Reverb on the snare?

[sethbrand]

Hey guys,

I just have a basic m-powered set up that I use in my basement to record. It makes some decent sounding stuff, but my main problem is drums. I can get good drum sounds and they sound pretty good, but they are not as punchy and in your face as commercial records, which I dont expect them to be. But I was wondering how do you make the snare bigger without having to bring it up higher than anything else. Also, how do you use reverb on the snare, an insert plug in or do you route it a different way?

Seth

[fizbin]

Hey guys,

I just have a basic m-powered set up that I use in my basement to record. It makes some decent sounding stuff, but my main problem is drums. I can get good drum sounds and they sound pretty good, but they are not as punchy and in your face as commercial records, which I dont expect them to be. But I was wondering how do you make the snare bigger without having to bring it up higher than anything else.

Compression as an insert effect. Look around for some helpful advice or tutorials. It's too deep a subject for me to reiterate here. It will take some time to get a feel for applying it properly.

Also, how do you use reverb on the snare, an insert plug in or do you route it a different way?

Seth

Nearly always as a send effect and usually not as an insert. See the manual on this.

Best,
fizbin

[sethbrand]

Nearly always as a send effect and usually not as an insert. See the manual on this.

If I record the snare mono, should I send it to a mono aux track with reverb and then back or can I send it to a stereo aux track with reverb and pan it full left and right? I know how to send a track to an aux track but I'm not real sure how to send it back...

Seth

[fizbin]

Reverb is a stereo effect, so it should go on a stereo aux track. It's OK that your snare is a mono source - it will work fine with a mono send and in fact the reverb will give that mono snare a bit of stereo imaging. You don't have to "send it back". The reverb that you insert on the aux track should be set to 100% wet. The output of that track should then go to your main outs usually.

fizbin

[sethbrand]

The reverb that you insert on the aux track should be set to 100% wet.

By this you mean on the D-verb plug in, I take the mix meter all the way to 100% correct?

[fizbin]

Yes. By inserting it on the aux track and routing to it by a buss it becomes available as a send. A reverb (or delay) on a send should be set to 100% wet (mix at 100%).

[alfadog]

Agreed, always buss your drums to a stereo AUX track, never use reverb on an insert! In fact, the maximum number of reverbs for your entire mix should be 3 to 4 maximum, and all of these reverbs should be set up on stereo AUX tracks.

1. Go to the I/O section of your snare track and pick a buss in your output section to send the reverb on. We usually use a mono buss send to a stereo effect.

2. Insert your reverb on a stereo AUX track and set the input in the I/O section to the same buss that you designated on the snare track.

As far as making the snare sound big. Try boosting in the 200-250 Hz range, that's where the fatness is. Try using a PLATE reverb with a decay of about 1.6 to 1.8 ms. As far as your matching the energy levels on commmercial recordings, you can absolutely do that on a Pro Tools LE workstation, but involves setting up stem mixes (drums, bass and guitar, vocals,...) and then compressing and eq'ng each stem.

[sethbrand]

As far as your matching the energy levels on commmercial recordings, you can absolutely do that on a Pro Tools LE workstation, but involves setting up stem mixes (drums, bass and guitar, vocals,...) and then compressing and eq'ng each stem.

What exactly is a stem mix and how do i set that up so the drums will sound big like commercial recordings? Also, will sound replacer do that?

[Mr Layz]

I wanted to know the same thing, Im glad I read this topic cause im going to try it when I get home...

[Naagzh]

What exactly is a stem mix and how do i set that up so the drums will sound big like commercial recordings? Also, will sound replacer do that?

A stem is a group of tracks of the same (or similar) instruments, usually stereo. A typical rock song might have a stem mix for the drums, one for the guitars, one for bass, and one for vocals (maybe a separate stem for backup vocals). That way, you only need to mess with 4 or 5 faders to control the overall balance of the mix.

To set this up, make a few stereo aux tracks, and route all the guitar tracks to one stereo aux, all the drums to another, all the vocals to another, and so on.

Soundreplacer is handy for fattening up snares, toms, bass drums, you name it. For the snare drum, you'd trigger soundreplacer with your snare track (so that it plays the snare sample every time the snare is hit). Since SR isn't 100% accurate when it comes to placing the samples, you'll need to do one of two things:

1. Zoom in (as far as you can) and nudge the sample so that it lines up precisely with each snare hit (you might not even want a sample for the softer, ghosted hits or on some fills). Tedious, as you might imagine.

2. Use Beat Detective (a standard PTLE feature, not sure if it's available for M-Powered) to create a tempo "map" of your session, quantize appropriately, and line up the snare (and all other drum tracks) to the map. It helps big-time to have recorded to a click track, and is much easier if the drum part is rhythmically simplistic. There was a very recent post covering this method.

Before you resort to SoundReplacer or Drumagog, though, try researching parallel compression (i.e. NY Compression), and other drum mixing tips, or, even better, post the session on the web and let one of us take a crack at it! The most common pitfall when sneaking in drum samples is that it's very easy to hear a less-than-stellar job. We all know what real drums sound like, and how human beings play them, so it's not hard to tell when the hi-hat sounds like it's being played by Animal, but the kick and snare sound like Matt Cameron on steroids!