Fat, Smacking Snare Drum
“The fatness of the snare tends to reside between 120 and 400Hz. A boxy sound is indicative of comparatively high energy in the 800Hz-1.2kHz range, whereas the resonances of the drum’s ringing reside above this, between about 2-4kHz. The crispness of the drum’s attack tends to reside more in the 4-8kHz region.”
(from Sound on Sound)
A well-known trick to beefen up your snares is to combine two snares with complementary characteristics. For example, combine one snare that has a nice snap to it with another snare that has a thump to it. Optionally, you can EQ the snares to accentuate these characteristics. EQ the lower pitched snare with a lower EQ and a higher EQ to the one with more snap to it. This will result in a slap-you-in-the-face snare sound.
Try adding a little bit of delay to your snare. A delay of 3 steps will give you an interesting syncopated effect. You can alternately use a delay with a setting of just 2 steps for the dub/reggae feel.
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
Hi,
Congratulation for your page, very instructive, and sorry for my english is very bad.
I wand to know how to change a conga to sound like minimal tech style. An example is the rythm conga on John Acquaviva & Olivier Giacomotto – Sofa King (Mark Mendes Start). I have experimented a lot with resonance, distorsion, chorus, reverb, etc. but I never have got that sound like minimal tech sounds.
Can you help me?
Very thank you in advance.