Drawn out snare drum sound

[Clark]

What was done to get the snare sound heard in "Good to Know If I Ever Need Attention All I Have to Do Is Die" by Brand New? Is it just part of the production (an effect, etc.) or is Brian (the drummer) actually doing something to make it have that sound each time it is hit?

[Tristan Needler]

I think they played the snare backwards up into each hit, then normally out of it or something to that effect. It's not really like the 80's hair metal super-long snares, which are due to lots of compression and (I think) reverb. So either they have it play backwards into each hit, or the drummer is doing something with brushes or something else. You can hear that the drums don't do that after the first verse.

I could be way off base though. That's how I'd try to do it though.

[Esrb99]

The thing is that the snare reverb can be pretty important in a mix. It sorta sets the 'back wall' of the whole mix, if you get what I mean. It affects the overall sense of space, whether the whole mix is deep or in-your-face.

More often than not, I tend to trigger ambience mics, squashed to kingdom come, off my snare track (with the gate's range set to no more than 6-12dB) and use that as a sort of supplement to the snare sound. In the absence of good ambience tracks, short room reverbs can do the trick. Or better, a convo reverb inserted on a rubbish-sounding ambience track, that often sounds almost right.

Often this is the only snare reverb I need. Sometimes I add another, maybe larger room verb, sometimes I go for a longer hall or plate of some sort. Short plates can be fun too.

The other thing is the amount of early reflections. I tend to hate them on snare verbs. They tend to make the drum stick out too much in a bad sort of way and also make it less defined and somewhat washy and shitty. On vocals, they're great, on drums, nah.

For effect you can try a (second) snare verb with a timed pre-delay, so that it goes in time with the song. It may sound idiotic, but believe me, it can work.

I'd mic the snare on top and bottom: adding the pre reverb effect to the bottom snare track.

[patrickhowell]

Yeah, it's backwards reverb... I was listening to to it on my home theater, and it doesn't play any reverb in the front speakers, so I couldn't hear it at all at first...

[Clark]

Ah, very cool. Thanks. I only have two mics to record drums (one for overhead and the other for the bass drum), so I wouldn't be able to try Esrb99's suggestion, though.

[patrickhowell]

Try this.... Record the drums as usual, but also record only the sound of a snare drum. Reverse that sound and add it to a second track. Put reverb on the track with the mix at 100% wet, and copy and paste the sound to end at each snare hit.

That should get you really close to the same effect.

[Clark]

Good idea, thanks.

I don't know if I'd ever use it, but I've always wondered about it whenever I listen to that song.