How are you guys taking the edge off claps and snares?

[KSC]

I usually layer 2 claps and a snare or vice versa. I just can't seem to take that harsh edge off it and smoothen it out. I read somewhere here about using the Vintagewarmer.

[przechuy]

dont know what you have in mind exactly....

but in terms of smoothening nice fun might be playing with attack of the snare,using transient modulators.

[olidenson]

The main thing is making sure you have chosen the right sounds in the first place.

This was a mistake I used to make. I would grab any sound layer it up with something else thinking that my random choices would create interesting results, and while this may be true to some degree, nothing beats finding/sculpting the sounds that match what you have in mind.

Anyway, as for taking the harshness out of your sounds, przechuy offered a great solution with the transient shaper, I would def start there, if you don't have any then I would reach for a compressor and use a fast attack(0.01ms) and fast release(5-30ms) . Essentially what we are doing is asking the compressor to act only on the transient of the sound (the attack). The more you bring your threshold down the duller it will get eventually to the point of destroying all the dynamics, so just use your ears.

This works in reverse also, say you wanted to focus attention more on the attack of the snare you could use a compressor with the attack set after the initial hit of the snare (4-10ms) and add a longer release time than before (200ms), this will allow the attack through uncompressed whilst controlling the body of the snare.

I have a horrible time with my snares and claps too, they just always sound way too harsh and it takes a long time to finesse them.

Usually simple things get overlooked though like lowering the volume.. we are so quick to reach for our compressors and eqs we forget that we can bring things closer or push them to the back with vol levels and panning.

Chorus is decent on a snare if used judiciously, it can push the sound further back and get rid of the edge a little, it will also cause spreading which a lot of people don't like on snares..I don't really care though, it's what sounds good that wins.

You said you were layering sounds, are you eqing them seperatly first?
I tend to choose which sample will be the snap and which will be the body of the overall sound, then eq each accordingly before layering.

Try using sounds that aren't snares or claps and layering them together, you can turn any sound into a snare or a hat with some tweakage.

I like to get a synth, set it to white noise lower the sustain all the way and push the decay to around 200-400ms and add about the same release, now if you listen you have a pretty descent snare right there, play with the attack and you will feel the edge getting taken off. Now layer that with another sound something that is the opposite, ie. the white noise is taking care of the sharpness of the snare so now choose something that has a bit of body (congas, vocal snippet, random trash can sample etc etc) and layer it up

I'll use a De-esser sometimes on a hat or snare.. Ill grab a spectrum analyzer and search for the offending freq's then use a De-esser with the nasty freq as its target.

Which I guess brings us to the eq.. just use a notch eq boosted upwards about 4db and scan through the frequencies. The offending edge will pop out and show you where to cut a few db's, this is handy because with an eq you can cut different frequencies and really fine tune your sound... but I will say this, if you are going to this sort of length then you probably chose the wrong sounds in the first place.

Hope this helps... there are many creative things you can do with any sound but when it comes to dynamically shaping something i think less may be more, also take a break; if you listen for too long you start zooming in on a sound and creating "imaginary issues"...it may sound better after a short break.

[admin]

I agree snares and claps can really give you a hard time. Good tips above my main ways of getting around this is:

1. Sample selection - some sounds just can't be processed. I've wasted hours sometimes trying to warm up a snare when all I needed was to just use a new sample.

2. Sonnox limiter section on the Dynamics plugin can soften transients up.

3. URS Saturator on the 15IPS setting does a really good job of this. Analog tape/transformer saturation in general does a lot to help these things in the hardware world and the URS plugin gives similar results.

4. DeEssing or Eqing or even multiband compression. Careful with notching though as this can make the sound seem phasy and unnatural.


Transient designers do work although I've never really used these on snares and claps, mostly hihats but they might work fine too.

I use Vintage Warmer mainly to thicken up and fatten a flat snare, sometimes VW gives a harsh edge to things so I use it pretty sparingly.

I recently bought a little 4 track tape machine to send claps and snares to. Nothing like tape to soften yet crispen transients.

[admin]

Speaking of transient designers the SPL Analog code TD is really good:

http://www.soundperformancelab.com/

They also have just the attack version. Might pick that up although I already have it for Scope. Out of all the TDs so far I like the SPL one the most, seemed more musical than the others.

[olidenson]

Thanks for the tips Jesse, snares give me the most trouble.

I'm committed to getting my hands on a tape machine to start running my sounds through.

I've actually got a cheap pawn shop guitar amp miked up that i send some sounds to occasionally, the results are really gnarly but effective.

I love the extra noise it adds to something like a snare.

[admin]

For me the main thing was recognizing a problem snare sample and just moving on. I get a lot of mix/mastering work where people have harsh snares and it's almost impossible to get them right or takes a lot of work that could have been better spent on other things.

Tape though is great for that sort of thing though, it really can help solve a lot of mixing problems.

And also agree, extra noise from hardware stuff is nice, especially once it gets thrown through a few compressors and effects.

Check out Speakerphone from the guys that make Altiverb. That's got a lot of mic impulses. Maybe not quite the same as the real thing but very interesting to run stuff through.

[NuEra]

Check out Speakerphone

We use that a lot at work for post stuff. Pretty neat plugin. I don't have it at home, so I never really thought to use it for music, but I bet you could create some pretty neat fx with it.

[olidenson]

HOW STRANGE:
Yesterday I went and got my hands on Speakerphone and love it.

Then today I come on here and everyone recommends it.

I guess great minds think alike

[admin]

I liked using it on an effect return buss for delays. Gives nice filtery gritty echos.