Dubstepforum.com

I hardly ever have a question regarding production. But I've been trying for a very long time to recreate these type of snares in my tracks. Now I know the usual drill....find the right samples, layer etc. But I'm almost sure that there is another technique involved that im missing to get them sounding like these in my examples. I can hear the reverb in there, which is a given with the type of dubstep I make, but the initial hit and timbre of them just eludes me!

Anyway, heres a couple of examples





I figured someone here might know what I'm missing? I've played with pitch, eq, layering, different samples etc, but I'm fighting a losing battle lol!

Download some rimshots (Futuregarageforum have a couple of free packs if you search)

I have a great rimshot samplepack on my computer with sounds like these,unfortunately I'm not at home but just Google "free rimshots" or something and you'll find it.

it's widely known that kryptic minds sampled field recordings of them hitting trees and shit for snares. not sure if these exact ones are wood snares, but that might be something worth looking into.

dubunked wrote:it's widely known that kryptic minds sampled field recordings of them hitting trees and shit for snares. not sure if these exact ones are wood snares, but that might be something worth looking into.

I think that was just (or mainly) for organic

Brothulhu wrote:

dubunked wrote:it's widely known that kryptic minds sampled field recordings of them hitting trees and shit for snares. not sure if these exact ones are wood snares, but that might be something worth looking into.

I think that was just (or mainly) for organic

Sounds like Three Views a secret and a few other tracks have it too. The masterclass where they reveal that they sampled themselves hitting tree's is them deconstructing the track "No More No Less" I thought too.
Not nitpicking at you btw Just that I think they have done it for quite a few tracks

But I mean even if it's not used in that particular trakc, the OP might still want to try it out, that's why I mentioned it.

You'll definitely be wanting some rimshot samples to get that sound man! Try and find some free packs, Computer Music CDs are often a good source. Great thing about using rimshots is that they are simple to put into your tune, they require very little layering and often you can just chuck it in with a bit of reverb, EQ and it's good to go. A good tactic I find is to layer a rimshot with a clap, bus and compress them. Put all the verb on your clap, NOT the rimshot, the rimshot will sound nice and crisp whilst the verbed clap with give it a nice tail. Sometimes you'll want it dry though. If you struggle to get it sitting proper in the mix its worth running an EQ spike up and down it to see where the "smack" is, then boost in that region

Happy sample hunting

Also one other thing... rimshots are often just really intense flashes of noise. You can get good results by recording yourself hitting things like pots, pans, pieces of wood etc. As someone else mentioned KM are known to have done this. I once made a tasty rimshotty snare by hitting the drum of a washing machine with a ruler, and I used it in the tune below...

Soundcloud

Thanks guys, this has helped me a lot!

layer a wood block hit with a clap