thickening up a Snare sound

[N.U.G.]

whatup party people, I have a question that I hope y'all can help me with.

Basically, I have a snare drum that I really like in one of my new beats but it's a bit hollow. I'd like it to be a bit thicker and phatter.
I've thought about putting another snare with it or maybe some percussion behind it as well as messing with filters and fx with limited results.

Having said that my questions are;
1) what would you recommend I try to thicken/phatten up my snare
2) what are some professional tips for putting with snare drums to compliment them so they sound better i.e. particular FX, techniques, types of percussion other.

thanks people

:headbang2

 

[fiz]

one thing that i like to do is layer different snares with each other...another thing i do is tweak the pitch of the snare (i think this is an underused technique) - hope that helps

 

[N.U.G.]

yeah man that's a good start. can you give me a better idea of how you layer your snares, do you just put one snare sound over the top of the other or is there a different technique. I'm using FLStudio and I know there is a layering option there but I haven't had a chance to learn it yet.

 

[PHILharmonic]

For more phattness in a snare, try EQing at 240 Hz, for more crispness,EQ at 5kHz... also use compression. A good compression setting would be to set the attack @ 5ms, release @ 10ms or auto(if available), threshold @ -15db, ratio @ 5:1 to 8:1, and knee(if available) to hard. As far as layering, just tweak till you're satisfied... blend till the snare samples sound cohesive. If your present snare has the mid & high end that you're satisfied with, find a snare that has that thickness that you're looking for and layer it. You may also want to roll off the higher end of the meatier snare to blend it better. I also use the pitch technique that fiz mentioned quite often. A quick example would be to load the same drum sample and pitch it down... and almost instant fix. Hope any of this is useful...

 

[N.U.G.]

that was MORE than helpful, thanks man!

You've fgiven me a lot to think about and try out. I've never really understood EQing but I'll try out what you suggested and play around with it. If anyone can give me a real simple definition on what EQing actually does I'd be very grateful.

thanks guys, keep the suggestions coming