Tips on mixing rock drums ! PART 2 - The SNARE !

Hello dear people of Steemit , so here is the part 2 in the series of mixing tips for getting the drums to sound massive and rocking ! Last post was about mixing a kick drum which you can see if you click here, and this one is about mixing the snare drum .
Snare is absolutely fundamental part of your drum sound , since it provides a back beat to most of the songs and it is very important to get it right if you want a powerful sounding drums . So let's dive into the matter straight away !

1.INTRODUCTION
Okay , so before i go on explaining all the fancy techniques , i'd like to say a bit about the most common ways the snare is recorded . It is usually recorded with 2 mics , one to capture the bottom side of the drum with the snares and the other to capture the top skin of the drum . Since those two mics will be facing each other in the same direction , it is very important to flip the phase on one of them and thus get the best sound possible ( you'll notice the low end coming back into the mix ) . You have the option of deciding which side of the snare drum is going to be more prominent , but they generally sound best if mixed together since it gives a more natural idea of how the snare actually sounds when we listen to it in the room . The bottom mic generally sounds more ''top - end''-y ( what a word :D ) while the top mic will give you the punch and power that you need in a rock mix . I personally like the ratio of 60-40% in favor of the top mic , for reasons stated earlier . In styles other than rock , especially if it is some intimate sounding song , bottom mic sounds fantastic on it's own . Ok , so after we've cleared that out of the way , let's move on to some eq !

1. EQ
   I like my snares fat ! I mean this is just my personal preference , you can totally be into that shimmering snare sound , but to me nice fat, in your face snare sounds right . to achieve that i usually boost the somewhere around 200 Hz region as you can see here :
   
   In this particular case the desired ''oomph'' frequency was 233 Hz , a generous cut at 700 Hz ( that snare had a nasty ring in that region ) and a top end boost . Speaking of nasty ringings , each snare has it's own set of overtones that don't sound that great or they become too prominent after compression , so you kind of have to ''hunt'' for those frequencies manually and cut them accordingly . Also , it's important to note that in ideal situation that top end boost probably would't have to be so drastic ( this one was pretty dull sounding ) . Common practice is to get rid of all the low end information which is not relevant to the snare sound so there is a low cut filter applied as well . All in all , i like to get the ''oomph'' by boosting the low fundamental of the snare , get rid of the nasty overtones if there are any , and boost the top end to taste if needed . That explains it in a nutshell :)

2. COMPRESSION
   I do not like over-compressed snares . They just lose their definition and natural sound if you overdo it . In some cases like the kick drum , overdoing can sometimes even bring the desired sound , but when it comes to the snare , compression should be applied with caution . You'll start hearing that snappy , no sustain sound when you compress it too much and unless you're really going after that sound , in most of the cases i don't like it . So to battle the problem of consistency it is very important for the drummer to have consistent rim shots . That way you'll get the desired sustain and punch right from the recording stage and compression should just polish the dynamics a little bit . Here are the settings i use quite often :
   
   I like to keep the attack fast but not all the way , as to let the initial transients squeeze through compressor , and a fast release . Really there's not a lot to it , a consistent drummer will make your life much easier , so ideally when it comes to compression your job would be to just tighten it up a little .

3. SATURATION TRICKS
   Ok , this technique can be used if you are going for that ''trashy'' snare sound . The key is to saturate the top mic of the snare drum so that you'll get more overtones out of the recording . Sometimes it can even make a lifeless snare gain some attitude like it was in my case . After the recording was done , i've found out that i haven't played the snare properly but it was all too late to record again . I tried adding a saturation plugin on the top mic and voila ! The snare sounded massive ! I used the ''RedLightDist'' plugin that comes with Studio One and it just made a world of difference .
   Pretty heavy saturation going on there .
   In an ideal case , you wouldn't have to use that much saturation , but it can still be used gently to make the snare work a tiny bit harder . It is a great effect , highly recommend it .

4. THE ROOM SOUND
   This is actually the single most important thing in achieving a massive snare sound - the room reverb . It just transforms your ''meh'' snare into a monster sounding one . The amount of send i like to feed into a room plugin depends on the situation and the type of a song but i like roomy snares . The dead snare sound was used extensively in the 70's especially in funk music , but in modern rock production roomy snares have long taken over . A little trick i like to use is to compress the room heavily so you'll get even bigger sound . Also that low ''oomph'' boost at around 200 hz on snare makes the room ring very pleasingly in that region and the result is a massive sound . You can also use very long reverb and put a gate on it , so you get the 80's ''arena rock'' vibe . I personally don't use that style often but it is handy to know how to create it if you happen to find yourself in a situation when someone might ask for it .

Right , so this wraps my little tutorial on mixing a snare drum . I hope that i've helped someone who is inexperienced in this field , and perhaps gave a couple of new ideas to people who are already professional producers . Thanks for reading and stopping by :)