Making Snares? How?

[Kaastro]

So I've been making dubstep for a while and I want to graduate from using pre-made snares. I still have not come across ANY tips/tricks/tutorials on how to make a real hard-hitting snare for drops. I really want to make a Zomboy-style snare that's really punchy but has hardly any decay noise and is just short and sweet. I have tried to compile stuff in Battery 4 but it all is weak. Does anyone know how to do it?

[wub]

These videos might help, making a snare drum in Ableton;

[+] Spoiler

[+] Spoiler

[Milaflore]

Hey Kaastro,

I feel you on this, getting the right snare can be a bit of a mission sometimes , for starters, to get the type of snare you're wanting you either have to layer snare samples or find a really decent single snare sample. The source sample is key. after that it's all about subtle effecting (compression, transient shaping, saturation etc).

It can be alot of tedious trial and error trying to find snare samples that fit together, it took me a good while to get the desired snare sound I was after, you just gotta persist. I have a total of 3 snare samples to make up my snare. you wanna cover low end, mid and high. For the type of snare you are wanting the low end is key for the punch and beef. I find a small boost at 200hz is always good, and also not low cutting the low end snare to high, usually the 'rule' is roll off up to around 200hz, but I find rolling off up to 140-150hz lets that little bit of extra low end come through which can make a big difference. Also try using a noise gate or similar effect on your snares and adjust to taste, noise gates are really good for only letting the initial hit come through without the tail which can sometimes take away the punchy effect you want.
I use a mix of either logic noise gate or shaack audio transient shaper, where there is a release knob which when you turn down takes out the tail but leaves the initial punch and transient. I really recommend that plugin, its amazing.

There are alot of sample packs/samples out there with really decent snare samples, you just gotta dig around. Some of the sample packs out there have some really decent snares right off the bat before even applying any processing.

I hope you manage to get the snare sound you want mate, and I hope I have been of some help to you.

[bouncingfish]

You've got to watch Letsynthesize/ Dan Larsson's videos on how to make dubstep snares. THat's very good.

[Augment]

I posted a short tutorial in this thread on how I make my snares, maybe you'll find it helpful
http://dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic ... 3&t=281693
I use the theory there to make snares like this, think it's what you're after
https://soundcloud.com/blinkesko/upcomi ... ew/s-OVddo
(0:14)

[Dadunn1700]

Hey Kaastro,

I feel you on this, getting the right snare can be a bit of a mission sometimes , for starters, to get the type of snare you're wanting you either have to layer snare samples or find a really decent single snare sample. The source sample is key. after that it's all about subtle effecting (compression, transient shaping, saturation etc).

It can be alot of tedious trial and error trying to find snare samples that fit together, it took me a good while to get the desired snare sound I was after, you just gotta persist. I have a total of 3 snare samples to make up my snare. you wanna cover low end, mid and high. For the type of snare you are wanting the low end is key for the punch and beef. I find a small boost at 200hz is always good, and also not low cutting the low end snare to high, usually the 'rule' is roll off up to around 200hz, but I find rolling off up to 140-150hz lets that little bit of extra low end come through which can make a big difference. Also try using a noise gate or similar effect on your snares and adjust to taste, noise gates are really good for only letting the initial hit come through without the tail which can sometimes take away the punchy effect you want.
I use a mix of either logic noise gate or shaack audio transient shaper, where there is a release knob which when you turn down takes out the tail but leaves the initial punch and transient. I really recommend that plugin, its amazing.

There are alot of sample packs/samples out there with really decent snare samples, you just gotta dig around. Some of the sample packs out there have some really decent snares right off the bat before even applying any processing.

I hope you manage to get the snare sound you want mate, and I hope I have been of some help to you.

Good stuff! I like to layer snares similarly. I'll also throw in a clap sometimes to help emphasize the "thwack" character most dubstep snares have. Gated reverbs are also great. I'll throw a long hall or plate reverb on the snare channel and apply a decent amount of wet, then apply a gate to get rid of the long reverb tail so it's only effecting the relative length of the snare sample itself. You could also bounce the reverbed snare to audio w/o the gate and cut out the long taiI with your DAW's audio editing tools. All depends on how you like to work. I realize this is nothing special...the gated reverbs on snares technique.....just thought I'd mention it since I haven't seen anybody mention it.

[LordOmega]

A good way to make super hard hitting snares without making them complete KOAN Sound rip-offs is to analyse the transients on different snare samples, so load some of your personal favourite snare samples in a DAW of your choice and see how each snare has the fundamental punch (Normally ranging from 200-250hz) this gives the snare that punchy sound. So if you were to put a notch at that fundamental point and remove it completely you would notice it would immediately turn from good to shit. So use that technique of boosting at 200hz when making your own snare samples.

How to make your own snare from scratch is pretty simple. This technique is how to make huge snare samples with a big airy tail.

First load up some kind of noise (White, Bright, Pink etc.) and fade it out at the end. This gives it a nice transient helps shape the snare. Then use either a triangle wave or parabol wave and distort it a bit, Ohmicide or CamelCrusher are good for distortion. Then place that on top of the noise, make sure the sample is very short and hits at 200hz. Then get an acoustic snare sample (There are loads on the internet) and place that on top of all that. Then compress the living shit out of it then boom you have yourself a pretty decent homemade snare sample

[skins345669]

commenting so i can come back to this some time

[R3b_Official]

Do basically everything said in this thread ^ the hardest part is finding the snare's you want to use or the type you want. If you want something more airy, use more white noise, if you want to punch more, use a tom and transient shaping tool and some careful compression.

This is how I made these awhile ago, feel free to download them
Soundcloud

Soundcloud

[Dioxine_]

I made this snare
https://soundcloud.com/diegovdx11/snare/s-s2S08

1. EQ
2. Transient Plugin, So you get punch
3. Compress
4. Reverb, It's just a thing that I like to do
5. More EQ, I just slightly boosted it around 200 Hz

It sounded a bit different in FL and in the drum beat