Now let’s get cracking and take a closer look at the kick drum’s constant companion, the snare

The snare drum is huge! Not that it’s ever been unimportant in the grand drumming scheme of things, but the rise of several forms of dance music has seen more attention focused on the snare than at any time since the massive T’pau-style extremes of the late 80s. In the real world, the snare drum is the one placed between the drummer’s legs, with a band of sprung wires stretched across the bottom head to give it its unique crack and sizzle. Add to that some lively resonance from the top skin and you have an instrument that’s capable of producing a huge variety of sounds, from the warm, deep ‘doosh’ of the 70s to the high ‘ping’ of nu-metal, and everything in between.

In terms of rhythm, the snare generally emphasises beats 2 and 4 of the 4/4 bar. In combination with the kick drum, it gives us the ‘kick, snare, kick, snare’ pattern known as the ‘backbeat’ – that most enduring staple of rock and pop. Given a chance, however, the snare can also be waaay busier than that – in jazz, rockabilly or drum ’n’ bass, for example.

When mixing, it’s said that the last two things you should be able to hear when you gradually turn a mix down are the vocal and snare drum. This shows how important the snare is in the mix: the element that joins the backing track with the vocal. Careful placement of it helps define the soundstage on which your whole mix happens.

COMPUTER MUSIC

Clearly, then, it’s vital that your snare sound is always great – perfect, even! The dynamics and tonality of the snare will affect all your decisions about your final mix, and if it’s too dull, too pointy, not pointy enough, too long, short, dry or wet, you’re going to have trouble getting your mix to work. If you’re recording an acoustic kit there’s plenty of advice in our Recording Drums feature, starting on p34, to get you off to a good start, but whatever kind of snare sound you end up working with, the problems – and techniques for solving them – will be the same.

Top to bottom

Like the kick drum, the sound of a snare drum can be broken into top, mid and low elements. Imagine taking the snares off the bottom head and you’ll be left with the deeper part of the sound, a bit like a low timbale. Obviously the sound of an acoustic snare drum will change drastically with different types of head, and with the tuning, the relative tension between the top and bottom heads, and the way in which the batter (top) head is being struck. The snares can be tightened or loosened for a shorter or longer ‘sizzle’, and the batter head can be left bright and ringy or damped with tissue, tape, Moon Gel or anything else that’s up to the job.

A good snare sound will take all of these elements into consideration, possibly combining disparate samples in order to create a sound that could never be made with a real-world drum. One popular trend for snare sounds is a combination of deep 70s-style fatness and a longer, clappier type of tone.

The density of the other instrumentation will govern how the decay or tail of the snare needs to work. A wall of guitars, for example, will absorb ambience and decay, so the snare will probably need compression to lengthen it, and more ambience added, using plugin effects or by bringing up room mics.

In summary, your perfect snare will need to properly balance various tonal elements and have the right attack, decay, ambience and compression settings. The walkthrough and tips on the facing page will illustrate some basic treatments; use them as a springboard for experimentation and you’ll be creating sizzling snares in no time.