Reverb for snappy snares/rims

Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Morning all,

I'm looking for any tips you have for dialling in reverb for tight snares and rim shots. Ala Calibre & Perez. I've tried all sorts over the years and never seem to get them to sit just right. I've messed around with predelays filters and envelopes and nothing gets them sitting correct in the mix. I'm after that complimentary air on the rimshots but they always end up sounding disjointed.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks.
 
Hey there, you will find that it is not always about using reverb. A lot of the time it is about layering an acoustic snare underneath your synthetic snare. You can make your own acoustic snare using Studio Drummer (Noisia do it and they have a nice tutorial on YouTube) and shape it the way you want. Really just mess around with the snares on studio drummer. You can change the room and overhead mics to give your snare a space of depth. After layering it with your synthetic snare, use a saturation and a limiter to meld them together, the acoustic snare will give you that tight reverb effect that you are looking for!
 
how obvious do you want the reverb? you can record the hit with the amount of reverb you want, bounce out the sound and use volume faders so there's no clashing but without an example it's tough to say what you're after exactly. I don't apply much reverb to my snare at all. Any heavy reverbed layers behind it are separate to my snare bus and a seperate sound/sample
 
how obvious do you want the reverb? you can record the hit with the amount of reverb you want, bounce out the sound and use volume faders so there's no clashing but without an example it's tough to say what you're after exactly. I don't apply much reverb to my snare at all. Any heavy reverbed layers behind it are separate to my snare bus and a seperate sound/sample

Real talk here, you want minimal reverb on your snares, with a very short decay and a slight delay otherwise the reverb will really wash out your snare and make it not punchy. You are right about heavy reverb layers being completely different entities to the snare, they may not even be snare reverbs. Also I find convolution to be a nice way to create that nice tight reverb !
 

I've Labs rim/snare example is probably best. I'm pretty sure it's verb with a tight decay/enveloper on it but I just can't seem to get them hitting that sweetspot in the mix.
 

I've Labs rim/snare example is probably best. I'm pretty sure it's verb with a tight decay/enveloper on it but I just can't seem to get them hitting that sweetspot in the mix.

Okay to me that doesn't even sound like a reeverb, it sounds like a convoluter with a very short decay and the wet turned down quite low. I have fruity loops myself and you can use its own convolver to get that sort of sound, also eq your reverb so that there isn't much coming through below 400/500 Hz, will ready add that air, like the snare in the ivy lab track!
 
bounce it out with a slightly higher decay (so the sound is extended, I'm not too technical). Then bounce it out and manually shorten the length of that sound, put it on a separate lane and I think you'll find it much easier to mix
 
I'm out the studio atm so can't post my personal example but what I also find happens is that the early reflections are too prominent. As if the hit has a tight delay on it which isn't desired, almost flamming. I may just be picking the wrong verbs.
 
I'm out the studio atm so can't post my personal example but what I also find happens is that the early reflections are too prominent. As if the hit has a tight delay on it which isn't desired, almost flamming. I may just be picking the wrong verbs.

What daw you in?

Reverb can be tricky, if you're really struggling just run through a bunch of presets till it sounds close and then tweak. That Ivy lab tune has beaut verb on the snare/rim thingy, this is all guess work but sounds like quite a long decay id say of about 0.75 sec maybs, next to no pre-delay, medium room.
 
What daw you in?

Reverb can be tricky, if you're really struggling just run through a bunch of presets till it sounds close and then tweak. That Ivy lab tune has beaut verb on the snare/rim thingy, this is all guess work but sounds like quite a long decay id say of about 0.75 sec maybs, next to no pre-delay, medium room.
LogicX, messed around with verbs in Space Designer but always end up with that undesired flamming sound. I'll try with some shorter decays, it sounds like I'm trying to tame verbs with too long a decay on it.
 
LogicX, messed around with verbs in Space Designer but always end up with that undesired flamming sound. I'll try with some shorter decays, it sounds like I'm trying to tame verbs with too long a decay on it.

Space designer has loooads of good presets. Also yeah sometimes we forget the plugin were using is enough, the volume envelope in Space designer should give you all the control in the world, no need for other plugins
 
Had a little play yesterday using some of the techniques mentioned and it sounds much better. Il post the break when I'm back in the studio.

Thanks a lot gents!

Chucked this together this morning, i think i may just be ragging the wrong sample and over working it?
 

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Had a little play yesterday using some of the techniques mentioned and it sounds much better. Il post the break when I'm back in the studio.

Thanks a lot gents!



had a play this morning, i think i may just be ragging the wrong sample and over working it?

Had a listen to that little break you sent. I really like the short reverb you have achieved on your snare it works really well. Remember that in the context of the whole track, where you will have FX in the background and maybe very quiet pads that are quite wide and have reverby character in general, it will sound completely different and you may find that the sound you are looking for will already be achieved! Another thing you could do is stick on fabfilter saturn onto your snare (it's a saturation plugin) and turn the dynamics knob to the right a little bit, it will bring out the harmonics in the body of your sound, also bringing out the harmonics in your reverb making it stand out more (DW it will not sound unnatural)
 
Had a listen to that little break you sent. I really like the short reverb you have achieved on your snare it works really well. Remember that in the context of the whole track, where you will have FX in the background and maybe very quiet pads that are quite wide and have reverby character in general, it will sound completely different and you may find that the sound you are looking for will already be achieved! Another thing you could do is stick on fabfilter saturn onto your snare (it's a saturation plugin) and turn the dynamics knob to the right a little bit, it will bring out the harmonics in the body of your sound, also bringing out the harmonics in your reverb making it stand out more (DW it will not sound unnatural)
Thanks for the suggestions. I can't afford Saturn atm but have Izotope Trash which has a dynamics section I think may do the same thing .
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I can't afford Saturn atm but have Izotope Trash which has a dynamics section I think may do the same thing .

I have both Trash and Saturn and I have to tell you that the dynamics section in Trash does a different thing to the dynamics knob in Saturn, at least from what I have gathered so far! :)
 
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