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Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 12:17 am
by le_knigh
Basically reached a point where i dont know if im eq'n my snares correctly..?
My problem is this , simply when ive added my reverb ( i use abience vst ? ) to a under lay of snare i still find that tin sound inside of pain steaking hours of tweaking ,i know my way around ambience well etc ,
i add eq
i dont send the under lays to differnt channels ?
i mash thse snares up but i jus feel im not doing it right no matter what i do i can not get that crisp sound snap without the tin that most really nice snares have ??
If thier is any read ups or any help will be much appriciated defo feeling my time in this loop labour and ear fatigue bizness with it all ..
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 12:28 am
by Sharmaji
find where it sucks between 1 and 3k, tightly notch that out.
boost broadly around 5k.
too much 5-8k will make the drum sound papery.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 12:47 am
by rockonin
Have you tried adding the reverb as a send rather than an insert? You can also add high pass filter to the reverb to clean it up. Also use a frequency analyser to see whats happening with your snares.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 1:28 am
by PillowFight
boost the shit out of 200-245hz wherever it hits best.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 1:58 am
by le_knigh
Cheers fellas , I know Litle about alot of word play I know i gota learn this , most I've found from tutrorials and self taught etc..
I wouldn't know about boosting in 3 - 5 k but I will gladly take it in and research that bro ,
My interest lies with this sending etc i don't know you could explain how I go about it ,all I do is insert on the mixer and add things etc
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 3:26 pm
by Dj Rephlex
Sharmaji wrote:find where it sucks between 1 and 3k, tightly notch that out.
boost broadly around 5k.
too much 5-8k will make the drum sound papery.
This is how I would do it

couple db of boost around 6k usually fixes most problems in the high end, I also use complimenting Eq to highlight the punch of the snare so the snare punches through all of the sounds in the same frequency range while crushing the tail into the rest of the mix to take the focus off of tin can reverb effect. Mess with the wetness/size of reverb aswell, I usually get the tin can sound when there's too much wetness and not enough size.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 4:26 pm
by Sharmaji
the snare is one of the really obvious elements that determines how bright the track is overall. Thus, in certain tunes it may sound dark when solo'd, but fits nicely into the spectrum when everything is chugging along.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 7:48 pm
by goldengrime
troopa wrote:Cheers fellas , I know Litle about alot of word play I know i gota learn this , most I've found from tutrorials and self taught etc..
I wouldn't know about boosting in 3 - 5 k but I will gladly take it in and research that bro ,
My interest lies with this sending etc i don't know you could explain how I go about it ,all I do is insert on the mixer and add things etc
What DAW are you using and im sure you could easily google it. Ableton channel sends etc would bring something up. im pretty sure any DAW will allow you to do it in a couple of seconds so im sure a tutorial for it wont take you more than 5 mins to find which is much fast than replying on here then waiting for another reply back to ya. Just saying.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 9:00 pm
by le_knigh
Yea I duno why asked be fair half asleep cus I did reaserch on YouTube and was some tutorials appreciate the help tho havnt tried as yet but is defo on the cards ...
I don't understand fella what you mean by boost are you adding some sort of eq an then boosting certain parts ?
What do you mean by boost 6 k etc ?
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 2:18 am
by Dj Rephlex
Oh my... Sounds like you should focus on learning mixing as a whole for a little bit... Yes, 6k means 6,000... Boost means to raise so yes, clearly you are raising a band on the spectrum... Boosting at 6,000hz
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 4:03 am
by constrobuz
fucking production forum.
every snare sample is different, so people telling you to boost or cut certain frequencies are wrong, you could just end up making muddy sounding snares. use a graphic/spectrum equalizer, and boost wherever it looks like its hitting particularly hard, and cut out the freqs that are not essential to the character/sound of the snare.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 5:20 am
by Sure_Fire
constrobuz wrote:fucking production forum.
every snare sample is different, so people telling you to boost or cut certain frequencies are wrong, you could just end up making muddy sounding snares. use a graphic/spectrum equalizer, and boost wherever it looks like its hitting particularly hard, and cut out the freqs that are not essential to the character/sound of the snare.
This. Odds are the OP isn't using decent snare samples to begin with anyway. A good tip would be to use raw, uncompressed samples and High pass to get rid of any sub frequencies you don't need, then start working on EQ an compression from there. As for reverb, remember that reverb essentially pushes things back in a mix, so using heaps of it on percussion will make them less pronounced. That's a problem since the kick an snare are such good indicators of how the mix is sitting as a whole, if the snare is too far back then the whole mix is probably gonna lack a bit of punch (for lack of a better word) and you'll probably lose some clarity.
As far as snares go, whatever sounds good is what you should go with, there is no right and wrong. Unless you're high passing to 5khz or something. Don't do that.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 4:41 pm
by fatclown
i cant seem to get a snare sound i am happy with either, but i will try some of this stuff
i am trying to get a really fat, hard hitting snare. i have read before that boosting the low end helps give a snare more "oomph" so i boost around 150 or 200hz. but it seems like i have to boost A LOT. is it common to boost this area by like 9db or more? this was also on my headphones, so i will try it on my monitors soon.
also, is it common that the snare peaks slightly higher than the kick?
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 7:59 pm
by Perej
fatclown wrote:i cant seem to get a snare sound i am happy with either, but i will try some of this stuff
i am trying to get a really fat, hard hitting snare. i have read before that boosting the low end helps give a snare more "oomph" so i boost around 150 or 200hz. but it seems like i have to boost A LOT. is it common to boost this area by like 9db or more? this was also on my headphones, so i will try it on my monitors soon.
also, is it common that the snare peaks slightly higher than the kick?
Layer them. Parallel compress them. Saturate them. Then if necessary, add a plugin like Bittersweet in order to make them thwack alot.
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:31 pm
by le_knigh
All of my samples are clean , thiers no extra tails or anything like that i understand that part ,, its funny you guys mention about boosting lows etc as ive noticed that it does take some of the tin out but seems to mud out the sound >?
its not the punch i lack i get that a low end boost / compression sorts punch etc is just more the tin effect .
i need to find this frequency analiser and really get down to this maybe this is my issue , im not so sure on the high pass filter something i shall look into i use ambience so it doesnt have and of that on it to my knowledge anyway ..
some great stuf thoough i didnt know so is much appriciated
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:33 pm
by le_knigh
what would you mean by saturate ?
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:34 pm
by le_knigh
also i use fl 10 as my daw
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 8:56 pm
by rockonin
Here are two good frequency analysers that are free. The Voxengo Span is better in my opinion.
Span
http://www.voxengo.com/product/span/
FreqAnalyst
http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Pr ... eqAnalyst/
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:47 am
by kale
yo,
I was wondering is there any way you can cut a frequency off at a certain point eliminating the higher frequencies without a curve in the EQ line? I mean like, could you cut it off directly at a certain frequency so that the EQ line goes directly vertical instead of tapering off diagonally? peace
Re: Snares and Eq
Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:00 am
by constrobuz
kale wrote:yo,
I was wondering is there any way you can cut a frequency off at a certain point eliminating the higher frequencies without a curve in the EQ line? I mean like, could you cut it off directly at a certain frequency so that the EQ line goes directly vertical instead of tapering off diagonally? peace
thats when you use a filter lol