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I noticed in plenty of professional tracks that the snare has some sort of 3D feel to it, they sound nice and wide, layered and crisp. I am wondering if there are any cool tricks to create a wider and more prominent snare? I understand having it hit 200hz respectively with great high frequencies as well but my snares sound like they lack in depth? I apply parallel compression, layering, and may also add ozone 5s stereo imager to widen the high end a bit and they still somewhat lack in sonic power lol. Im having a hard time recalling this interesting trick on how to create a more 3d and wider feel to your snares but I sadly last that link on my damaged computer, it had something to do with sends and returns? I unno, but yeah, lately I've been working on sound design and sampling than the song structures themselves in the time being. so yea, any help is appreciated

Hi man I've got a tutorial series going and the 2nd part covers specifically the snare:-

http://evolutionmastering.com/mixdown002.html

Have a read through that, should have a few pointers in there for you

lowpass wrote:Hi man I've got a tutorial series going and the 2nd part covers specifically the snare:-

http://evolutionmastering.com/mixdown002.html

Have a read through that, should have a few pointers in there for you

Once you have the basis sorted then pick your reverbs wisely, it makes it difficult as hell trying to differentiate the subtleties between different reverbs in an untreated room so if that's the case it may be easier to monitor through headphones for this bit.

Also try experimenting with delay's, slap-back echo's and such can help make a sound more interesting for sure!

Multiband reverb only on the high end, layering kick under the snare or layering some random noises works sometimes, just try stuff

Watch the funtcase masterclass he does a pretty good job of explaining punchy snares

• Set a send from the snare channel and slap reverb on the send 100% wet.
• Place a gate on the send and key the dry channel to open/close the gate on the reverb send [wet channel] via the dry signal.
• Set the gate sensitivity e.t.c. to taste and mix it back in with the dry channel.

You now have a lot more stereo width but without the tail of the reverb as everything is kept in time with the dry snare's amplitude envelope. You can also mess about with EQ/filtering e.t.c. on the send after the gate/reverb to play with which frequencies are widened.

Is this the kinda thing you're talking about?

summat i just wanted to add is what ive been doing lately to give the snares a kinda subtle cool effect, slap a simple delay on the snare and set the different delay times to really quite short and slightly different from eachother. think its known as heartbeat effect and u get a cool spacey feel too it, layer that with some other snares so it sits in the background and there you go. learned that from a tutorial so cant take credit for it, cant remember which one it was either so i cant link you it.

actually i think it was ascianuk's vids but not sure.

I find you can get a good punchy/boosted snare by boosting the EQ 180 - 220 Hz (different resonance point for each snare) then putting it through camelcrusher. I use a lighter tube based distortion (or just go for the uk light preset and change it to taste).

Some snares sound really bad boosted, though... just gotta find the right one

wow thanks for the awesome feedback guys! especially lowpass and turnipish, that was actually the trick I was trying to recall
Off to it

This is my opinion on big snares and what I do and what works for me, it's not gospel by any means

If you want punchy snares and big sounding its not always about stereo widening them or having them wide at all. You'll find in most of the popular produced 'brosteppy/tearout' (pardon the terms haha) tracks that the snares alot of the time sit very central. Think of your drums as a drum kit this will help you visualise where the certain elements should sit. (i.e. Snare and Kick are central).
I am not saying a really wide snare is not going to sound good but I have just found that snares sitting in the center sound nicer in the overall mix.

I layer up 3 snares, one low very short and heavy on the attack snare (almost wooden sounding), one mid range and one high. I use compression on each snare, eq them so they dont clash, and a transient shaper on each track and on the snare bus. To get a very snappy big snare transient shaping/enveloping can be your best friend if used correctly. Also try not to use tons of reverb or at least use it wisely as it can in some cases weaken the sound of the attack of the snare. (where the real punch comes from).

But at the end of the day the above is just what I find works, I am sure there a other guys who use very different techniques and get very big sounding snares.

if you are going to add some reverb, dial in some pre-delay so that there is gap between the transient and reverb. helps keep things punchier whilst still adding space

When layering it with claps for high end, use two different mono clap samples, one brighter / crispier than the other, 100% pan one to the right, one to the left, eq, layer it with your snare, then add a sample delay to the whole thing. Gated reverb on the highs help too.

I know the snare you speak of and I have made it!!! Honestly, I made this snare one day. It took me about 4 hrs. but I use it on almost all my tracks, or some variation of it!
I layered, eq'd, compressed, a thick snare, a thick clap, a high snappy snare, a high snappy clap, a pitched tom(around 200,) and 808 snare, and a pitched white noise sample. Light reverb. Seriously, this snare is sick! It 's almost comparable to the kick. Hits hard as fuck!

Your using the same snare on all your tracks.....

ehbrums1 wrote:Your using the same snare on all your tracks.....

yea..no.

MassAphekt wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:Your using the same snare on all your tracks.....

yea..no.

Your snares seems to be pretty spot on, but from listening to your songs, your mixing skills are not that great, work on giving the drums some room to breath in the frequency spectrum.

word,thanks for the update
I am definitely gonna put these practices to use today

Ok!

You want one low sounding snare, with not much of a tail on it
You want a middle frequency snare, your typical hard hitting snare you want it nice and dry
Now you want a nice clap, which fills up the higher frequencies.

Slash on a bit of reverb on your clap, and perhaps but like 15% stereo seperation if you want.

Now to get that clicky snare, you dont want much of a tail on the low and middle snares, which should also have good attack.
The most important bit is compressing the low snare! To get your low snare to stand out to get that full sounding smack, perhaps turn down the threshold until you can hear it coming through the mix

ParaTroXic