Dubstepforum.com

Hey DSF,

been a while since i posted anything, but I'm just gonna go straight ahead and hope I don't make people mad by posting this in this subboard:
How would you go about making a snare like this? the transient is crazy agressive and the body is perfect, it seems to have very little midrange apart from the lower mids but i can't seem to be able to figure out how to build anything close to this.
Characteristics to be considered:
-Short sample overall
-Agressive and short transient
-loud mids on transient, not on body(?)
but what about the tail of the thing? does it even have a tail? And what samples would you use for transient / body?
another thing i realized about snares like this is that they seem to have their peak around 200Hz even though it sounds way higher, how is that possible? Noticed this with some culprate tunes too...
To be honest I'd like to call out to blinkesko here specifically as well, since he seemed to have his drum design down pretty well when i saw his posts describing it and stuff
http://youtu.be/EEbWiv6SMt4?t=1m7s

haha holy shit, I barely browse this subforum and then I'm called out in one of the threads I open xD

But yeah, I spend alot of time working on drums and there's not really any secret apart from strong transients and short bodies.
For transients, I usually split them from the rest of the snare for the processing, makes it easier to keep the transient from going crazy, like this


An easy way to make a strong transient is to just take any sample with alot of frequency content, compress it like hell, resample, and place where it should be in a snare. White noise works wonders for this.
Keep in mind that the transient is a big contributor to how you percieve the sound of a snare as well, so eq'ing it so it better fits the rest of the snare can be nice.

Obviously, there's the 200hz pop that you want in your snare to make it pop through the mix and sound all tone-y, but, especially when you use 909's as a source material for the body, there's some harmonics around 700-ish hz that reaally can help make the snare sound harder aswell, just don't go overboard boosting this region as it can quickly turn into shite.

Source material is key of course, I have no idea where I find my source material, it's always some random pack I've downloaded or something, that I start messing about with, or it's something I've synthesized or whatever, it's never the same.
Once I've got the samples though, I usually just use some compression, distortion, I eq alot, and bam, it's a snare.

Notice btw, how short the snare on the pic is, and how strong the transient is. I've given away some snare on here that are half-decent, but they're pretty nice to look at for the length of everything.
http://dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p3454586
http://dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p3410693
If there's anything else you'd like to know, just ask away, I'll see if I can help

EDIT: One more tip, when I process my snares, I usually have a saw chord playing to hear how the snare would fit in a mix, makes it easier to notice if the transient is hard enough

Thanks for posting! Just realized my transients are probably trash, really need to get to work on them... so far, layering with snares i sampled from some random end 70s - early 80s records produced interesting results

just curious, why do you do a volume shift rather than just cutting out the base of the second snare, and the tail of the first?

Usually when I cut it, it doesn't cut the waveform at 0, so there's a pop added to the sound, making it clip. When I do it this way, I fade in one part, and out another, avoiding that added pop.

(Notice the difference in the waveforms)

blinkesko wrote:Usually when I cut it, it doesn't cut the waveform at 0, so there's a pop added to the sound, making it clip. When I do it this way, I fade in one part, and out another, avoiding that added pop.

(Notice the difference in the waveforms)

Smart. Props to ya.
Its this kind of work that separates high quality from normal quality.
Most people would shrug and say you couldn't hear it when the track plays.

But im sure thats not what major record labels think when they hear it...

WolfCryOfficial wrote:

blinkesko wrote:Usually when I cut it, it doesn't cut the waveform at 0, so there's a pop added to the sound, making it clip. When I do it this way, I fade in one part, and out another, avoiding that added pop.

(Notice the difference in the waveforms)

Smart. Props to ya.
Its this kind of work that separates high quality from normal quality.
Most people would shrug and say you couldn't hear it when the track plays.

But im sure thats not what major record labels think when they hear it...

Haha, yeah I'm really technical when it comes to stuff like this. I've started bouncing out all the stems for my tracks for the mixdown, since I noticed pops in the stems of my old tracks that I didn't hear until I knew they were there.
Also, since the pop added to the snare there makes it go over 0db, it effectively makes the rest quieter unless you compress/limit it.

blinkesko wrote:haha holy shit, I barely browse this subforum and then I'm called out in one of the threads I open xD

But yeah, I spend alot of time working on drums and there's not really any secret apart from strong transients and short bodies.
For transients, I usually split them from the rest of the snare for the processing, makes it easier to keep the transient from going crazy, like this


An easy way to make a strong transient is to just take any sample with alot of frequency content, compress it like hell, resample, and place where it should be in a snare. White noise works wonders for this.
Keep in mind that the transient is a big contributor to how you percieve the sound of a snare as well, so eq'ing it so it better fits the rest of the snare can be nice.

Obviously, there's the 200hz pop that you want in your snare to make it pop through the mix and sound all tone-y, but, especially when you use 909's as a source material for the body, there's some harmonics around 700-ish hz that reaally can help make the snare sound harder aswell, just don't go overboard boosting this region as it can quickly turn into shite.

Source material is key of course, I have no idea where I find my source material, it's always some random pack I've downloaded or something, that I start messing about with, or it's something I've synthesized or whatever, it's never the same.
Once I've got the samples though, I usually just use some compression, distortion, I eq alot, and bam, it's a snare.

Notice btw, how short the snare on the pic is, and how strong the transient is. I've given away some snare on here that are half-decent, but they're pretty nice to look at for the length of everything.
http://dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p3454586
http://dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p3410693
If there's anything else you'd like to know, just ask away, I'll see if I can help

EDIT: One more tip, when I process my snares, I usually have a saw chord playing to hear how the snare would fit in a mix, makes it easier to notice if the transient is hard enough

1. Blink, I would really love your help and just how do you build a strong transient from 909s? And if you've heard All Is Fair In Love And Brostep, how do you make the snare from that? If you can explain to me, can you explain to me thoroughly?
2. I really want you to answer this one. How can you make this snare with 909s or whatever?
Soundcloud

blinkesko wrote:haha holy shit, I barely browse this subforum and then I'm called out in one of the threads I open xD

But yeah, I spend alot of time working on drums and there's not really any secret apart from strong transients and short bodies.
For transients, I usually split them from the rest of the snare for the processing, makes it easier to keep the transient from going crazy, like this


An easy way to make a strong transient is to just take any sample with alot of frequency content, compress it like hell, resample, and place where it should be in a snare. White noise works wonders for this.
Keep in mind that the transient is a big contributor to how you percieve the sound of a snare as well, so eq'ing it so it better fits the rest of the snare can be nice.

Obviously, there's the 200hz pop that you want in your snare to make it pop through the mix and sound all tone-y, but, especially when you use 909's as a source material for the body, there's some harmonics around 700-ish hz that reaally can help make the snare sound harder aswell, just don't go overboard boosting this region as it can quickly turn into shite.

Source material is key of course, I have no idea where I find my source material, it's always some random pack I've downloaded or something, that I start messing about with, or it's something I've synthesized or whatever, it's never the same.
Once I've got the samples though, I usually just use some compression, distortion, I eq alot, and bam, it's a snare.

Notice btw, how short the snare on the pic is, and how strong the transient is. I've given away some snare on here that are half-decent, but they're pretty nice to look at for the length of everything.
http://dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p3454586
http://dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p3410693
If there's anything else you'd like to know, just ask away, I'll see if I can help

EDIT: One more tip, when I process my snares, I usually have a saw chord playing to hear how the snare would fit in a mix, makes it easier to notice if the transient is hard enough

That's what Noisia use. They said it in their In Studio video.