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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 30, 2013 18:19:02 GMT -6
I always tend to use either a hardware 1176 or - lately - the newest UAD 1176LN. Feel like I can really adjust the "dong" and "thwack" with the release - love that...but a lot of times, I find that I want the attack as slow as I can get it and while I'm getting the tone I want, I'm not always getting the gain reduction I need. How do you guys handle this? Limiter?
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 30, 2013 20:36:47 GMT -6
I often find myself thinking the 1176's sound like Fender Bandmasters. I know people swear by them, but I haven't found them to work well very often. I too have issues with getting the snare right. I haven't worked with them on live drums, so my experience might not apply to you John. What I've done with my drums, (Superior Drummer) is automate the hell out of them, then use a pinch of compression, maybe the 1176 or one of the Waves SSL compressors, then I use the Slate VBC in the 2 bus, which does help, but that chain isn't perfect. Slate has promised mono instantiations of any of the three compressors in VBC, and that oughta do it, the VBC sounds really good.
If you have it, give the upgrade UAD LA2 Silver a shot, sometimes it just fixes things right away. The LA2 is better for vocals, but the LA2 Silver is easier to fine tune.
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Post by tonycamphd on Sept 30, 2013 22:26:53 GMT -6
track a snare that sounds a bit more ringy and transient than you think you'll need in the final mix, seriously, these 2 things give a compressor something to compress, resulting in a snare that's alive, and sounds like a snare, a classic 1176 always warms over, and rounds off anyway, so if you start off damped, your done. To clarify my opinion, If you're in the room with a snare thats damped to the sound you want on the final mix, it's a fail as soon as u patch a compressor in line, in my experience.
hope this helps
interested to hear what other folks have to say on this also
T
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Post by gouge on Sept 30, 2013 22:39:43 GMT -6
i'm not a fan of compressing snare either.
for me the 2 things I always do to snare is a touch or reverb and some eq. you can make the eq adjust the dong and thwack and that way you keep the punch.
usually a comp on the drum buss.
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Post by wiz on Oct 1, 2013 0:29:42 GMT -6
by not getting the gain reduction you need...
Do you mean that, the levels of the snare hits are inconsistent?
cheers
Wiz
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 6:29:03 GMT -6
Well, sure...but this guy is Neil Young's drummer, so it's not like he's a hack...the sounds are great to start with. But yeah - I have no idea why I didn't think about just automating/riding volume of the occasional offending peak...
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 1, 2013 7:27:12 GMT -6
Don't feel guilty about riding the snare, or anything else for that matter. Think of yourself as the conductor of an orchestra, you're controlling the mood through dynamics, it's a perfectly natural thing to do. Also, even the most experienced and talented drummer might have played a little differently if he'd been intimately familiar with the material, in the way a band that rehearses and gigs together often can, the feel is different than when doing a session. In SD, there are three room sound mics, I've found that tweaking them a little puts the snare much closer to what I'd like it to be.
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 7:30:57 GMT -6
Also having a lot of cymbal bleed. Might have to pull in another snare with Trigger to mix in.
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Post by svart on Oct 1, 2013 8:10:15 GMT -6
I never have a serious problem with compressing the snare or the snare's tone itself, It's ALWAYS the bleed that kills me. I can get a rocking snare *by itself* but getting there tends to cause the bleed to sound terrible, usually in a nasal midrange manner.
I refuse to use samples.
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Post by popmann on Oct 1, 2013 8:36:08 GMT -6
I don't use a traditional compressor on snare, unless there's serious performance issues. I do however believe that snare NEEDS clipping. Outright distortion. I've used Saturn before...Magneto...some combination of overdriven analog circuits (meaning, actual wire&tube&transformer)....but, now--this is where "one trick plug ins" are king. My snare channel, more often than not look like SteinbergExpander>Kramer MPX. The Expander takes care of any ringing and any hat splashiness. MPX compresses, distorts, and generally brings up the shell tone (by way of clipping the useless snare transient). You can drive it really hard and go all the way to 70s snare, but you will need a second expander on the other side of the tape emu--or Transient Designer works well to bring the sustain down.
Occasionally there's EQ, but that's only if the snare sucks or the client mentions something very specific he wants that isn't really there.
It is the bleed--tom bleed specifically that gets you. It need to be GONE. Whether you want to set expanders or manually edit fades (which I'll call manual gating)....it has to be gone. But, overhead is where you should hear the crack to the snare. The close mic should just bring the body. And, room is KING for snare--real, samples, or algorithmic, it's NECESSARY to any snare sound I care about. Nothing will teach that better than going into a drum sample library that has multiple mics and muting the room(s). Just solo the close mic. Now just the snare and the overheads--sounds a little better....but, it doesn't sound GOOD until you add the room mics. This goes only for snare, IMO. Close tom mics+overhead get enough of their shell tone. Kick, I prefer one out front of the kick as well as on the beater, but...there's something about having mics with more tone than transient....
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 8:46:37 GMT -6
I never have a serious problem with compressing the snare or the snare's tone itself, It's ALWAYS the bleed that kills me. I can get a rocking snare *by itself* but getting there tends to cause the bleed to sound terrible, usually in a nasal midrange manner. I refuse to use samples. Exactly what I'm saying... |
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 8:49:14 GMT -6
I don't use a traditional compressor on snare, unless there's serious performance issues. I do however believe that snare NEEDS clipping. Outright distortion. I've used Saturn before...Magneto...some combination of overdriven analog circuits (meaning, actual wire&tube&transformer)....but, now--this is where "one trick plug ins" are king. My snare channel, more often than not look like SteinbergExpander>Kramer MPX. The Expander takes care of any ringing and any hat splashiness. MPX compresses, distorts, and generally brings up the shell tone (by way of clipping the useless snare transient). You can drive it really hard and go all the way to 70s snare, but you will need a second expander on the other side of the tape emu--or Transient Designer works well to bring the sustain down. Occasionally there's EQ, but that's only if the snare sucks or the client mentions something very specific he wants that isn't really there. It is the bleed--tom bleed specifically that gets you. It need to be GONE. Whether you want to set expanders or manually edit fades (which I'll call manual gating)....it has to be gone. But, overhead is where you should hear the crack to the snare. The close mic should just bring the body. And, room is KING for snare--real, samples, or algorithmic, it's NECESSARY to any snare sound I care about. Nothing will teach that better than going into a drum sample library that has multiple mics and muting the room(s). Just solo the close mic. Now just the snare and the overheads--sounds a little better....but, it doesn't sound GOOD until you add the room mics. This goes only for snare, IMO. Close tom mics+overhead get enough of their shell tone. Kick, I prefer one out front of the kick as well as on the beater, but...there's something about having mics with more tone than transient.... Totally forgot about MPX...That Drive knob (I think that's what it is) does do some nice things...Need to try that. |
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Post by svart on Oct 1, 2013 9:11:10 GMT -6
I tend to find cutting a sliver out around 800-1Khz and another wider cut between 250-400hz tends to make the worst resonances go away, but I always lose a bit of the character of the snare. It turns it into more of the sample-laden sound of POP BOOM SIZZLE that we hear mostly on radio singles these days. It fits, but it's not really present, if you know what I mean.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 1, 2013 9:56:40 GMT -6
Exactly what I was referring to with the 3 room sound mics in Superior Drummer popman.
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 10:06:43 GMT -6
Can someone explain the expander to me? I've never really used one...
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Post by tonycamphd on Oct 1, 2013 10:18:44 GMT -6
Might have to pull in another snare with Trigger to mix in. don't you do it! use a gate to rid the bleed, or write in automation for the entire snare track, or i guess you could use a sample and destroy the feel of the track  ! Neil Young's drummer! it should be easy?, curiosity, what's his name? I want to look him up, i love Neil Young!! T |
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Post by jazznoise on Oct 1, 2013 10:42:11 GMT -6
Compression on the snare usually starts to show pretty fast. It's a weird instrument and as much as I've tried, I really think it has more to do with everything around it. It's also the one to me that seems to suffer the most with room mode issues - must be the sharp impulse or something.
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Post by svart on Oct 1, 2013 11:22:05 GMT -6
Can someone explain the expander to me? I've never really used one... think of it as an automatic volume control, but reverse of a compressor with auto attack and release. So it tracks the signal level and gracefully turns the attenuator down as the signal goes up. It then turns the attenuator up when the signal goes down. It's completely program dependent, usually without attack/hold and release controls. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 12:38:23 GMT -6
Chad Cromwell
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 15:40:58 GMT -6
I had never done it this way, but it's really working out. In the past I had always sent the snare pre fader to an aux channel and then put trigger on and mixed in the snare. This time I tried it and man - I just couldn't get trigger to dial in right. Mis hits no matter what. So I scrapped the aux and then opened up a mono audio channel and copied the snare part to it. Then put trigger on it. For some reason this totally fixed the "triggering" problems I was having. Anyway, I was then able to turn down the main snare with the hat and cymbal bleed and mix in the new snare sound. Really made a difference and gave me tons of tonal options.
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2013 15:42:56 GMT -6
Btw - using the UAD Fatso followed by the Slate Vari Mu on the drum bus. The slate compressor is just fantastic. Getting a really big drum sound.
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Post by popmann on Oct 1, 2013 19:42:48 GMT -6
Can someone explain the expander to me? I've never really used one... Well, so, you understand gating, right? Drops below threshold, gets silent, right? Think of it like a gate that isn't all the way off...right so, you're saying when it falls below this threshold reduce the volume by a ratio. The reason I tend to use the on snares is because gates are better off. Almost always. Whatever bleed there is in the snare mic, it's better left there than cut off. What you're doing with the expander is pushing it's bleed DOWN...so, you're lessening the bleed...rather than removing it--because removing it sounds unnatural and screws with the decay of the snare--as well as killing ghost notes. So, at a light ratio, think about it this way--it may pull the bleed in between hits down 7-10db. So, it's still THERE....there's no abrupt opening and closing...but, it's been suppressed where it's not a constant kind of issue. Meanwhile--kick, I always gate. There's nothing meaningful about it's bleed. The reason I love it when I get two kick mics (out in front and inside/beater) is because I can key the gate of the outside which will have lots of bleed off the internal mic POST it's gate, which can be set tight--BECAUSE the outer one is there for the pillowy bloom. I got longwinded as I tend to...but, just think about it like a gate that you set how tightly it closes....or just consider it a suppressor rather than an on/off gate. |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 1, 2013 20:33:29 GMT -6
Popmann, do you have any tracks you can post that demonstrate what your talking about? I'd love to hear an example.
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Post by popmann on Oct 2, 2013 9:02:36 GMT -6
You mean, other than my own? soundcloud.com/langsongs/sets/originalsongsOr some more "rawk" that we recently got back from mastering (and has been released)--guy record his drums in his typical home studio environment (ie, not acoustically ideal) soundcloud.com/dagtunes/money-isnt-everythingsoundcloud.com/dagtunes/parade-of-fools-og...I mean, I don't have like some solo'd drum tracks bounced down alone or anything of the effects the before/after on the snare. But, you've heard a snare drum with an sm57 on the top, right? Donk. Donk. That's what they all sound like.  There are some more mellow(er) stuff on his page where I went for a little less aggressive sound to match the song...but, my stuff should serve for midtempo singer/songwriter fare. |
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Post by gouge on Oct 2, 2013 22:42:25 GMT -6
popmann is describing a downward expander.
there is also upward expansion. so as the threshold is crossed the volume is increased by the ratio.
so on a snare, you turn down the snare so the bleed is reduced in volume, then apply an upward expander so the snare hit increases in volume. or, you could key your room mics from the snare mic so as the snare is hit the room mic volume increases providing reverb.
toms are another place to use expanders.
expanders are good on drums because they increase dynamic range. regardless of whether they are upward or downward.
you can also use de-essers on snare mics to remove hat bleed.
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! Neil Young's drummer! it should be easy?, curiosity, what's his name? I want to look him up, i love Neil Young!!
There are some more mellow(er) stuff on his page where I went for a little less aggressive sound to match the song...but, my stuff should serve for midtempo singer/songwriter fare.