Page 1 of 3

snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:44 pm
by MikeCatlin
Im pretty new to producing and u just got Logic Pro...now i ve gotten pretty good with everything and making the beats themselves, but my snares just dont have that explosion sound to them..any help?

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:54 pm
by jrisreal
sample an explosion...thatll give you some explosion in your drums :6:

Nah, tbh i would like an answer too.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:57 pm
by Mannyyyyy
ill up some of my snares i have :D give me like 2 minutes

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:00 am
by Mannyyyyy
http://www.mediafire.com/?k8rshspmhka6hhc

i know how you feel, the very beginning of drums for me sample wise was terrible, now i just made your life a little easier ;)

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:07 am
by Astral
Start with good quality samples to begin with, adjust, compress, eq and layer to taste.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:10 am
by ogunslinger
you can't polish a turd... but you sure can layer it!

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:24 am
by budsteq
Mannyyyyy wrote:http://www.mediafire.com/?k8rshspmhka6hhc

i know how you feel, the very beginning of drums for me sample wise was terrible, now i just made your life a little easier ;)
cheers for the samples bud

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:30 am
by hasezwei
ogunslinger wrote:you can't polish a turd... but you sure can layer it!
i disagree. i've had snares i thought were absolutely crap, then put them into battery, pitched/compressed/eq'd it and bam. was THE SNAP 8)
if you then layer your polished turds it's gonna make your head explode.

but of course you're right if by turd you mean a horribly overcompressed or clipping or otherwise unusable sample.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:17 am
by drokkr
There has been a snare thread recently.

Use good quality samples, unless you are going for lofi sound but in this case you are clearly not.

Layer, EQ and experiment. After some time you will learn you own variation on this technique to have your own solid snares.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:17 pm
by jaydot
Sometimes you can go overboard with stuff like fx and EQ and compression, it's finding that balance. But when you get it right it's worth it.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:41 pm
by zerbaman
You need to boost at around 200hz in your EQ plugin. This will give your snares that bottom end boom.

I like going as deep as 100 on snares and 50 for kicks. Up to you at the end of the day

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 7:34 pm
by Dreadfunk
Pick 2 snares that sound really good already. One that is more low-mid thud, and one that has loads of snap (claps work good for this too). EQ so they don't conflict, and layer them up. Play with the envelopes.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:35 pm
by FuhNetIk
I personally kill everything below about 150 hz, boost the living hell out of ~200hz (usually a bit higher), and then boost treble freqs slightly to taste.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:38 pm
by Sparxy
FuhNetIk wrote:I personally kill everything below about 150 hz, boost the living hell out of ~200hz (usually a bit higher), and then boost treble freqs slightly to taste.
Ditto. I tend to layer 3 or so snares, pick 3 with distinctly different peaks - I usually go with 2 actual snares, one with lots of mid punch and one with mid-high peaks, with a third that is a clap for the highs. Whack most of your effects on your clap and mid-high snare, leave your mid one and boost it around 200hz. I would then group all 3 and EQ the lot, lowcutting at 150hz and boost again at around 200hz. EQ boost high end, somewhere between 1k-10k that sounds good.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 5:26 am
by jrisreal
Sparxy wrote:
FuhNetIk wrote:I personally kill everything below about 150 hz, boost the living hell out of ~200hz (usually a bit higher), and then boost treble freqs slightly to taste.
Ditto. I tend to layer 3 or so snares, pick 3 with distinctly different peaks - I usually go with 2 actual snares, one with lots of mid punch and one with mid-high peaks, with a third that is a clap for the highs. Whack most of your effects on your clap and mid-high snare, leave your mid one and boost it around 200hz. I would then group all 3 and EQ the lot, lowcutting at 150hz and boost again at around 200hz. EQ boost high end, somewhere between 1k-10k that sounds good.
this is good. sometimes, i just layer 7 or 8 snares lol just pick snares that have bits and pieces of the sound you are looking for

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 7:53 am
by JFK
jrisreal wrote: this is good. sometimes, i just layer 7 or 8 snares lol just pick snares that have bits and pieces of the sound you are looking for
Hows that working out for you? Getting any problems with transients cancelling each other out?

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 12:30 pm
by Kombatant
EQing and layering are the most important, but also negatively cutting frequencies out of everything else in the "snap" range gives it space to stand out. I also layer white noise on almost all my snares to give it more "pop" and high end.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:50 am
by jrisreal
JFK wrote:
jrisreal wrote: this is good. sometimes, i just layer 7 or 8 snares lol just pick snares that have bits and pieces of the sound you are looking for
Hows that working out for you? Getting any problems with transients cancelling each other out?
i dont really know much about transients and that kind of stuff but heres what i have to say:
if it sounds good, do it...i do it when it sounds good, not always

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 9:11 am
by Basic A
jrisreal wrote:
JFK wrote:
jrisreal wrote: this is good. sometimes, i just layer 7 or 8 snares lol just pick snares that have bits and pieces of the sound you are looking for
Hows that working out for you? Getting any problems with transients cancelling each other out?
i dont really know much about transients and that kind of stuff but heres what i have to say:
if it sounds good, do it...i do it when it sounds good, not always
7-8 is overkill, even if they are organic sounding woody bits thats going to turn into an incomprehensible burst of white noise, snares need character, they become a HUGE driving force in dubstep, nothing worse then them being nonsense, if you keep your layer numbers down and focus more on building a texture with your layering and building volume on your mixer youll go far. They can set the color of a whole track together if selected right...

150 seems altogether too high rolling off, and Im a fan of claps too. The snare really should creat an impact on all 3 ranges, low, mid, and high, and present a cohesive instrument/texture as a whole. But, as sharm once said, snares shouldnt sound like bike tassle's. Try leaving your snare sample un eq'd, then using a send/return to put an eq on it and then put your reverb after the eq, so you get original sound + eq'd verbed one... when they sum back together youll get twice the top end or half the bottom depending on how you look at it... Alot nicer then a full roll-off, leaves mea ton the bone.

Re: snare Drums sound like shit

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 9:22 am
by hakka
7-8 snares lol. Max you need is 2-3. Just make sure they are quality samples, even vengeance packs are good once you have eq'd them. My advice would be to just concentrate on getting 1 really good snare out of 2-3. Once you have eq'd them etc just export into one sample and play around with waveshapers. :4: