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9. Advanced drum surgery for customisation

1 We’ve bounced down our Serum snare to a single audio file. After splicing it into its transient, body and tail components, the sections are separated across three different audio tracks. This way, we’ll be able to customise each element independently.

2 First, let’s apply processing only to the transient, which is where a drum hit’s attack lies. A simple 1.5dB lift in volume makes our overall snare hit harder. After that, we’ve used a basic utility plugin to sum this component to mono; then a touch of EQ adds high-mid brightness.

3 Moving on, we’ll process the body of the snare on its own audio channel. In terms of frequency content, this is where the crucial weight of our snare resides; in this case, a decent EQ boost at around 200Hz injects a dose of power into the overall snare, without affecting the transient or tail.

4 If you apply effects over a drum hit as a whole, you’ll uniformly affect the transient and body – but here, we can now get experimental and treat the thinner, splashier tail with all manner of creative effects. We EQ out bottom end, apply reverb, distort the signal, then widen it with a spatialising plugin.

5 Once done, we bounce our tweaked super-snare to a new audio file. But what next? Well, there’s nothing stopping you from transplanting the existing transient for a different one, or layering another element or two over the top for more character. Take our drum surgery further and create your own Frankenstein drum hits!