Hi,
Can anyone share a good way to add smack to a snare?  Using Superior Drummer 2. I'm open to using samples, if you have a good suggestion on sample library etc
Suggestion would be very appreciated.
Br

This is for rock genre

"Smack" may need more interpretation, but it seems you may be thinking of "gated reverb" (not sure though). If so, there are a few videos about on setting this up (and if you take that time, save your work as a track template for future use).

I'm interpreting "smack" as an initial big transient when the snare is hit.
Send the snare to its own channel and use a "Transient Designer" (such as TS-64)  type of plug-in on it.
A compressor can work too but the Transient Designer will give you a better "whack".
 
http://blog.cakewalk.com/transient-shaping-with-ts-64/

A transient designer can help with a poor sample or bad recording. For a well recorded snare, compression and judicious EQ is all that is needed.
 
Regards,
Dan

In terms of EQ what would you class as "smack" though? Personally I always thought of it as a combination of body (somewhere around 150-300Hz) and sizzle (that sort of 5-7kHz area). Boosting in these areas seems to smackify snares somewhat to my ears.

sharke
In terms of EQ what would you class as "smack" though? Personally I always thought of it as a combination of body (somewhere around 150-300Hz) and sizzle (that sort of 5-7kHz area). Boosting in these areas seems to smackify snares somewhat to my ears.

Exactly that in my view.
 
Dan

I heard smack is available on most street corners. You just need to know who to talk to.
 
 
 
 
 
 
I'll get me coat.

My approach (and I suspect bapu would corroborate) has been to accumulate a large collection of drum samples and then find a snare that's got whatever quality, e.g. "smack", I'm after. Gather enough samples and there'll rarely be a need for further processing.
 
Analogue Drums and Drumdrops both offer a wide variety of inexpensive but great-sounding Kontakt-based kits. Many of my favorite individual drums came from Drumwerks, although many were not in a Kontakt format and required making an .nki for them. They have a bunch of cheap snare samples (most are 5 bucks, the whole collection is $20). There are a couple other companies whose names I can't recall right now.
 
I've also been known to layer a sidestick, stick, clave or handclap sample over a snare if I really want a sharp attack.
 
And, as noted above, if all else fails a compressor or transient shaper can be called into duty. That would be my last resort, though. I'm more likely to use parallel distortion on the snare. Favorite distortion plugins for that are Redopter and Devastor from D16, or Fabfilter Saturn. 
 

Melda has a plugin called MDrumenhancer that can help. Its similar to a drum repleacer, but it works a little differently. If the sound itself is already good try adding a boost around 3khz-5khz and then compress it. Change the attack time on the compressor to change to tone of the smack. You can also try the gated white noise trick.