thin snare sound in recording - need help...

tbmills · #1 11-18-2008, 04:03 AM

i play a spaun 13x6 steel snare and am having problems getting it to sound full when recorded. i have it tuned high with evans coated g1/hazy 300 with puresound 20s and do mostly rimshots. i have 2 audix i5's, a d2, and an sm57 and nothing seems to give it the life i hear live. i try to make it sound like the snares of steve jordan or stanton moore, but the overtones are lost in recording. it comes across as a high click without the body. even with it close miked, i cant get the volume id like. it clips before its present. i have explored many different tunings in the past few days but i still cant get the snare mic over the snare sound in the overheads. (the at3035 oh's are not turned up loud)

check out "sprung monkey" by stanton moore

how is his snare so high in the mix without clipping?

thanks guys,
tb

EDIT: i am also using a presonus firestudio with logic...
do i need i different mic? preamp? snare?

tbmills · #2 11-18-2008, 11:12 PM

nothing? cmon guys...
i mormally use promark 7a oak but today bought some 5a oak. i wanted hickory but they were out.

seriously, any ideas are welcome.
my snare is loud in person but i cant reproduce that presence in the studio...

Numberonefan · #3 11-18-2008, 11:12 PM

There are so many variables…

If you have clean individual tracks (less bleed through using a gate on each mic) you can taylor your snare tack with the EQ in your software.

As for the snare sitting right in the mix… How is your gain structure? If your not gating the mics it’s hard to boost or cut in the final mix.

How large a room are you recording in?

grahamo87 · #4 11-18-2008, 11:20 PM

Rimshots often kill the deepness of a snare. I play rimshots as well and had the same problem. a LOT of it has to do with your mixing. You can do so much with the EQ on the mix but the biggest thing that fixed mine is tuning the batter head lower a few steps. Not loose obviously but just lower than you normally have it. Rimshots almost ALWAYS come over the mic's thinner than they sound to your ear.

Summary of my suggestion?

Tune it lower and EQ it. It should take any more than that.

tbmills · #5 11-18-2008, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numberonefan

taylor your snare tack with the EQ in your software.

How large a room are you recording in?

its tailor... my first name is taylor, trust me. but we record in a small room with matress foam on the walls. were going to move out into our much bigger, untreated living room and see how it sounds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grahamo87

Rimshots often kill the deepness of a snare. I play rimshots as well and had the same problem. a LOT of it has to do with your mixing. You can do so much with the EQ on the mix but the biggest thing that fixed mine is tuning the batter head lower a few steps. Not loose obviously but just lower than you normally have it. Rimshots almost ALWAYS come over the mic's thinner than they sound to your ear.

Summary of my suggestion?

Tune it lower and EQ it. It should take any more than that.

alright i will. i think the small treated room were in makes my high snare sound lower (therefore, tuning it even higher) because i tuned it in the living room just now and found it to be way to tight. after getting the tuning to a reasonable high crack, i put it back with my set and thought it felt low and dead. ill get it soon...

tbmills · #6 11-18-2008, 11:45 PM

i looove steve jordans snare sound. it has a great high crack. is he doing rimshots? if not how does he get the sound?

---please dont answer with, "hes steve jordan and is just that awesome."

grahamo87 · #7 11-19-2008, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbmills

i looove steve jordans snare sound. it has a great high crack. is he doing rimshots? if not how does he get the sound?

---please dont answer with, "hes steve jordan and is just that awesome."

Well he's Steve Joran and is just that .... oh... DON'T answer with that....

Yes he does to rim shots often and yes he is generally in a multi-million dollar recording studio rather than a small room with a mattress. As long as you're micing the top and bottom of the snare within an inch from the heads its mostly in the EQ. Also, you can try moving your mics closer towards the center of the drum. The farther away from the rim, the thicker the sound is going to be. Should still be able to make rim shots sound ok though.

wloeb · #8 11-19-2008, 12:51 AM

Did you try micing the bottom as well and reversing the phase of the bottom mic?

Wayne

Numberonefan · #9 11-19-2008, 02:31 AM

That’s it… Are you running a mic on the bottom of the snare? If you are and it is not phase reversed that where the thinness is coming from. Build a converter swapping pin 2 and 3 in an XLR if you mixer does not have it built in.

Oh and my son’s name it Taylor as well… I guess I spell it out like that buy default!

tbmills · #10 11-19-2008, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numberonefan

Oh and my son’s name it Taylor as well… I guess I spell it out like that buy default!

great name.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numberonefan

That’s it… Are you running a mic on the bottom of the snare? If you are and it is not phase reversed that where the thinness is coming from. Build a converter swapping pin 2 and 3 in an XLR if you mixer does not have it built in.

we havent been running a bottom mic, but well set one up. do you know if there is a way to digitally reverse the phase. we are using logic on a mac.

edit: how would a d2 sound on the snare opposite an i5? i5 over d2 or d2 over i5? i have two i5s but one is being lent to me. id like to know i can run the snare miking on my own.

Numberonefan · #11 11-19-2008, 06:09 AM

My focus is live. I’ve pulled my hair out trying to record my kids. I spent thousands and thousands and never got results we were happy with. These days I’d rather write a check to a studio then ever try that again for all the reasons your going through now… and I’m just plain old and crusty!

As for snare mic choices I can’t comment on these as I have never used them. I go to a 57 or my MD441.

Shedboyxx · #12 11-19-2008, 06:27 AM

I think there are two things that could help right now. One which you are planning.

1) A bigger room

2) Once in the bigger room, use overhead (2) and room mikes (1 or more) and make sure they are placed in a way that the snare is prominent. Overheads play a big part in organic, full drum sounds.

The second suggestion you will have to play with by moving mikes around the recording space. Then there is of course the EQ'ing and mixing that will need to be done. :p

Frankly, you should probably take this discussion to a recording forum like Gearslutz or http://www.recording.org/. Do a search for 'snare' and read the discussions. Then post something.

It's hard to get a full high pitched snare sound without it being to thin. Talking to engineers will help out. It is 'their house' when it comes to this stuff and there are reasons why the pros get paid well. You'll have to do as much homework, research and testing as they have to fully understand how these sounds make it to the final step.

HTH

Jim

tbmills · #13 11-19-2008, 12:10 PM

so yeah we did it... we moved all of our stuff into our now awesome living room. it fit much better than we had anticipated and finally gave us a comfortable environment to play and write in.
now we have an unused room with mattress padding on all of the walls.....???

i digress, we have yet to record anything in but will try it out tomorrow (wednesday). i messed around on my drums for about 15 seconds (it was 1:50am) when we got done setting up. it all sounded very cool. there are much more present overtones in every piece. i really need to retune now but i should get something much better than before.

it really looks badass in there and im sure it will at the least sound better. i will get some pics and a sound clip up as soon as possible...

tbmills · #14 11-22-2008, 11:57 AM

ok here are the pics of the big move...
what do yall think?

by the way everyone sounds better and bigger in this room. especially my snare. we have yet to do any recordings but i will post them as soon as possible...

is it just me or do my drums look damn good?...
(apologies for any arrogance)

#15 11-22-2008, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbmills

i looove steve jordans snare sound. it has a great high crack. is he doing rimshots? if not how does he get the sound?

---please dont answer with, "hes steve jordan and is just that awesome."

I have a John Mayer dvd and on "waiting on the world to change" I think he is doing rimshots and it sounds very similar to what you describes.

DingerJunkie · #16 11-22-2008, 01:00 PM

What you are looking for in a snare sound is likely to require some specific effects...compression and delay in particular.

What we hear as the "body" of the sound of the drum comes a fair bit after the initial "attack" of the drum...if you ever check out the waveform of a drum on a scope. If you're setting up an uncompressed channel to handle the peak of the attack without clipping, the part of the signal that we like will be too low. The answer to this is to compress the snare signal, dropping that attack spike to a level where you can bring up the "tone" of the snare on the recording channel.

The delay would be used to further thicken the signal. We're not talking a delay long enough to hear an echo or double-hit. The ear can start hearing two attacks from the snare at about 12 miliseconds...so if you put a 10 or 11 milisecond, one-repeat delay on the snare signal, you effectively "thicken" the sound of the kit.

This combination of effects has been extremely common in live and recorded sound reinforcement for a while.

If you're forced to "record dry", then stop close-miking to avoid those attack spikes and use the room sound to your benefit.

MAO · #17 11-22-2008, 05:01 PM

I couple of other things to try that have helped me achieve similar results in the studio...

Try a 2 ply clear head.....its going to ring, loose articulation and be a little less controllable but if articulation is not a primary concern...this can often help with getting a little more of the shell into the sound. You may have to tune it a bit lower than you normally do with your G1.

Now that you have moved into a bigger room.....try adding area mics out in the room with dedicated channels(if you have the option).

Probably the strangest thing ever successful....thanks to someone very, very creative....go buy a plastic trashcan that is about 18-20 inches in diameter cut the top of it off....only leave about 10-12inches above the base of the can.....place this under your snare with your snare stand sitting in it......gaff tape a condensor mic to it(try the sides and floor of can) in addition to the batter and resonant mics....this snare should not be in the middle of the trashcan, due to having to work it around your footprint...it seemed the more off-center we set it the better the results we had. I can't really describe the sound we got off of this, but it captured a lot of tones that we were unable to. The next studio session, we are going to try this with my 10" snare....we are rigging a 14 can to sit about 8 inches under it.

LeeLovesSabian · #18 11-22-2008, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbmills

ok here are the pics of the big move...
what do yall think?

by the way everyone sounds better and bigger in this room. especially my snare. we have yet to do any recordings but i will post them as soon as possible...

is it just me or do my drums look damn good?...
(apologies for any arrogance)

They do look pretty nice.
Nice pad by the way.