Recording Problem: Snare too loud

[ChainReaction]

My band has just begun recording, but we have a relatively serious problem with the drum sound: my snare is way too loud. It overpowers everything else. Its not really bad on the tom mics or bass mic, but on the overheads and the room mic its much louder than everything else.

We've tried a lot of different things, but nothing has really proved acceptable. I've tried dampening the hell out of it, and that makes it quieter, but it sounds horrible and it feels like I'm hitting a pillow. (Only such a severe amount of dampening reduces the volume; anything less is ineffective). I haven't got any other snare drums, and haven't got the money at the moment for another one, so assuming that I had to make due, what would you suggest?

We are planning to attempt the use of a peak limiter on the mics in question. Any thoughts on that?

Thank you all in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

[bobby__johnny]

try re positioning your overheads.

....and if everything is close miced, why do you have a room mic?

[Seafroggys]

try re positioning your overheads.

....and if everything is close miced, why do you have a room mic?

Room mics really help liven up the sound.

As for the snare, try turning off the snare mic, turn the fader down on it. See how it sounds.

Otherwise, don't hit so hard, or reposition the overheads so they favor the cymbals and toms more.

[billdrum]

So much depends on how/where you're recording. Are you recording your drum tracks separately, or at the same time as the rest of the band? Are you in an isolated room or booth?

If it's just you (as it should be) you're going to have to lower the individual snare mic level (either the fader or the gain, or both), and you may have to raise the level of the other kit mics to balance it. You'll have to expriment with the overheads. If they are picking up too much snare, you may have them too close, or the gain too high.

Once the kit is in balance with itself, you can adjust the overall level of the kit in the mix with the other instruments once they are recorded.

[Aaron]

Record a track without a snare set up. It takes a bit to get use to hitting just cymbals, but it can give you a lot of space in the mix. To help when I last did it I set up a practice pad where a snare should be.

[bobby__johnny]

i'd be all weirded out a blt the pad getting recorded then.

i'd air drum it if your gonna take the snare off :P

[Aaron]

It takes a bit to get used to, but once you do it's a great technique as you can dump in different snare sounds later on. Because the snare will be in the same place as the pad in the track, in the final mix you can't hear the pad... unless you've got bad timing haha.

[BummerJonny]

you could always play with the eq. it'd probably be easier to bring the high and low (cymbals and bass) up than the snare down...

[Verdas]

Out of curiousity what snare are you using?

[Chippy569]

dumb thought, but... play the snare quieter and everything else louder?

also, try a softer snare, something wood shelled and not tuned up ridiculously high.

[The Chemist]

This is normal for professional recordings. The snare SHOULD command the overheads. That's how you get power out of a snare in a mix: playing it loud, and recording it as such. Don't rely on EQ and fader changes to give more power to something, because the most effective way to give power to something is Overtone saturation. Hitting your snare hard will do that. The 2nd most powerful way is mix distance on instrument (reverbs), by this I mean that iff you have a super dry snare, it's really powerful, whereas a 'verbed snare sits in a mix more, and blends. The least effective are EQ and level. This is where people make the most mistakes. If you record a quiet snare and crank the level of it in mixing, it will sound like a really loud quiet snare. So, the best way to get good drum sound is hit the drums hard, the cymbals medium. Performance levels (kit balance) is more effective than level changes.

[Aaron]

^ not when you're close-micing, that's asking for trouble with bleed.

[The Chemist]

^ not when you're close-micing, that's asking for trouble with bleed.

Actually, you're wrong.

And I hate doing THIS, but...

I work in a studio. I KNOW what gets good drum tone by most micing techniques. As an example, listen to Lamb of God. Any song. He was close miced, and listen to his drum tone. Pussy and weak. Now, listen to, as a good example of power, any Travis Barker song. His drums sound powerful and, in the case of his snare, poppy. The snare, from what I remember had little EQ, and it was run through an 1176, which is very common for snare drums. And BTW, you hit ALL drums hard, and bleed can be controlled via gates/expanders, selective EQ and Reverbs.

[Chippy569]

chem, do you use a lot of gating in your studio on drums?

[The Chemist]

Expanders, mostly. Doesn't hard cut the track, just pushes the volume below the threshold down so it's less noticeable.

[Motleyguy]

I too do not like gating my drums. Hard cutting the tracks get's a rally unnatural, almost click or pop. But chemist is right when it comes to the snare drum tone. You're going to get some amount of bleed no matter what, but the drums will sound better if they're hit harder. The best bet is to use cardioid, or super cardioid mics, and position them properly to deal with leakage. It is not a bad thing to have snare in our overheads, the overheads are there as much to pick up cymbals as they are to add some natural reverb and a sense of space to the drum sound. For this same reason, room mics are a very effective way to add spaciousness to a recording, rather than adding more reverb later. Provided you have a good room sound, you'll get a better sense of the room using room mics.

Back to the topic, another way I've foud to get a good, powerful sound from the snare is to compress it multiple times. During mixdown, run the snare through at least two or three, really good, preferably tube, compressors. Compress the snare only a little bit with each compressor. This is one of the best ways to get that really "compressed", pop snare drum sound. Again, in order for this to work, you need a good, powerful snare to begin with.