How To Make Your Snares Sound Epic

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Even if music is in a era where electronic elements make a strong stand in every producer’s arsenal quite a few people are struggling with making their drums sound hard and clear applied on a new song at the same time.

This is why we decided to take up on snares for our next tutorial and we’re going to expose you on how to make them sound specifically bigger and clearer with the same parameters. Let’s see how this goes and what exactly should you aim for when building up your drum section. Press play for the video placed above.

Common practice in EDM tracks, the ‘bigroom snare’ usually goes in the build-up right before the drop. To implement such element you need a snare sample with a strong presence, somewhere between 100-500 Hz on the frequency range, and then Reverb and Compression implemented to have that strong impact present.

First off you should start with a Snare you like and if you need some help you can use a spectrum analyzer (EQ) to see the frequency areas where the sample is peaking. Assign your element to the mixer for volume control and start by adding the first effect on your Snare: Reverb. The Room size on your tool should be set around 100, the High Damping should be off, the Decay (very important) around 3-3.2 seconds, the Predelay (also very important) at 125ms and the High Cut should be off in case your tool allows you to mix this specific aspect on your Snare.

Up next you should tweak on the EQ so take the EQ you chose and boost it around 250 Hz on the surrounding frequency but consider adding a filter while setting it around 40%. This will give more power to the Snare but after all, the equalizer is only a matter of taste. It really depends on the sample and on you as a music producer. These parameters are only set as drafts so don’t be afraid to change the number once in a while. Next, you need to add the Compressor but be sure to level the settings like this: the Threshold around -28dB, the Ratio somewhere around 4:5:1, the Release 150 ms with an active compressor and the Gain according to your taste.

If you’re having trouble with any steps watch the tutorial placed on top of this post. Don’t forget to send us your track! Good luck!

Alex Moruz Alex is a keen music aficionado who has written and published acclaimed opinion pieces on modern music genres such as techno, hip hop, rap and new age. He is a musician by training and has co-produced several records.