HPF On Snare (And Other Things)

If you are new to mixing, one thing you may want to get familiar with is the HPF in the ProChannel.  By taking unneeded and virtually inaudible bottom off sounds, you can give yourself a lot more headroom to get your mix strong.  Some people don't HPF the bass or kick but I HPF the bass all the time between 45 and 100 hz.  I leave the kick alone if it is a clean sample.  (For a live recording, there might be some rumble or noise.)
 
Example:  I just put a high pass filter of 150 hz on a snare drum.  I swear you can not hear any difference but that gave me an additional 1 db on Master.  On this track the snare and kick hit together often, making headroom a problem.  (I also ducked the kick a bit when the snare hits.) 
 
I usually HPF a sound and move the frequency up until I start to hear a difference and then I back it off a bit.  (For some things I use all the time, like a Jazz Bass or acoustic six-string, I already know where to cut because I've done them 100 times.)
 
Just a tip.

I still think it is wrong to make overall assumptions like you should put a HPF on a snare set at 150 Hz. I have got a big fat Sonor (chrome) snare drum that produces a huge sound and if you did that it would kill the sound seriously. So I say use your ears and let them decide. Sometimes yes it works but other times it may not.
 
You have to be quite careful using HPF on anything because it can thin out a fat sound a little too much if you are not careful and then you are wondering why there is no fatness in your mix as well.
 
If you have got loud kicks and snares hitting at the same time sometimes there are better ways to stop your master from overloading such as using VU metering and being careful (and clever) that way rather than taking important energy out of a sound.
 
Listen first and see if it needs it. If you apply a HPF and you cannot hear any difference then that is more OK but if you do hear a difference then you may be killing the sound too. Also things to take into consideration is the slope of the HPF which has not been mentioned here yet. Sometimes shallow slopes work nice but then other times very steep slopes work better.  Steep slopes are good at removing rumble without changing the low end of a sound much but shallow slopes are better for taming excessive bottom end in something such as bass.

To clarify, I did not intend suggest that everyone should HPF every snare at 150.  I was giving an example in which I saved a lot of headroom without sacrificing sound.  The particular snare in question had too much low frequency energy that was not positively contributing to the sound.  Most of my favortie snare samples don't require much treatment.
 
I think I said you can install an HPF (or low shelf as someone else suggested) and find the point at which you are removing inaudible or unwanted sound without taking away the real body of the sound.
 
Cheers.

My whole point was to consider using an HPF to remove frequencies that are not heard or not wanted but that take up band width.  As always, don't do anything that doesn't sound good.  But if you can get more headroom without sacrificing your sound, that is good.