my guess is that you did not try the right things with EQ comp and reverb

TheFraz wrote: my guess is that you did not try the right things with EQ comp and reverb

Yeah, right...
All of the signal processing in the world isn't going to fix it in the mix. For starters, EQ'ing the frequency band that the snare's tone lies in will make the cymbals sound like trash can lids. And adding compression to the overheads will cause the cymbals to "hang" like a Carlos Santana solo. Adding reverb? To overheads? Talk about mud!
Can you go back and re-track the kit? Whoever recorded it (not you?) obviously didn't treat this kit as a SINGLE instrument, played by a SINGLE player. And didn't have the monitoring environment to make the right decisions on mic technique before commiting the sound "to tape". Or disc, whatever the media.
Is the snare part simple enough to be "flown in" by overdubbing or a sample?

I edited my original reply. SOMETIMES you can fudge it with a sample played over the snare part, if the part is simple enough. That's a big IF.
You can TRY having the drummer play the snare parts over and "fly " that in. I have had very little luck with that unless the part was a simple part played by a skilled drummer.

Hey niclaus, a few questions. How many tracks do you have of drums total? Just the OH? or OH and snare? or a bunch of mics? The more we know the more we can help.

So you have a lousy sounding snare drum track? And it's actually 2 separate tracks? Top & bottom? And you don't hear any snare drum in any of the other drum microphones including overheads? WTF?

No problem. There's plenty of ways to fix this. I need tohear this so, can you post a mix or separate tracks?

None of the other suggestions are appropriate and certainly won't help to fix your abortion. This is where experience is necessarily. And I'm talking phase flipping, noise generation & gating, side chained selective dynamics. The right reverb algorithms and voilà! Oh yeah, some equalization to taste.

Mixing in analog or digital or both?

Doing it all
Ms. Remy Ann David

I'm with Remy, post an example.
Your statement that there isn't any snare in the other mics is just too weird.

If possible, post an example of all the drums, all drums with snare mics muted, and one of just overheads.

Well, first off, is it always up front if you mute the snare tracks?

I realize that sounds like a dumb question, but until we get to hear some of it I can't tell you whether you have an EQ issue, a phase problem, or if simply moving the track a few ms will help...

BTW, what are you recording to?

BTW, what are you recording to?

Tape? Software?

I'll tell you about phase flipping if you'll answer my question.

Phase simplified:

If you have mics that are out of phase, like the example on the right, you've gotta flip one of the two (or more) to get them to work together as shown on the left.

In some cases it's preferable to move a track forward in time a few milliseconds to make something stand out.

That said, I don't think your problem lies there.

How long have you been pushin' the faders?

1. Remy was right. Not a lot of useful information posted ahead of her.
2. I would bus all drum tracks together and put a phase meter on that track.
3. Try different combinations of the tracks you have. Move them around(pan). Go with the setup that has the best phase relationship. This will be the best sounding choice, probably.
4. Remy is very wise. If she refutes anything I've said, she's right.
5. Sweet graphic, bent!

The snare tends to overwhelm the overhead microphones, so try with a very fast-acting peak limiter on the overhead to keep the snare drum from doing that.

Am I missing something here? :shock:

Did you say you have lots of drum tracks with snare on two and a set of overheads with NO SNARE in em???

How easy does this need to be?

I musta missed something.................................................................?

Splain yoursef agin Loooceee.

I really think we're hearing the classic song "I shot the phase shift. But I didn't shoot the A2D..."? And now he knows what that little "0" is with the line running through it, for.

My basic advice is to " build the bass by pushing buttons". Always in mono. Bass drum too flabby? Push the button. Problem solved !

I think I want to become a supermodel?
Ms. Remy Ann David

How about posting some samples?

I'm clueless
Remy Ann David

To rescue this, you're going to have to create a stereo sub-bus of the drums alone. Then you're gonna have to put a compressor and a reverb across the bus and dink with it till it all glues itself together. You can also add predelays on the cymbal track and compress the snare individually before the stereo sub.

Theres no way around it. Its going to take a lot of work and a lot of cpu to get it to gel.

I'm sure we've gone down this road already, but - how many separate, discreet tracks of drum mics are we talking about?

It appears that you've got two OH, one Snare, maybe one Kik?

Just a quick list would suffice, like:

Track# -- Instrument
1) Kik
2) Snare
3) OH-L
4) OH-R

Am I missing something here? If you're close miking the kit, wouldn't you want the least bleed possible? If it's too upfront, can't you just pull the fader down?

I'm sorry for being so obvious, but I just don't seem to understand...

EDIT: Didn't see there was a second page in this topic, and just noticed Davedog already posting this question, and yes reverb would be the answer... :oops:

niclaus wrote: Hello!

i do have to mix this project where the OH tracks are really lacking snare...
Well, there is none of it in there...
The problem is i can't get the snare to fit with the rest, it's always in front of everything...

I tried EQs, comp, reverb,... but it still up infront of everything...

Has anybody ever dealt with that kind of problem???

thanks for your help.

Rob.

Are you sayingthere was a snare mic used and the sound doesn't fit?

niclaus wrote: Hello!

i do have to mix this project where the OH tracks are really lacking snare...
Well, there is none of it in there...
The problem is i can't get the snare to fit with the rest, it's always in front of everything...

I tried EQs, comp, reverb,... but it still up infront of everything...

Has anybody ever dealt with that kind of problem???

thanks for your help.

Rob.

Are you sayingthere was a snare mic used and the sound doesn't fit?

Maybe the recordist who engineered the tracking process used high pass filters on the overheads before hitting the tape. Or maybe the drummer put something (towels) over the cymbals and recorded drums and cymbals seperately... some people have been known to do that. Or maybe he did use the high pass on the overheads, and super gated everything else. I vote for Drumagog with a semi dense room verb set to 100% wet as a backing track for the snare batter. Either that or mess with some frequency selective stereo expansion (Ozone?) and see if you can bring the rest of the kit out.

I seriously think EQ and verb (compression too) could do the trick (unless the snare just plain ol' sounds bad). Without audio examples, its tough to get a real idea of what we are dealing with. If the snare sounds out of place and too forward, perhaps dropping the mids (450-750) down a few dB, or perhaps take a fairly wide Q and sweep a mild cut across the band to see if you find any favorable results? (Try cutting first always!!!!)