You can always eq/compress during the mix stage.
 
Try this, YMMV.
Set the compressor for 4/1 with a med fast attack and a medium release.
Set the threshold so that the hits are about 6db into the reduction.

Now, play with the attack to see how it changes the sound, then play with the release to see how that affects it.

Once you get your bearings, you may want to back off on the ratio or ease up on the threshold. (or you may want to bear down and set it for 'stun')
 
You guys don't compress drums when your tracking do you? I ussually record dry and add comression and reverb when I mix.
 
David M said:
You guys don't compress drums when your tracking do you? I ussually record dry and add comression and reverb when I mix.
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I used to, when I had a limited number of compressors to work with. Now, I do it all in the mix.
 
If you are using a metal snare, the problem is definately tuning related and you should use a good muffle ring. drop the tuning a notch and try the ring before you do anything else. I had the same problem and that fixed me right up.

I've recently gone to muffle gels and they seem to work as good as the rings but at 1/4 the cost. Guitar Center can help you with the muffle gels.
 
snare

Micing snare drum is the most bitch ass suck ass fuck ass part of recording. I HATE HATE HATE recording snare. You can tune it PERFECTLY and it will sound just how you always wanted to your ears and the room and mic will still give you back utter shit without caring.

FULLY CUT THE MIDRANGE THEN SWEEP FREQ UNTIL THE SNARE SOUNDS USEABLE.
 
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