It would be cool to hear from people how they approach snares, i.e. do you use samples, or do you synthesize them?

If you use samples, what are your go-to libraries?

If you synthesize, do you have any tips to share? I started digging into snare synthesis, and found this great recent tutorial by SeamlessR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A7oFpmXuls. The basic idea for snare synthesis is pretty simple, but what really makes the sound is adding reverb in the different components, and glueing them together with compression. I also noticed that it's easy to make your snares more interesting by creating any kind of "metallic" sound (e.g. some of the stock wavetables in Serum), band-passing, and setting the envelope so that it gives a nice metallic "ring".

I always use a combination of layered synthesized snares and samples. The synth snare provides more body to sample, as long as you match the pitch envelopes with the pitch modulation of the sample, which requires some practice.

A snare tail can be anything you want really ..Just make sure the short transient bite the way you want.FM synths are great for making transients .

Few snares. but the foundation is always the same.

1.808 (bottom end), mixed to taste
2.acoustic snare, mixed to taste
3. acoustic snare modeler, because i use reason i can do this.

after that it depends on the sound. I eq all the layers and mix it all together. if i want more electronic sound i put more 808, but if i want more natural i put more acoustic snare. Once i get something i like, i sample it and then put it in one instance of my drum machine (kong).

Then it's just a mixing game from there.

I have only ever used samples. It's just easier for me at my amateur level, and I can scroll through hundreds at a time to find the right one(s).

Sometimes I layer different snares depending on what fits my mix, and sometimes I only use a single sample.

I'm a sample pack guy all day. I didn't go to school for sound design so I'm not going to try and reinvent the wheel when ASDR and Loopmasters are paying people to produce samples.

That being said I'm usually adding some kind of layer to a snare, whether its a clap and a snare or a couple snares and a tuned drum. It really depends on the song. I feel like the mainstream dubstep guys are the biggest snare people since they always have snares that are mega loud and hit like 4 different frequencies very hard, but honestly that sound is becoming super dated. I feel like its taken 4 years for everyone to catch up and figure out how to sound like skrillex and now that they do the entire dubstep scene is saturated with a bunch of barking bass bouncy dub tunes that sound identical...erm..

so anyway, I approach snares in 3 steps

1. Whats the main transient? the slap. the actual stick hitting the skin of the drum. I'll dig for a snare with an attack that I like and start there.

2. Whats the key of the song? If the snare I like has good high end but when I tune it to hit in key with the song it loses character, I'll wash out everything I don't need with a hard 4x high pass eq in ableton and I'll add a waveform at the right frequency with a pitch dive. So a simple sin wave hitting in key anywhere from 200 to 1khz and i'll give it at least an octave of dive with fast attack that matches my top layer. I'll pass this around where I pass my slap layer so it doesnt sound like a computer bleep but gives nice punch to the drum.

3. how much snare do i need? If i need the snare to have a long tail I'll find a clap with a big reverb tail and take the highest frequencies of that and layer it on top. So maybe filter everything below 10k, for example, keeping just the white noise aspect of the reverb.

Once all these layers are sounding like they are at the right levels i'll group the 3 audio tracks and compress them with the multiband compressor ableton has to make sure i'm squeezing it together but allowing for certain frequencies to breathe a little. I'll record that to audio and use the sample.

Also, if necessary I'll put a low pass reverb on the midi track i'm usuing for punch and add that in sparingly during the recording process to give it more of a live drum feel. too much reverb in the middle register will make the mix a nightmare though so its usually super quick decay with zero lag and tiny room size. looking to recreate reverb within a drum, not a cathedral, afterall.

Finally - if your snare doesn't stand out in the mix I don't think its an issue of volume or reverb. Adding a fuck ton of reverb to a snare will just give it so much presence that any limiting you do on a master will squash your other sounds. If your snare sucks you either haven't left enough room for it or you need to start from scratch with a new sample. I'm a firm believer that the less reverb used the better. I'll use reverb before compressors on individual sounds to give wideness and unique characteristics and all that but I NEVER use a reverb buss or slap reverb on top of my synth or drum buss or something. Reverb is good for mashing all your sounds together and making them cooler when your track sucks, a good track that's almost bone dry will sound infinitely better on a big system than one that's dripping in reverb. Reverb also kills your headroom.

I hate reverb.

snares are cool though.

150 Hz is my must have fundamental, my secret is FL Studio`s Snare Basic.wav because my goal is to have Madeon-like snares and it`s actually made by him.
Some noisy sample, Snare Basic.wav is fine haha, I use transient shaper to give it more sustain
A smacky, snappy snare for the attack part.
Some random french sounding snares
Voila!