BEST WAY TO TAME A SNAPPY SNARE HOW TO
BEST WAY TO TAME A SNAPPY SNARE CRACK

Don’t think of this as cheating, despite the clickbait subject header. Don’t think of them as replacing the original snare (unless you are absolutely up the creek otherwise). I certainly do, in all sorts of genres-and really, they can be a god send. Is it still a dirty secret that engineers use samples in their mixing practice? I don’t know.

Run the assistant on the snare, and you’ll see something like this in your EQ module.

BEST WAY TO TAME A SNAPPY SNARE HOW TO

It can show you how to keep the snare in the right places in the frequency range.įor resonances in a snare drum frequency, Neutron's Assistant View can show you where they are if you’re not used to hunting and pecking for them yourself. If you need to teach yourself how instruments might rub against each other in this context (also known as frequency masking), use the Masking Meter in Neutron’s EQ, or the Unmask module.

BEST WAY TO TAME A SNAPPY SNARE CRACK

Here are some frequencies within the snare drum frequency range that you’re going to want to keep an eye on-and keep in mind these are all rough ranges dependent on the recording:ġ00 to 250 Hz: somewhere in here, the meat of your snare is going to reside.Ĩ00 Hz to 1.5 kHz: somewhere in here, you’ll get a nice crack out of the snare.Ĩ kHz and above: somewhere in here, you can get your snare to sound extra crispy.īut these frequencies all come with their drawbacks:ġ00 to 250 Hz: you might step on the guitar, bass, or other meaty instrumentsĨ00 Hz to 1.5 kHz: you can really rub against a vocal the wrong way here.Ĩ kHz and above: you might add undue harshness-and, the brightness could be totally unnecessary if your bottom snare mic is doing its jobĪny frequency whatsoever: you might encounter a random resonance that’s really annoying and needs to be carefully curtailed. This is true for all instruments, but since the snare is basically the next lead element after a vocal, it requires additional attention. The way a snare sounds has a lot to do with its sonic relationships to other mix elements. Get the snare drum frequencies to sit in the mix I’ll show you how to use these snare gate settings in this video.ģ. In Neutron’s Gate module, you’re given “open” and “close” controls that help tailor the threshold more specifically. Be careful not to set the threshold too high though, as this will chop off an important part of the snare. Here, a noise gate or an expander will attenuate the signals that hang below the set threshold, making it an ideal tool to get rid of bleed. Acoustic snares with lots of cymbal bleed can certainly make a mix sound messy.

Pop and contemporary styles of music, on the other hand, are less concerned with “real world” acoustics, and typically prefer each sound to be isolated for maximum sonic control. Gating can be crucial in mixing the snare drum, but again, keep your genre and style in mind: most jazz and classical recordings aim to capture the nuances of musicians and their acoustic environment, and gating can go against nature. Clean up the snare with a gate or expander Say we wanted our snare sound to be reminiscent of the classic tone on Led Zeppelin’s Moby Dick.Ģ. You could model your snare on a reference with Neutron. Upon hearing the tracks you were supplied, you should instinctively know which snare reference the drums evoke in your memory. This is a roundabout way of saying you should listen to tons of music, so you have your references internalized and ready to go at a moment’s notice. So, go after a reference in your head and say “that’s the snare I want.”

One can get real specific here: early D’Angelo and early Red Hot Chili Peppers both owe a lot to funk-yet they’d sound completely at odds with each other ?uestlove’s snaptastic snare would require different handling than Chad Smith’s ringy affair. Snares take up different sonic spaces depending on the genre, the song, and the arrangement. But it also comes down to the individual instruments: having a reference sound for your snare will go a long way in dictating the treatment. This is true on a macro level, where we choose the right reference track for the whole production. One key to successful mixing is knowing the context of your song and working within it. Choose the right snare sound for your genre

Best way to tame a snappy snare