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How do pro's get the snare so loud and natural sounding?

Just wondering if any of you guys have any insite on how the pros can get a snare drum so loud and natural in the mix. I was listing to a tune the other day and the snare was as loud as the vocals but the rest of the kit was barely audiable. The snare was also very clear, and natural sounding. How do they get that seperation?

Micing both sides of the snare

how important is this? I know most project studios don't do it, but is it a good way to get a crisper snare sound? what exactly does it do for the sound if "crispiness" has nothing to do with it? We will be using a D6 on the Kick, two AKG 460b Condensers as OH's, and we have an md 421 and a 57 to play with as far as the snare...

from killer guitar tones to killer snare sounds

i've been reading some stuff on how to mix and match and overdub to get a killer guitar tone for the track...

what i really missed in the last session i had was the snare sound that i had in my head.. was looking for a tight, compressed, fat sounding snare, but couldn't get anywhere close to that..

kick+snare chain of plugins

ok here's what i've got to sound the best(or most like other production out there)

KICK- goes these plugins in this sequence:

1. EQ (notching bad frequencies out, low/highshelving for thump)

2. Gate (obviously, isolating the kick)

3. COMPRESSOR (2-1 ratio, threshold with gain reduction down about 10db, attack is 23ms release is 120 ms and hard-knee.