Re-record snare drum?

[Prime Mover]

I was having major difficulty with a snare drum recording a few months back. The bottom mic went bad (I didn't notice it at the time because it was turned way down in the monitor mix), and I was getting an insane amount of HH bleed. After spending hours trying to use dynamic compressors and EQs to fix it, I still didn't have a good track. A few weeks ago, when I was setting up for another session, I just hit record and played the snare over top of the original. It took me about 15 minutes to go through and align the track to the original, and it sounded SO MUCH BETTER. No Hi-Hat to worry about, much more control. I've heard of studios doing this before, but I'm wondering how often people do it. In this case, I hadn't planned on doing it, but I've heard of some people re-recording all snare tracks alone. I'm even thinking about going back and doing it on some others. I could have saved myself so many hours of tweaking.

[crduval]

I will never forget watching the drummer from my band back in the early 90s punch in his snare track on a tune we did. No DAW, no margin for error, no safety net. The original track was so poorly recorded we could not save, gate or in any way use it. He sat on his stool with just that snare in front of him and mimed playing his entire kit, just punching the snare. And it was not some simple 2-4 backbeat, he was quite a player. And he NAILED IT IN ONE TAKE! What a drummer, and what a great guy. I have that track on my soundcloud page if anyone wants to hear it.

So yes, I can say that I have seen this done before!


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[mikehalloran]

The only acoustic drum I still own is a snare. Sure comes in handy sometimes.

[Phil O]

I've done this before on tracks that were brought to me from another studio. You're right, PM. It varies from project to project, but sometimes it's faster to just play a single drum and punch it in. You know what they say - "If it sounds right..."

Phil

[hswin]

Hey Guys,

I have insisted to our praise band to give me an under-snare mic. They finally did. The leader and the soundman like the "hit" of the top snare, but to me there is enough hitting with other parts. I was missing the snare sound, and it sounds good to me.

Along with all the other instruments, we have a percussion guy who plays the djembe. We put a clip mic on top with a Shure SM-87 on the bottom with a simple "Y" between them. It really sounds great!

Hal Swinhart

[Prime Mover]

Okay dude, I have a djembe setup that I think you'll really like. I took a piece of stiff packing foam and cut an "X" out of it, with a hole in the middle the size of a standard dynamic mic. I took an Beta58 (yes, you heard correctly, a beta) and stuck it in the hole. Then I jammed the X up inside the djembe, just below the narrowest point. Sound guys go crazy with this, because it's so simple and sounds great. Here's why it works, and specifically with a beta58 (or other hypercardioid dynamic):

The inside of a djembe is extremely boomy and muddy. A typical cardioid mic will pickup a lot of the reverberant low end. But a hypercardioid mic is focused right at the underside of the skin where all the high frequencies are. Then, to fill things out, hypers have more proximity effect, so this returns the lost low end, but it's now more focused and less woofy. So you get a nice thick sound without sounding like you're in a resonant chamber. Beta58s are typically not great mikes, I bought it a long time ago, and it was kind of mistake. But, I finally found the perfect use. Obviously, you can use any brand of hypercardioid dynamic, these days I'd probably get an Audix.

The only caveat is that the outside acoustic sound of the drum is noticeably muffled, so the drummer has to be prepared for the unamblified sound to be a bit thin. Also, you'll need to take it out any time you're not miking it. Other than that, it's a dream, and best of all: it's ridiculously convenient. I just keep a short 2ftp XLR on the mic all the time, so you just have an umbilical coming out of the bottom of the drum.

Give it a shot. It sounds like you've already got a nice sounding setup, but you might like the added simplicity of this.

Congrats on getting your sound guy to put a bottom snare mike on. Honestly, I will never go back. Not only do you get a nice pop, but I usually have lots of problems with hi-hat bleed on top snare mikes, and by mixing in the bottom mic, you can cut that down quite a bit.

[cbergm7210]

Drum replacement via Drumagog or Toontrack Drumtracker works great, even if to just supplement the real snare.