Ugly Snare BOOM I cannot tame, HELP

[Christopher Har V]

Pan the snare hard left or right (slowly) for each hit as it plays and see if it gets noticably better or worse. If so, you might have a psychoacoustic phase issue which can be solved by panning it to where it sounds best, but that usually means an out of balance snare mix, so then you can pan it to that location anyways and then in series use an actual 'balancing pan pot' to recenter/locate the snare, the opposite also can work just as well. - This first corrects or identifies the phase issue then adjusts the location or level in the stereo field, depending on which type of pan use used first. -- Some daw's reverse their terms of 'pan vs balance'. when I say balancing pan pot I mean the one that actually moves the stereo information/program material side to side (for example hard right= 100% Left and 100% Right in the right channel etc), not the one that just controls volume levels on each side. The the first adjustment will be of one, then use the other one. I just had to deal with it and it's a nightmare. It's easier to just use a better sample, but if they all do it then something else is possibly going on. - In all honesty your clips sound pretty good to my ears, but it is a thumpy snare. Maybe it's just a thump snare by nature?

Idk, it distorts on my laptop and phone speakers very easily. Pretty sure it is distortion that I hear. Only on those two types of speakers. The trouble is in getting rid of that while keeping the snare from sounding too thin on other speakers. My mini-notch on the guitar has helped, but it hasn't solved it entirely. And yes, on all the 11 snares I can sample in my Superior Drummer, it does it. I'll try panning the snare like you suggest, thanks for the tip. It definitely has something to do with the rhythm guitars, but that might not be everything. Something to do with that 200Hz range, it distorts easily on my laptop and cell phone. But only when the snare hits, and not every snare hit, just random ones.

 

[Christopher Har V]

Have you tried using the dynamic eq in pro q? I'm only a few years late to the party lol, but that feature is a godsend.

No but I really want that plugin. I have Pro Q 2 but it's still a hefty price just to upgrade. Tryna pinch pennies in my life right now due to car expenses, so no new plug-ins for this mix, I'm afraid. But the internal side-chain in Pro-C that I'm using is basically like one band of dynamic control in Pro-Q3. And I have it stomping on 200Hz.

 

[c7spheres]

Idk, it distorts on my laptop and phone speakers very easily. Pretty sure it is distortion that I hear. Only on those two types of speakers. The trouble is in getting rid of that while keeping the snare from sounding too thin on other speakers. My mini-notch on the guitar has helped, but it hasn't solved it entirely. And yes, on all the 11 snares I can sample in my Superior Drummer, it does it. I'll try panning the snare like you suggest, thanks for the tip. It definitely has something to do with the rhythm guitars, but that might not be everything. Something to do with that 200Hz range, it distorts easily on my laptop and cell phone. But only when the snare hits, and not every snare hit, just random ones.

Maybe try using a different file converter for your .mp3 files etc? I had this happen where I was trying to deal with 'swirly' hihats for days an by chance used a different converter and it solved everything instantly, even though they were both set to high quality/lossless etc.. Other than that it sound like you just gotta keep dialing it in then.

 

[Clocks]

Well here's a link to an example of what I'm talking about, but of course SOUNDCLOUD compresses the mix to the point where the HARD FLUB is much less noticeable. So you probably wont really be able to hear what I'm talking about.

But here, in my DAW, every snare hit in this segment sounds just fine besides the 6th hit, and then the third-to-last and second-to-last hits. Doesn't come thru the same on soundcloud at all tho.

The second-to-last hit is the best example of what I'm talking about, and does manage to come thru on soundcloud a bit. But like I said, it's only noticeable on laptop or phone speakers.
https://soundcloud.com/christopherharv/the-world-of-difference-hard-flub-on-snare

Could it be that you are programming a Kick and Snare at the same time mate? That's in the example here on the 2nd to last snare, with both of them at the same time that is a lot of transient information at the exact same time especially if they are locked to the grid.

 

[Christopher Har V]

Could it be that you are programming a Kick and Snare at the same time mate? That's in the example here on the 2nd to last snare, with both of them at the same time that is a lot of transient information at the exact same time especially if they are locked to the grid.

Haha yeah, this is an old EP of mine that I'm remixing, and I promised myself I would not re-write the drums as much as I may be tempted to. But I've toyed with changing the velocity and the writing, and it doesn't help. Unless I change the velocity of the snare so quiet that it loses all punch. If anything, on hits where the kick and snare hit at the same time (a style of writing drums that I really don't do much anymore, unless it's a passage of constant-16ths on the kick) the ugly HARD FLUB is less noticeable. There is just no pattern in the writing of the drums that causes the ugly boom distortion, none that I can tell. But I will keep looking. Figuring this out would mean the world to me, because it's haunted me on past releases too. So far, compressing the F out of just the 180-250 range on the snare has helped loads, as has considering the rhythm guitar. It is definitely clashing with the rhythm guitar most of all. My mini-notch at 250 helps with some of the ugliness, but not all. May be several little things I have to do rather than one big thing.

 

[Christopher Har V]

If I had it my way, I would side-chain the snare to a multi-band comp on the rhythm guitars, which would compress just the 200Hz range of the rhythm guitars only when the snare hits. But right now none of my plugins do that. The stock reaper Multi-comp doesn't allow side-chaining, and I don't currently have the funds to drop $150 on Pro-MB.

I might just have to create 2 more duplicate rhythm guitar tracks and divide them by certain frequencies, such that I have one track of only the frequencies that I want to compress when the snare hits. Then I can just sidechain the snare to a normal compressor on that specific track. But that'd be a sloppy nightmare to manage in my workflow. All the duplicated automation and whatnot. I think there is a way in REAPER to split the signal of one track into 3 bandwidths, and then somehow use that to use a normal compressor on just one of those bands. A native splitter plugin. I think it involves some gnarly routing, but I'm only just remembering it now. Hopefully it will work.

 

[GunpointMetal]

If I had it my way, I would side-chain the snare to a multi-band comp on the rhythm guitars, which would compress just the 200Hz range of the rhythm guitars only when the snare hits. But right now none of my plugins do that. The stock reaper Multi-comp doesn't allow side-chaining, and I don't currently have the funds to drop $150 on Pro-MB.

I might just have to create 2 more duplicate rhythm guitar tracks and divide them by certain frequencies, such that I have one track of only the frequencies that I want to compress when the snare hits. Then I can just sidechain the snare to a normal compressor on that specific track. But that'd be a sloppy nightmare to manage in my workflow. All the duplicated automation and whatnot. I think there is a way in REAPER to split the signal of one track into 3 bandwidths, and then somehow use that to use a normal compressor on just one of those bands. A native splitter plugin. I think it involves some gnarly routing, but I'm only just remembering it now. Hopefully it will work.

You can side-chain the ReaComp and use the sliders at the bottom to limit it to a certain range. Everything above and below the filters will be ignored.

 

[Christopher Har V]

You can side-chain the ReaComp and use the sliders at the bottom to limit it to a certain range. Everything above and below the filters will be ignored.

I've tried that but that only filters the input.
So if I have ReaComp running on my Rhythm Guitars, sidechained from the Snare, and then I set those HPF and LPFs on ReaComp, all that does is change the frequencies of the snare that will hit the ReaComp. So let's say I set it to 100-300Hz, the compressor will only read that 100-300Hz on the snare, and the whole guitar signal will still get compressed when that part of the snare breaks the threshold.

 

[Sylim]

you could also try TDR Nova. it´s a free dynamic EQ with side chain feature and everything you´d need. you could set it up to compress that specific frequency on the guitars and side chain it with the snare. i actually do that with kick and bass a lot, so the bass leaves space for the kick in the low end. works incredibly well.

but then again having to make such a drastic cut on the guitars or needing this kind of special fix, it seems more like there is some issue going on with your tone and perhaps your snare mix that you may not hear in your usual monitoring environments. i´m a bit late to the party, so i´m sorry if you already answered such questions. have you tried tweaking your tone? i.e. use a different amp that reacts a bit differently in the low end? or a different ir? or have you tried detuning the snare ever so slightly so it doesn´t resonate with the guitars in that frequency?

 

[Christopher Har V]

you could also try TDR Nova. it´s a free dynamic EQ with side chain feature and everything you´d need. you could set it up to compress that specific frequency on the guitars and side chain it with the snare. i actually do that with kick and bass a lot, so the bass leaves space for the kick in the low end. works incredibly well.

but then again having to make such a drastic cut on the guitars or needing this kind of special fix, it seems more like there is some issue going on with your tone and perhaps your snare mix that you may not hear in your usual monitoring environments. i´m a bit late to the party, so i´m sorry if you already answered such questions. have you tried tweaking your tone? i.e. use a different amp that reacts a bit differently in the low end? or a different ir? or have you tried detuning the snare ever so slightly so it doesn´t resonate with the guitars in that frequency?

I have tried the detuning, to no avail. And as for the guitars, they're from a real recorded amp & cab with no DI track so I'm stuck with what I got. I've come to a reasonable balance. I haven't been able to get rid of the ugly boom entirely, but I have more or less tamed it to a somewhat-acceptable level.

 

[Drew]

Is it possible you've doubled up some MIDI notes on accident with a lower-velocity hit that's adding more bass. I haven't used SD2.0 in a loooong time, but I do remember it basically playing back hits twice as loud if they somehow got doubled. I'd be going through a track and out of nowhere there would be a kick/snare/tom that was 2x louder than everything else.

Definitely learned this one the hard way too a couple times, usually on kick hits when I would do some midi humanization, then some splitting and editing, splitting through a note in the piano roll and giving me a near-instantaneous "flam" style double hit that jumps WAY out on the kick.