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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About layering snares* But Were Afraid to Ask



ill start..

i have 3 snares layered - they are eq'd so peaks don't clash, routed to a bus and compressed together.

I am sending the signal of only 1 of these snares to my reverb send

sounds good. ... but I fear I may be making a mistake?

Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch.

Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample and build up your sound like that.

Compressing all together is a good idea but don't over do it.

EQ the master out for the snare as well so you won't have to fuck about when you use the sample in the future.

Also, don't just use snares, fling some random sound effects in there. Claps and rim shots also work well when layered.

Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup, this helps when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identical.

just tune em till they sound good?

+5 points for referencing woody allen

watch that freq's don't build up and make the layered bit sound overly... whatever... is building up. really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 1.2k if you've got samples that are all beefy/thick/smack-y.

or-- let 'em build up and decide that it sounds badass. no rules.

Not really a question. But I find that layering a snare and kick together works well. I set the snare at 1000 - 4000 Htz and then have a kick set at 80 - 250 Htz set at 25% of the volume. This works well if you want a high pitch snare with a little bit of a low end kick to it without it sounding muddy in the mix down.
You can also play around with the frequency's (eg snare at 6000 - 10,000 Htz and kick at 80 - 500 Htz) so that things dont clash giving you a clearer more varied sound.

Junglist wrote:Not really a question. But I find that layering a snare and kick together works well. I set the snare at 1000 - 4000 Htz and then have a kick set at 80 - 250 Htz set at 25% of the volume. This works well if you want a high pitch snare with a little bit of a low end kick to it without it sounding muddy in the mix down.
You can also play around with the frequency's (eg snare at 6000 - 10,000 Htz and kick at 80 - 500 Htz) so that things dont clash giving you a clearer more varied sound.

Interesting, will try that. I still suck at layering, will try do set up a day just to make drums and experiment.

"sounds good. ... but I fear I may be making a mistake?"

!???????????????????????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!

Whineo wrote: sounds good. ... but I fear I may be making a mistake?

if it sounds good then theres literally nothing else to worry about, work on getting sounds nice before you start worrying about techinical accuracy and precision eqing.

Joe C wrote:"sounds good. ... but I fear I may be making a mistake?"

!???????????????????????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!

? loads of things can sound good but cause problems - not rolling off your bass at 25- 30 hz for example
It was a valid query.

drag snare. drop into channel. drag snare. drop into channel. fuck around with volume to get desired effect. mix a hard snare with a clappy snare to get a altered snare which is a mix between the two. don't like the sound, try a different snare and vice versa. it's a bit basic compared to what everyone else does, but it sounds alright for me

a tipped i recently picked up off american hiphop producers is to have 2 snares panned hard left and hard right, then tune one slightly up/down

this way they don't get in the way of the kick or anything else in the central spectrum

also bus together [or aux if you can... then send an amount of the aux to a reverb aux]

brap

Misk wrote:just tune em till they sound good?

Thats what i do!
I dont always go through this much trouble for a snare!

Whineo wrote:

Joe C wrote:"sounds good. ... but I fear I may be making a mistake?"

!???????????????????????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!

? loads of things can sound good but cause problems - not rolling off your bass at 25- 30 hz for example
It was a valid query.

If your worried about the new snare sound causing problems, listen to the whole mix through some crap dpeakers like the ones on laptops. Sometimes this will reveal if something that sounded sharp on your main monitors will sound overly peaky and dominant on different speakers.

ali jamieson wrote:a tipped i recently picked up off american hiphop producers is to have 2 snares panned hard left and hard right, then tune one slightly up/down

this way they don't get in the way of the kick or anything else in the central spectrum

also bus together [or aux if you can... then send an amount of the aux to a reverb aux]

brap

interesting, gonna try and fight again different panning laws of mixer buses

I've started Skreaming (reason distortion) my claps and they sound good. Should I continue?

BlizzardMusic wrote:I've started Skreaming (reason distortion) my claps and they sound good. Should I continue?

No you shouldnt.

Von wrote:

BlizzardMusic wrote:I've started Skreaming (reason distortion) my claps and they sound good. Should I continue?

No you shouldnt.

Why not?

Lol from time it's workin for him & he has to ask.... fail.


*sarcasm

i find layering in a subtle crash cymbal over your snare can give it a little bit more shine.