Snare samples question

Some of the big boys will use samples as part of the drum sound, some will use them only for the attack, or tail of the sound, while others will only use samples as the source for reverb sends and not actually add the sample to the snare itself.

That distinction is rarely made on the forums when folks talk about "samples" on snare.

I assume by "ambient snare", you mean using the snare sample as reverb/ambience source, but not actually mixed in with the snare track?

I personally don't use samples, and my OH's rarely have much HPF on them. I usually get mostly snare strainer sound in my OH anyway, though. Then again, I also hit-align my drums too. That makes a HUGE difference in tone by aligning all the drum tracks on a hit basis. If you zoom in on the tracks you'll notice that there is more delay on tracks with mics that are further from the sources, like OH mics will have much more delay than the snare mic. I'll go in and nudge the tracks so that the snare hit on the OH tracks matches with the close snare mic. I do the same with the kick and toms, matching them with the OH tracks. Because the hits happen at different points in the cycle in relation to the timing of each track, you can have phase issues, even if the overall relative polarity is the same.


On the other hand, a lot of guys will track snare-only hits on the snare mic and maybe overheads/rooms, and later use them as their own samples, sans kit bleed. They might either do full replacement, or supplementation, but since it's the actual drumset, you get a sound that is pretty genuine.

I mean a snare that is sampled with the the room sound or reverb processing as a part of the sound. So, when you place the sample on the grid, or trigger it,  you hear a snare sound that is the sum of overheads/room mics.

I just saw a tutorial on Drumagog and their samples do have the choice to add ambiance through an overhead and room sample that was recorded with the close mic sample.

If you have a particularly distasteful sounding snare in the tracking process, or tracks you receive, or it sounds particularly gross in the overheads, you may have to resort to Noah's method or others.

Don't forget the old eraser method too though!

Duplicate the snare track, flip it out of phase, put a 5-7ms delay on the out of phase track, then make a mix of just the overheads and the OOP snare, mixing in the snare until it disappears, and then use that mixed stereo track instead of the overheads in your actual mix.

Yes all the time, I generally have two samples on the kick and snare, one dry and one room sound. Sometimes they're of the kit I recorded but lately I enjoy mixing and blending different stuff in. I'm using Room Sound's samples a lot because I find they blend very well with my recordings. So at mix down I'll have a Kick In, Kick Sub, Kick Sample 1 and a Kick Sample 2 and the same will go for the snare, the toms I'm just starting to blend room samples into, I haven't ever gone that route in the past but I'll update this as I use it more. What it allows me to do is create a tighter and brighter ambience that doesn't have all the wash of the cymbals, basically just solo the room samples and then blend up the rooms into it. Once I have a blend I like of the room samples and room mics I just group the faders and leave them.

Dumb comment here.

Are you talking about yours or mine.  Mine was a serious question.

I know what the answer for me is.  I'm curious as to others take on it, cause it sure sounds that way....

I'm not begrudging anyone anything - I just want to know know the consensus on why people here are using "samples". Is it because you can't get a good sound from the drummers / studios you use, don't know how to mic/process the sound you hear in your mind-but can easily grab a sample that matches your muse, you tend to get crappy drum sounds delivered to you and you need to use samples to get a good sound up to your standards - OR - (as I suspect) is it because samples are the sound you're specifically after. Cause (IMO) samples being triggered don't sound like a real drummer in a real room with good mic-ing technique. They have a unique sound of their own that - to greater or lesser degree - takes away from the immediacy of a drummer playing his kit live.  Which can be better or worse depending on what you're after.  Curious here.....

Thanks for your perspective. Appreciated.

Do you guys who sample replace / add find that it takes the life out of the performance? Personally, I can usually hear it a mile away, and understand when you're dealt a bad hand with crappy sounding drums, but I'm running across guys who replace the snare and kick just as standard procedure - even when the unreplaced drums sound awesome beforehand.

Recent example : had a producer tell me the drums we tracked recently surpassed his wildest hopes, and that they were so much better than the big name NVille studio he tracked his last project at. Specifically told me that he absolutely LOVED them (and he's a drummer go figure). 2 months later I hear the song - Snare and Kick were replaced, and the kit no longer "breathed" and as a result the song felt totally "static" and lifeless because of it. But man, those drums sounded BIG and PERFECT and CONSISTENT!!!

Now, I'll admit to being sensitive to subtitles and find a lot of the life in them. It's one of the reasons I like smaller intimate orchestras, or projects where everything isn't doubled. (Where appropriate). And vocals where the lead is not doubled or tripled or worse.... But it seems consensus is bigger is always better, and more is always more..... Thoughts??

Sorry if this is derailing swerve's thread. I'll start another if more appropriate....

I'm not gonna begrudge an up and coming hip hop or folk artist becaue thry dont have a drummer. Honestly ive run into a lot of them and recorded and mixed entire albums full of drums with artists that dont even have a drummer in their live set. Its about getting what they have in their head out.
Personally i use a real drummer with a significant part of the drums resampled as well as some songs completely organic with no samples and a good chunk of tunes that were done completely in SD. Convenience, style, soundscape all come into play. Really in the end its what sounds best.

Reading this with interest as an amatuer mixer.  I can perhaps understand a band getting picky for a certain drum sound, but I've never known anyone ever to dislike a track due to the snare sounding "wrong". It always seems to be those in the biz that focus on this aspect, although I'm probably just showing my mixing niaevity here (however you spell that word!).
What about an electronic kit played "live" - would this record less well than a live kit due to the room element?. Just curious.

It's interesting to note that with as much advancement as electronic kits have made over the last 15 years, every drummer that I know that has been "forced" to play one because of live sound issues hates it. They just can't get the feel and subtlety they can from a real kit. Kind of like asking a race car driver to drive a mini-van. IMO, sample replacement is no different unless ghosted under the real deal, and at that point, you're not really changing the sound of the real kit - just beefing it up ala Randge's comments on how he does it. All this is in reference to achieving a realistic live sound, not an electronic or heavily processed sound. If you're looking for THAT sound, then that's a different ball game - which was kind of what I was after in my initial question. Are those of you who consistently replace going for a different affected sound, or just trying to fix problems? Personally, if going for an affected sound, I'd rather use loops or programmed drums. But that's again my personal opinion.....

Is there any sample replacement software that has 15-20 layers of dynamics with ability to trigger ghost notes on the snare, flams, etc? Or libraries that offer that amount of detail for sample replacement?