How to Beef My Snare Up?!!! (Pop/House/Dubstep)

[BYizz]

...in this pop/house/dubstep song I'm working on? It's currently a work in progress; I'm going to have some people rap over the verses. Some of the levels are a tad off, and the dubstep breakdown is still far from complete, but this biggest thing I'm noticing is how weak and brittle the snare sounds. I currently have an electronic snare sample mixed with an electronic "clap"-like sample...but it still sounds weak. I hate how people are constantly trying to emulate Skrillex...but how do I get my snare to sound like his? All of his snare sounds are super beefy! Check out my song, and please provide beef-up tips!!!

[u2redlight]

clap "snare" freqs are eating your snare, try using a sample with more, body. eq it right, maybe use some reverb on it, with a reasonable pre-delay.

[kakeux]

Hi,

I would suggest trying parralel compression for the snare. Send the snare track to an aux with a compressor really compressing.

The choice of the sample is for sure crucial. Maybe try to layer to different sounding snare sample by creating two snare tracks.

using a snare reverb couls also help (an aux track will be my choice).

EQ can help as well, remove some attack freq and try to get more corpse sounds (hope it means something).

If you have a transient designer plugin, you can try to increase the sustain of a snare hit.

All that are suggestions that require tweaking, but these would be the idea I would try.

Cheers!

[Jeremy Morrissy]

Just a quick tip that you may already know, but the snare's decay is just as crucial as its initial transient.

I used to believe that it was the transient that mattered the most, however I would find my snares would not pop out of the mix.

By using parallel compression to increase the sustain of the snare, you can make it pop out of a mix. Hell, maybe chuck a hard limiter on the snare and really get some grit to make it pop out. The beef is in the sustain though; a transient designer plugin can be one of your greatest friends.

Also, I would almost never use a backbeat in pop or house music that wasn't atleast a double-sampled snare track. Try layering some sounds, it honestly helps!

[BYizz]

By layering and double-sampling...do you guys mean simply mix two snares together?

[kakeux]

Yes, that's what I meant...That is a solution. Basically it can be compared to having one mic on the top of the snare and one on the bottom. If you drum sampler allow use to directly mix two sample it could be done directly or simply use a duplicated snare track with another instance of your drum sampler with a new sample.

[m24p]

When I here "beef" "meat" or that sort of thing in reference to snare, I typically think 500 Hz. Actually, listening to Skrillex now I think it goes even lower than that. You might need to layer a sample with some lower frequency content if boosting something in the 350 Hz area doesn't do anything. Also things like parallel distortion or compression help.

[sparqee]

Layering samples can work wonders but sometimes pitch shifting a reverb can do the trick. Keep the verb short so it sounds like a part of the snare hit (rather than a tail) and then pitch it down to taste.

[BYizz]

Layering samples can work wonders but sometimes pitch shifting a reverb can do the trick. Keep the verb short so it sounds like a part of the snare hit (rather than a tail) and then pitch it down to taste.

Thanks for all the input, everyone. As for pitch shifting a reverb...I'm working with Logic Pro 9 samples and such. Would this involve creating an auxilliary send with a reverb plug-in, followed by a pitch-shifting plug-in in the signal chain (on that same auxilliary send)?

Also, I currently have the kick going constantly, even layered with the snare hits. I feel like this gives the beat a constant driving sound since the kick is never missing. Is this a common technique or is that overloading the percussion? And would that be especially overloaded if I had a kick and two snare samples all being played at once?

[brandondrury]

I hate how people are constantly trying to emulate Skrillex...but how do I get my snare to sound like his?

Ha! The herd-like mentality of electronic production is trifled only by the metal guys. Conform or be excommunicated. It's VERY difficult dealing with those web communities as most people don't have the technical understanding to explain how to help you get the sound in your head or don't have the character as human beings to actually help a person in need. In short, you are generally on your own with electronic music production specifics.

All of his snare sounds are super beefy!

Tuesday night is Electronic Music night here in my shop. I'm doing the Jetface project indefinitely. I may as well just join the damn group. We were having this same conversation last night. I read a Skrillex interview where he says the secret to his beef is 200Hz. I started tinkering with this. Taking some of my Vengeance Sound samples and bumping 200Hz didn't come close to what I wanted. That component is in there, but cranking it up to the beef-level of Skrillex doesn't sound beefy at all. I can't type the sound, unfortunately, but it sounds like the average snare top track of a metal kid down the street who has never tuned or purchased a new snare head in his lifetime.

There is a dynamic component (most likely after) this EQ bump. In other words, there's a compressor involved here that's catching some of the decay to increase the KAPOW factor of that snare.

I used to believe that it was the transient that mattered the most, however I would find my snares would not pop out of the mix.

Transient-dependent drums die QUICKLY when hitting -4dB RMS (TT Meter).

I don't know every mixing trick on Earth, but I've used 98% of them that freely float around the web. My general opinion is most of these tactics are too subtle in electronic music. In other words, relying on things like parallel compression (a great trick) only makes sense when the source is perfected. The line between source and mixing is blurred in dubstep and such. The short answer is to start with samples that blow your mind before touching a processor.

I'm pretty technical by nature/necessity. The average guy cranking out awesome electronic mixes is not. Most of them have no idea what a compressor release does. My advice is stay as stupid as possible about the ways of audio engineer because few audio engineers (even really good ones) know the specifics of what dub step and such requires.

In other words, think creatively.

One trick I like a lot is using a snare sample that goes "oomph" and does little else. It should sound stupid and unusable on it's own. The I trigger the Slate Black Album sample and crush the living shit out of it with zero attack and a fast release. I want only the ambiance from it and no actual snare sound. I'll send both of those a group and compress them pretty aggressively (I usually have to turn down the Black Album reverb). The result is an awesome lively reverb that does the sustain and a meaty as hell attack. It's a cool sound. Not sure if that's where you are going with this, but it's worth looking at.

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Brandon

Brandon

[sparqee]

As for pitch shifting a reverb...I'm working with Logic Pro 9 samples and such. Would this involve creating an auxilliary send with a reverb plug-in, followed by a pitch-shifting plug-in in the signal chain (on that same auxilliary send)?

Yup. It can also be quite interesting if you gate the verb (again, keeping it short enough so that it doesn't trail out after the snare hit). Toss on some distortion if you like, maybe a little extreme EQ (pre or post verb). Make a layer cake and you're more likely to discover something unique and original.

[deeyal]

Thanks for all the input, everyone. As for pitch shifting a reverb...I'm working with Logic Pro 9 samples and such. Would this involve creating an auxilliary send with a reverb plug-in, followed by a pitch-shifting plug-in in the signal chain (on that same auxilliary send)?

Also, I currently have the kick going constantly, even layered with the snare hits. I feel like this gives the beat a constant driving sound since the kick is never missing. Is this a common technique or is that overloading the percussion? And would that be especially overloaded if I had a kick and two snare samples all being played at once?

Sample layering is one of the most common tricks used for creating fat snares in electronic dance music. Sometimes I will layer up to four snares and carefully eq them to blend together. Usually a mixture of synthetic and acoustic snares.

When you say you have the kick going constantly can you elaborate? Is the tune a 4/4 dance track. Therofore is the kick playing every beat, 1/2, or quarter?
It's not that unusual to hear a delayed kick in an electronic track. It was fairly common on a lot of old chemical brothers stuff where the kick is triggered every beat, but then delayed so you here it every quarter. It does create a nice driving effect.

On layering samples with the kick - again not that unusual to layer with a snare sample, maybe with a fairly sharp HP filter, or even a hi hat sample. If you download any commerical sample packs and listen to the kicks, I guarantee you will hear that they've layered snares or hi hats on some of them.

My advise is to just go with what feels right. If it sounds cool then go with it. Just try to make sure you layer sounds that will compliment each other and make sure you adjust the eq so their not fighting with eachother

[brandondrury]

Make a layer cake and you're more likely to discover something unique and original.

Just a reminder, the word "dubstep" is in the title. Depending on a person's adherence to such conventions that can pretty much wipe out all notions of "unique" and "original". That's a big reason I ration my listening of modern electronic music.

My advise is to just go with what feels right. If it sounds cool then go with it. Just try to make sure you layer sounds that will compliment each other and make sure you adjust the eq so their not fighting with eachother

+1 I'd add that you should focus on the destination and not get too hung up the means. I had a client get all excited and say, "YOU SHOULD PUT 4 KICK DRUMS ON THERE!!! HA HA HAHAHAH!!". I said okay. Without listening, I grabbed 4 kicks, pulled them all down in level to match the original kick. It sounded stupid. The point is not that sample layering is any way flawed, it's that the magic is in WHY you added sample 2,3, and 4. Sample #1 should be missing something and you could try to get that with sample #2, etc.

Brandon

[IMF OnSite Recording]

As mentioned earlier, I agree on parallel compression, gating a verb.. etc. but it all comes down to finding the right sample first. I have wasted countless hours trying to work with a sample that just wasn't meant for the project. You need to listen to as many samples until you find the right one that has the closest sound you're looking for at the source. Also, don't get too involved with mixing and "beefing up" your snare if you have not added vocals to the track yet. In order for a mix to sound it's best, you must have the vocal track present to determine where the snare will sit 99% of the time.. otherwise the attack of the snare could harm your vocal perspective if mixed out of order, causing you to go back and redo things. Not fun.

The only relevant time I would ever beef something up or mix it a bit is for the sole purpose of giving the vocalist the morale and feel of a complete song for best performance... and we're talking a 20-30 minute rough mix. After the best takes are recorded, most plugins are reset or taken out and then it is mixed thoroughly from the ground up.