Punchy Snares

any tips on how to get your snares punchy?



my results have been very squishy lately. I am definitely compressing to much with some overdrive.



Im really tryin to get the snare to punch out of the mix strongly.

Have you tried using a transient shaper?

Slap a spectrum on the snare channel and see where its punching through and boost with an eq a bit then cut that same frequency from other sounds like your bass or if you have a kick under the snare slide the snare a little to the left…to make the snare punchy use compression + EQ + Transients + sometimes i use a waveshaper and sometimes i use a limiter to squash

[quote]Subject 1 (16/05/2011)[hr]Slap a spectrum on the snare channel and see where its punching through and boost with an eq a bit then cut that same frequency from other sounds like your bass or if you have a kick under the snare slide the snare a little to the left…to make the snare punchy use compression + EQ + Transients + sometimes i use a waveshaper and sometimes i use a limiter to squash[/quote]





That’s awesome man. Thank you so much…

:slight_smile:

Make sure to layer your snares and eq

I had this problem recently i had a snare that was heavily reverbed and when everything was playing it just didnt cut through. All i did was mess around with a compressor on it to really enhance the attack, i couldnt do anything with a limiter because the initial snare hit had a long reverb tail and a limiter would **** up this sound completely. So the compressor for attack, then a bit of overdrive to dirty it up and enhance the highs and finally i saw where the snare was giving me a bit of bite on spectrum and i enhanced that and cut that out of other sounds with a very narrow Q. This really helped and no transient shaping was needed. Also remember one thing that is always over looked is volume, sometimes other things in your mix just need turning down and the weak parts need turning up id do this before even touching any effects…

People always go running for the compressors and eqs even though they dont even know how to use them properly, everyone i hope knows how to use volume faders… 

-_-

[quote]jjdejong0 (16/05/2011)[hr]



People always go running for the compressors and eqs even though they dont even know how to use them properly, everyone i hope knows how to use volume faders…



-_-[/quote]



Agreed :slight_smile:

[quote]eccentrica (16/05/2011)[hr]Have you tried using a transient shaper?[/quote]



I agree with this. Loving the transient shaping lately – can really help give a hit prominence without boosting the peak volume!

Compression & layering of snares FTW!


  1. pick good samples.
  2. layer snares (try for low, mid, high)
  3. Compress (sometimes compress again)
  4. EQ & FX



    that will get it!

Personally I’m moving away from layer kicks but I love layering me snares :slight_smile: and also compression FTW :slight_smile:

[quote]Mussi81 (16/05/2011)[hr]Personally I’m moving away from layer kicks but I love layering me snares :slight_smile: and also compression FTW :)[/quote]



yeah man. layering kicks is retarded. i dont do this anymore either.



but layering snares is essential to creating something fresh + crunchy!



compression + EQ FTW!

I usually layer everything lol but recently ive just been doing simple layering on kicks like the low from one and the click from another. For my snares I usually get a sample with a nice attack and layer it with a clap with a nice decay. I get some really awesome sounds and this is before ANY processing. You dont wanna go overboard with layering, you can also bypass this issue completely and get some killer samples from the get go. If you have grest samples that gel really well with eachother you hardly need any processing at all.

Great Sounding Samples

EQ

Compression

Transient Shaping (envelope Shaper)

Gate

Gated Reverb



Lots of methods on how to do this, experiment :slight_smile:



Mark

i was actually checking it out where u have good snare samples . most of them are so well processed that u just need to use a volume fader and also compress properly .with out squishing out the transient ,rather leveling up to the way that peaks out of your mix.

then use some eq to just shape your mix.



i noticed that layering down Snares are the same as the kicks. if you have a kick that is full no need to layer it down. samples like Sample Magic and other like Vengance are well processed with analog gear. so no need for over processing

You need to also understand the frequency spectrum, like where is the thud of your snare, where is the fizz, where is the snap, where is the wood etc. Then you can mess atound with eqs.