snare Drums sound like shit

[Kes-Es]

Good sounds to begin with tend to help, I run all my snares dry, or at the most I reverb them, so hunt some fucking snares down, child.

And fuck all that white noise layer nonsense, sounds like cack.
And don't over compress a shitty snare, because it's not getting punchier, it's just louder and still a cack snare.
Use a tight reverb on it instead of a huge one, which will sap your snare and also fuck with everything else as well, use an already boomy snare or clap if you're going for that sound, layer it underneath your snare, and reverb that instead.

[Kombatant]

Eq, transient shape, compress, transient shape, inflate (and I mean +18db) dump back to wave, repeat as needed.

[oscyy]

alot of sample pack snares ive encountered (VEC anyone?) sound like they've already been compressed, eq'd /generally altered so that novice producers can chuck them straight in a track and achieve a passable sound without needing extensive knowledge of sound design.. bit irritating if you expect a blank canvas.

im no expert producer by any stretch of the imagination, but i wouldnt go squashing the living bejeezus out of a snare in an attempt to make it snap more. I tend to subtly cut below around 200hz or high pass to the same effect, perhaps a very minor, wide boost around 6k or layering of any other sound with nice high end content, doesn't have to be another snare necessarily.

[hankerins]

Making your snares sound good really depends on what kind of snare sounds good to you. You might want to search the forums for a "trying to sound like ______" thread, filling in an artist whose snares you dig.

The one bit of advice I'll give is that part of making your drums sound good is what you put around them. Sidechain compression on the rest of your track can create more headroom for your snare and make it sound bigger than it is. Also, a generally uncompressed mix combined with a highly compressed snare will really bring it out. EQing out space for your snare is another technique, but whats most important is that you try everything you can think of and see what actually strikes YOU as good.

[Dreadfunk]

1. Find some tracks with Kick/Snare intros or outros
2. Steal that shit
4. ????
5. Profit