Acoustic Snare Drum Track

I have done some searches but haven't seen anything on this topic and was hoping to get some input. I tracked an acoustic drum kit with overheads, kick, snare and toms on thier own tracks and they all sound pretty good. Nice kit, tuned well, good even playing. However I just can't seem to get the snare to "snap". It was a maple snare with a new thin coated head, close mic'ed with an sm57 recorded dry. What effects might I try to get a snap and a little sustain out of it? I have the standards on there, a little compression, EQ, reverb but those are just evening out a few spots and widening it a little, they don't give me that smack sound. The sound I am looking for is from Pear Jam's CD "Vs." To me it sounds like there is something mixed with the snare track, maybe a little distortion to get it that way. Any tips?

Thanks Jeff,
I have tried various amounts of compression with various attack times but it seems anything shorter the 5ms kills the attack of the drum and anything longer leaves the transient and cuts the tone of the drum leaving just a thin pop. Maybe I just have not found the right combination.

How about layering it with a drum-synth/sample track? Use the 'extract timing' function to generate midi notes.

I have not yet used the extract timing feature yet, but I did clone the track and used Drumagog to add a sample. I will try the extract timing feature, thanks Torhan for the suggestion.

ORIGINAL: kevinb511

The sound I am looking for is from Pear Jam's CD "Vs." To me it sounds like there is something mixed with the snare track, maybe a little distortion to get it that way. Any tips?

Well, first the bad news. I am pretty sure that Pearl Jam's drummer (Dave Abbruzzese) used a DW 8x12 snare on the vs sessions. The 8x12 is VERY unusual size for a snare drum - the usual dimensions of a snare drum is between 5 or 6 inches deep and about 14 inches in diameter. This smaller diameter but deeper snare is often referred to as a "popcorn snare" and is noted for creating the very distinctive snap or pop you are talking about.

Now the good news. If you look for a popcorn snare sample you may be able to blend the sample with the original snare track and come close, or use a spectrum analyzer to look at the frequencies generated by the snare and apply eq to your snare. You could also (ethically questionable, but handy in a pinch) buy one from Guitar Center, tune it, sample it and return it. Then you could mix the two wavs or simply replace the first one entirely. If you do this, be aware that drummers tend to tighten the crap out of the batter head when tuning smaller diameter snares, like popcorn or piccolo snares.

Good luck!

Hi,

I'm with Eric Hartmann on this one. I think most of what you're looking for is from the drum itself, and even more important, the way it was played by the drummer (Not to say the drummer you used wasn't good, he may be great). To really get a crack from a snare you need a good drummer that can consistently hit the drum very hard on the back beats, and most will rim-shot the snare to get even more attack from the snare.

ORIGINAL: kevinb511

Thanks Oengus,
I have my threshold usually around -20 or so and release at 30-50. How much gain reduction do you usually get? How about the ratio? I have been using 6:1 and get about 12db of GR, then push the make up gain to +10. That gives me the volume I need to make it stand out in the mix, but I am still lacking the snap. Which compressor do you like best for this application?

well I think that 12db of gr is too much . I use 4:1 ratio and I have a 7/8 GR more or less.
I use Rcomp by Waves for snare , and I like it for snare more than others . I suggest you to don't use too much compression , you kill the natural sound of the drum

The best solution I came up with was to use the multiband compressor to bring out the snap a little more (around 5k) and add an effects send with some heavy compression on it. The combination of the two gave me the smack I was looking for while not killing the natural tone of the drum. I also tweeked the overheads as Vanasher suggested and that helped as well. Thanks for the help.

Here's a slightly unconventional suggestion, but the post about the popcorn snare got me thinking:

• Clone the track. Don't link the clips.
  
• On the cloned track, use MPEX to shift the pitch *up* - try a setting of 1.5 for starters.
  
• With the cloned track soloed, EQ the track to reduce any frequency ranges that *don't* snap. A bandpass filter could be very useful here.
  
• Bring the cloned track's volume down to zero, unsolo it, and gradually dial it into the mix.
  

If you're not happy with the sonic results of MPEX, you could split the cloned track at song sections (verse, chorus, etc.), enable timestretching on each clip in Loop Construction View, enable project pitch-matching, and set up pitch markers so that the groove-clipped cloned track will have a higher pitch than the original. Pitch-shifting up should enable you to emphasize different "snap" frequencies than what you're currently hearing.

Kevin,

Are you asking about "snap" or "smack"?

Snap comes from getting the right instrument recorded and eq'd properly even if that means no eq at all, but just the right instrument, and just the right mic(s), at just the right position, through just the right preamp(s). That's the best kind of eq. When all that fails... use a good graphic eq and boost 3-4khz and reduce a couple db at 250k.

Smack comes from the right instrument (snare), hit hard, hit in the center of the drum, and hit with an even velocity, with a good quality mic, through a good quality preamp, fed into a quality hardware of software compressor... or I should say compressors. It's best to not try to do it all with one compressor. Use a fast attack and fast release on the snare track compressor to reduce wayward transients... no more than a 4:1 ratio. Then route the output of the snare to a drum bus, with two different compressors on it (I like an 1176LN followed by an LA2A), both set for a medium attack and medium reslease time... to color the sound.

Experiment a lot! Get to know what your compressors are really capible of.

ORIGINAL: kevinb511

Even more great suggestions. Steve, how fast of attack and release times do you find works best for the snare track, 5 and 50 maybe? Also how much GR should I be getting to avoid killing the tone? I will also try the pitch shift idea, thanks Russell.

You must use your ear. Sometimes compressing the transient in the track removes too much attack and the snare sounds loud but mushy. Another approach when that occurs is to clone the snare track and compress the @%*! out of it and sneak that track up in the mix along side the uncompressed snare track.

Experiment. Import a reference tune into a track in your project and do A/B comparisons. Your ears will tell you when it's right.

ORIGINAL: kevinb511

Cloneing the track and using heavy compression on that one mixed with the original is what I've been doing and so far still works the best for me. I have not tried sending all drums to one bus and compressing that yet, that sounds like a good idea. I don't have the UAD-1 card and it seems you can't use the plugs without the card (or can you?) so I will make do with Sonitus, Voxengo or something from the waves bundle I have, maybe Rcomp. None of those really add color though. I would consider buying the UA plugs if I could use them without the card.

UAD-1 plugins are all powered DSP plugins. You must have at least one card.

I usually use a drum bus for kick, snare, and toms, and a separate overhead bus with eq and compression for hi-hat and overhead mics. For rock, usually a waves Q10 followed by an LA2A on the overhead bus.