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Hope all those drum topics are not annoying... yet I know they are.

However...

How do you deal with the snare in particular? I have quite a bit of trouble with it. Seems to be quiet but still.... the little bastard peaks ALOT! How can I deal with this? I want it to bang, but not fuck the track up.

Johnny Beat wrote:Hope all those drum topics are not annoying... yet I know they are.

However...

How do you deal with the snare in particular? I have quite a bit of trouble with it. Seems to be quiet but still.... the little bastard peaks ALOT! How can I deal with this? I want it to bang, but not fuck the track up.

You got an audio clip for an example?


If it's peaking, run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where it's peaking. I guess it's peaking in the tune, rather than just the snare sample playing on it's own?

Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesn't seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping. Reduce that part by a few dBs and you're sorted.

@ Daft tnuc
This kind of worked, but still to get the snare sounding right (to my ears at least) it is way over the average RMS level. I just can't be able to make it stand out in the mix.

Have you tryed limiting + compression?

yeah, the correct amount of limiting and compression will fix this

just make sure you dont over do either one

xTheWiddler wrote:yeah, the correct amount of limiting and compression will fix this

just make sure you dont over do either one

yuppp

Compression is something that still evokes the famous phrase "In the quiet words of the Virgin Queen Mary... come again?" in my mind.

I've been reading alot on it lately but can't seem to really get the hang of it.
It's the process of lowering the peaks beyond a threshold by a certain amount of ratio, but I don't get how this makes beats "fatter" still.

lol

make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds. if your frequencies are clashing, that can "hide" the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peaking.

the key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they don't clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up.

also panning your snare (stereo spread panning) can allow it to sit better and it will bring the volume down a bit as well.

sapphic_beats wrote:
also panning your snare (stereo spread panning) can allow it to sit better and it will bring the volume down a bit as well.

swap the pan or just leave it off centre?

I always thought snares should be centre but maybe have a tiny bit of delay that swaps.

I'd think about how much time your spending on this snare sound. It's great that it might lead you to tackle compression and you'll learn stuff on the way BUT why not go through your snare folder in your sample library and find something with better presence at lower volume? it might help the whole mix and keep the show rolling.

That said, it sounds like the transient (inital milliseconds of the whack of the snare) thats causing hassle try a compressor with maximum fast attack time and a fast release time, with look-ahead turned on if you have it. A ratio between 2:1 and 5:1 and set the threshold so the gain reduction is more than 6db. This will quieten the inital attack transient of the sound and drag up the latter half of the snare at the same time. It might rob the snare of its feel though so play with the settings. Good luck

Serox wrote:

sapphic_beats wrote:
also panning your snare (stereo spread panning) can allow it to sit better and it will bring the volume down a bit as well.

swap the pan or just leave it off centre?

I always thought snares should be centre but maybe have a tiny bit of delay that swaps.

i tend to pan it stereo, meaning in the drum channel pan to, say, the left and in the main mixer, pan to right. so you are basically giving it some stereo width. i only do VERY subtle panning like this (meaning i still keep it pretty damn close to center), but it does make some room to breathe for certain instruments.

course, it may make more sense to pan some of the other elements in this fashion; ones that you can do more drastic panning with: say the hi hats or other percussion elements. that way you open up more room in the center for the snare itself, can keep it centered, and bring the volume down so it's not conflicting with the other percussions.

sapphic_beats wrote:
i tend to pan it stereo, meaning in the drum channel pan to, say, the left and in the main mixer, pan to right. so you are basically giving it some stereo width. i only do VERY subtle panning like this (meaning i still keep it pretty damn close to center), but it does make some room to breathe for certain instruments.

course, it may make more sense to pan some of the other elements in this fashion; ones that you can do more drastic panning with: say the hi hats or other percussion elements. that way you open up more room in the center for the snare itself, can keep it centered, and bring the volume down so it's not conflicting with the other percussions.

Yeh thats cool I get you. I do the same thing and often have very light sounds panned really far and going from left to right, very random tho.

you could always try clipping the snare, normalise it in a wave editor, amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted, then sample it out.

then replace the snare with the clipped version, it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume.

I would still point out that altho this can be used as a replacement to compression, compression is a vital tool to learn how to use.

Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform, and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO

dont fuck with your eq too much.

when youre cutting freqs you can boost up the volume
when youre boosting freqs you must lower the volume

R wrote:dont fuck with your eq too much.

when youre cutting freqs you can boost up the volume
when youre boosting freqs you must lower the volume

i rarely, if ever, boost eq. subtractive all the way.

i dont say its a must. its just a kind of 'rule' that most of the peeps apply

That's a lot of interesting info, thanks a lot mates!

monstrous wrote:you could always try clipping the snare, normalise it in a wave editor, amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted, then sample it out.

then replace the snare with the clipped version, it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume.

I would still point out that altho this can be used as a replacement to compression, compression is a vital tool to learn how to use.

Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform, and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO

i like this technique. works well if you use a bounced down version of all your drumz to if you need some more umph on your drumz in general. soemtimes even layering the clipped version with the original dynamic version will lend great results.

hipass, overdrive, limit, and cut away space from other sounds for it.