HELP mixing the SNARE!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 6:02 pm

Everytime I record the drums, I always get this nasty ring coming out of the snare, and whenever I mix, it's always difficult to get the right EQ settings to remove this "ring." If someone could please help me with this issue, I'd greatly appreciate it!

PS. I used two SM57's on the snare and they're placed on the top and bottom.

Thank you!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 6:41 pm

Damp with a wallet or whatever during recording, or use a spectrum analyzer to identify the ring frequency and remove it with a high Q filter.

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 7:02 pm

Usually the ring is there live, but you are just noticing it more when you record. Assuming your heads are in good shape and the drum is in tune, you need to work on dampening the drum. Do a google search on this topic. More hits than you can shake a stick at.

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:34 pm

Try using a zero ring - most music stores will have them. It looks like a piece of drum head cut into a 1" wide circle. I've found that they will dampen the snare's ringing without making the drum sound dull or dead.

Also where you place the top SM-57 will have a great affect on how much ring you pick up. If the microphone is close to the lug which is the major contributor to the ring you'll hear more of the pitched ringing in the recording. Try rotating the snare drum around or re-tuning that lug. The biggest thing that will help is using your ears before you place the mics.

You're probably already doing this but you should flip the polarity on the bottom mic to avoid cancellations in sound. If the bottom mic's polarity isn't reversed it could accentuate the drum's ring.

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:41 am

YES to all the above.
You don't need help mixing the snare, you need help in recording the snare.
There's this trend now to just record everything straight without making any adjustments under the assumption that all things are fixable in the mix.
If the ring was there from the start, it needs to be attended to at that time. Failure to recognize, evaluate, adjust and fix problems from the beginning makes for headaches and a poor quality product later
Tuning is first approach. After that come O-rings because they don't actually touch the head when the drum is hit allowing the drummer to play unaltered. Next come wallet's, moongel, tape, etc. Of these, moongel is probably the best.

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 3:42 pm

Thank you to everyone who replied to my post. What would be the best microphone to use for the snare aside from the SM57's?

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 6:41 pm

I don't think they are referring to your mic selection as the problem. The SM57 is a fine microphone for transducing a snare drum. I think the advice given to you was more about placing the microphone in the right place related to the drum and the room as well as other instruments. Also, the tuning of your instrument is crucial. You're not going to make a junky sounding snare sound like a DW once it's recorded. It's already at a disadvantage before it even hits the microphone if it sounds bad in the room. Even a DW that's tuned well could sound like poop if the mic isn't in the right spot for that drum. So, just experiment. That is what technology has ruined. People find it easier to go on the internet and figure out what is best for them from people of broad experiences. (Some people who give you advice might not really know what is going on and just repeat things they've heard online?). What I'm saying is this: Just experiment. A LOT. Take what you have and learn what it can do...what it can't do. THEN buy new gear based on what you have learned...not on what you heard is good online. Don't take this as an insult, please. Do take my advice though. Just go out and try EVERYTHING that you can think of. Try things you see online, and then try the exact opposite of what it tells you to see WHY what you're doing sounds good or bad. That is what makes you a good engineer. Knowing WHY things sound like they do and adjusting relatively. Not just knowledge of what some people online told you. You'll impress a lot more people when they come in with this ringy shit sounding snare and you can tune it up because you know what it needs, and then make their 40 dollar snare sound amazing on tape than scratching your head and then saying...mmm give me a couple days for the people on recording.org to tell me what to do. Again, I'm not bashing anyone unless you're just looking for handout information rather than experimenting.

Good luck with all your future projects!

Neil

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 11:32 pm

Yeah, tune it right first. I spent about 30-45 minutes dialing in the snare tuning before I even put a mic on it for my last go. I had the familiar honky ring going on, but after that amount of time tuning, which usually involves getting to the point of "This is probably not going to work, but..." I ended up with a nice tight snare sound and not a piece of duct tape or an O-ring used. Then its a good sound, so you can focus on placing the mic to capture that. Its really a simple, albeit time consuming process. Get the source sounding good is step one. Then a decent mic (not great, I don't own any of those yet!), then decent gain staging, maybe some compression. New heads sure make it easier! ANDY

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 4:04 pm

I can't believe I haven't seen someone say this yet but just pull out as much eq between 700 and 1khz as you can or are comfortable with(without ruining the sound). You immediately notice a lot of ring will disappear. I record a lot of demos for a lot of local bands and the most common problem with them is tuning their drums, probably 90% of bands I record have ringing snares and cutting eq at the range mentioned has always been a solid solution to the problem.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:13 pm

jonnyc wrote:

I can't believe I haven't seen someone say this yet but just pull out as much eq between 700 and 1khz as you can or are comfortable with(without ruining the sound).

Yikes! someone let the cat outta da bag.

Based on the author''s original post, we're assuming that the eq fix was not working well as a solution. I think we've been focusing on diagnosing and treating the patient correctly from the start to avoid such nasty invasive surgury.
But yeah, in a pinch, radical eq can, in some cases, yeild better results.
But liposuction is not an ideal substitute to eating your veggies.

Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:51 am

You gotta be able to tune drums to ever think of getting good drum tones. Sorry but whoever mentioned pinching the 1K, I dont agree. Sure it may fix a ring, but by all tonal value it also should ruin the snare tone. I rely on the 1K range alot for my snare. I agree with all the recommendations on retuning the drum. There should be zero ring, unless you purposefully want it (some do). You gotta break that baby down and start over lug by lug to get it right or just do what you really want to do and that is have a real drum technician come on and help or hire a online session player.
Hate to break it to ya, but when you finally have great sounding snare you will love it.
Tommy Wink

Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:30 am

The audix I5 in my opinion is superior to the Sm57 in nearly every application. Many people on this board will tell you the I5 is the way to go. However there are diehard 57 fans on here that couldnt tell you what an I5 looks like that will be quick to tell you different.

Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:43 pm

Jeremy, why all the hostility? The Audix mic is a GREAT for sure. Is it 'superior' to ANY other mic? This, just like evryone elses, is an opinion. Your experiences with this are simply YOUR opinion based on such experiences. Saying someone might have other opinions that arent based in factual experience is a bogus claim on your part....You simply have no way of knowing these things. You'd be surprised how many people on here own both and use them regularly.

The fact is, the i5 isnt going to solve this problem any more than any other mic can. This is a mechanical problem only and deals with proper tuning of an instrument. This has already been discussed and pointed out.

If you simply want to bash folks for having a different opinion on something dont hijack a thread to do so. Start your own and see how far it gets.

Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:48 pm

natural wrote:

jonnyc wrote:

I can't believe I haven't seen someone say this yet but just pull out as much eq between 700 and 1khz as you can or are comfortable with(without ruining the sound).

Yikes! someone let the cat outta da bag.

Based on the author''s original post, we're assuming that the eq fix was not working well as a solution. I think we've been focusing on diagnosing and treating the patient correctly from the start to avoid such nasty invasive surgury.
But yeah, in a pinch, radical eq can, in some cases, yeild better results.
But liposuction is not an ideal substitute to eating your veggies.

Who said anything about radical eq'ing. Just narrow the Q and yank a couple db's out of the thing. Some crappy snares require a healthy chunk but for the most part just a little does it. It's nice to think you can just throw a mic up tune the drum right and be happy but for a lot of people on this board that isn't the case. We aren't all recording in acoutically treated rooms built to accentuate the goods and get rid of the bads.

Sorry AB but I don't agree with you at all. Pulling out some 1k has never ruined a snare tone that I've worked with. You also need to keep in mind "tones" are subjective. You may really like something the talent I record doesn't. I've recorded some well respected drummers that really liked having some 1k notched out. Now I will say I've recorded a few spectacular kits coupled with equally amazing drummers and yes, they don't need much eq'ing at all, but most people I record couldn't properly tune a ring out if their life depended on it. Corrective eq'ing is sometimes the only way to make something not suck, it's unfortunate but true. I'd love to not have to eq anything.

Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:30 pm

I've had little success removing ring with a notch filter. You almost always have harmonics of the ring as well, making your eq look like a comb filter in the end....and here's the bad news. The frequency that is making the ring usually correlates to the note that the snare is tuned to (fundamental). Cutting that WILL kill the sound of the snare. Your ring will be gone, but it will also make the thing sound thin and weak almost always. Maybe it can work, but I'd MUCH rather just make the fuckin thing sound right before I even plugged a mic in. It's just logic. A microphone is made to capture an acoustic sound and translate it into voltage. It doesn't know if there's a ring or not and how to fix it, so no mic choice is going to fix your ring problem, unless it's a really shitty mic with a bad frequency response that happens to have a huge dip in the register that your snare is ringing. That will fix your ring, but now your drum sounds like shit again. Just tune the fuckin thing.

Neil

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