Hi everyone. Hope you all won't mind advising me on how I might be able to create this incredibly heavy acoustic snare sound featured in this video. I am trying to stack multiple acoustic snares together with loads of eq + compression but I can't seem to achieve the level of weight like the Ice Nine Kills one. The snare in the video seems to have more weight than all the kicks and toms combined LOL!

Thanks for reading this. Any help or advise on this would be greatly appreciated!
Best regards

 

You mean that Chris Lord Alge(-ish) snare?

Edit: I noticed (a day after I had posted the video) that the video cuts short.

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2017

Hi and thank you for the reply. I have read that tutorial a while back and the snare is loud but still doesn't have the same kind of weight featured in Ice Nine Kills the video. In fact, I actually felt the CLA snare had the most weight at around 1:32 - 1:37 prior to all the added saturation effects. Thereafter, I thought I hear some phasing issues. I think it might have something to do with how the original snare was recorded as all the eq and processing won't be able create that natural weight if it wasn't in the original recording.

Any recommendations on acoustic drum samples or drum vsts with weighted snares would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

 

Keep in mind that on some parts (intro, chorus) the kick is hitting the same time as the snare, adding alot of weight. However it does sound "weighty" on its own and if it were me, I would try a transient designer on the low mids of the snare (somewhere around 200....Sturgis's mb transient effect is good for this), or having the snare sidechain to other elements ducking around 200 whenever the snare hits. Also play with harmonics of the fundamental...say its 200hz, I sometimes narrow boost 400, or 600, or both. Boosting higher harmonics can make the ear think its weight and also not add too much mud to the mix. Sometimes a combo of everything listed is needed.

 

You can layer one tom with your snare(s) to add weight and then EQ + comp + transient shaper + saturation (I personaly like to use Camel Crusher, Devil Loc and Decapitator).

 

Sounds lower tuned and somewhat scooped. I wouldnt compress it much, and use a faster attack so you arent just ducking the body of the snare. A transient designer on the snare can sound really cool, by upping the attack and sustain.

Some parallel options can help, really smashed, either fast or slow compression depending if you want to blend in a big smack sound, or a long sustained sound to the original. Blending in a pretty distorted snare brings some fatness.

A long plate reverb will get you this sound. Usually something around 3 seconds long. Send a snare that has a lot of smack, saturation and is gated, to the reverb. Then automate the reverb so its more noticeable during the slower passages, and ducks in volume when the snare is played quicker.

Adam Getgood has a cool video going over recording and mixing drums. Watch that if you haveen't seen it yet.

 

Thanks everyone for the awesome input :D!! Much appreciated indeed!