adding power to snares

Krispy

Active Member
VIP Junglist
Joined
Nov 26, 2009
Location
Alberta, Canada
Anyone have some tips for making snares more powerful? I have them triple stacked up and it still just sounds like a weak baby shaking a rattler....
 
Personally, I like to layer my snares with a clap, not a normal clap but one of those really sharp Trance claps. I'm also experimenting layering them with really tight, punchy kicks that have had the low-end filtered out.

Not really sure how either method would work for dnb though, as I mostly only produce Dubstep & House-ish sorts of things.
 
Personally, I like to layer my snares with a clap, not a normal clap but one of those really sharp Trance claps. I'm also experimenting layering them with really tight, punchy kicks that have had the low-end filtered out.

Was about to say the same with the claps, good advice imo, you should try that krispy.
 
keep collecting as many snare samples as you can, its all about having a good snare sample to start with,

cut the attack right down so it hits straight away.

i like to layer them with snares from breaks or rex beats, personally using real snares layerd on top of a punchy snare works for me
 
Last edited:
Maybe try a little distortion... I know in Logic the overdrive plug-in works quite well.
However, I don't know what your using.

Also like the above TM and deegun said... Layer it with a clap sounds nice as well.
 
keep collecting as many snare samples as you can, its all about having a good snare sample to start with,

cut the attack right down so it hits straight away.

i like to layer them with snares from breaks or rex beats, personally using real snares layerd on top of a punchy snare works for me

This! Always best to start with good samples and build around them. Theres some good powerful snare samples in the vengeance sample packs.
 
yeah, i use a snare which has fairly powerful low end (160-260hz ish) and then if its sounding pretty dull add a real sounding snare (low end equed out slightly). Add an extra break too (i cut out the snare in case it starts to muddy shit up).....

Then just raise up the higher frequencies with an eq....
 
keep collecting as many snare samples as you can, its all about having a good snare sample to start with,

cut the attack right down so it hits straight away.

i like to layer them with snares from breaks or rex beats, personally using real snares layerd on top of a punchy snare works for me

dito.. need a lower thuddy one layer'd up with a brighter one and some breaks mixed in too... all about experimentation bro!
 
If it's not just the sound you want to change, you can try moving the snare hits so they occur earlier by a very small amount. It'll change the groove a little, but having the snare coming in early makes the whole thing feel faster, snappier, more intense or hurried. Moving the snare hits a little late gives a more laid back feel.
 
compress em! EQ sculpting helps alot, it's probably the most important thing... See what you can get out of one sound and try and build around that main decent/half decent sounding snare hit, but make sure you give it enough space so you could for example add another snare sound, cut the highs, most of the midrange and leave the little amount of natural bass-end frequency (well, lower mid-range) for some punchiness. a lilttle tadge of reverb won't cause no tears either.. Go back to my first point if you're still blagged!
 
Anyone have some tips for making snares more powerful? I have them triple stacked up and it still just sounds like a weak baby shaking a rattler....

One of those 3 layers in your "SD" should be the "focal/center SD" i.e. One of them should be big and powerful and the other two are only there to support and add texture to the SD overall. Whichever one is your 'main' SD, you simply need to boost it's Volume and it'll jam.

Think of layering SDs like you would when you're layering Mid Range Layers on top of your Sub.

You're never going to layer 2 or more Huge low frequency sounds on top of each other because it would sound muddy... same thing goes when you're layering SDs.

If you want to attempt to use multiple (3-6+) snare sounds to try to make one cohesive 'big' SD, then by all means: experiment to your hearts content : )
But usually what you'll want to do is use one big SD as the main SD (i.e. one that can stand out on it's own in the Mix) and multiple small SDs (usually 'small' by way of volume being set low) to add various color/texture/feel in the mix as needed.


Layering SDs is an Art... it takes practice. Took me years to get it right.
 
Everyone elses suggestions are also solid... there's LOTS of ways to do it... like I said... 'Art'.

: ))
 
adding rim shot,clap,and shaker underneath...it doesn't have to be loud,it has to complete each other... and boost EQ on where the snare peaks in the frequency :)

a good quality of sample pack is a good start...i'm using FL Studio sample pack,it's 24bit sample pack...it comes free if you buy the producer bundle..also vengeance house pack,great quality of claps (some have really bad resonant noise thou,so you might need to clean it up in your EQ)
 
it also depends on what style your going for as a more dancefloor track would have a big driving snare as a more minimal one would have a more textured sort of percussion sounding snare .
i always boost my frequencies on my snares around 1 to 1.5 khz a little high end boost and then just fiddle around to find another frequency that "snaps".
you wanna remember also that snare can take up similar frequencies as your kick drums as they have quiet a bit of space between.
 
Back
Top Bottom