Author Topic: Snare/Clap Stereo?  (Read 15724 times)

Lydian

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Snare/Clap Stereo?
« on: February 17, 2016, 04:01:26 am »
Do you give your snare or claps any sort of stereo width or do you usually keep it mono?
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Atherton

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2016, 04:14:52 am »
Lately, I've been getting single claps, and putting one on the left side, and one on the right. moving them around 3-15 milliseconds before the kick, (sometimes I'll do one 3ms before the kick on the left side, and the other at 14ms before the kick on the right side, or vice versa) and then one more clap or snare mono, and maybe even another clap for the middle thats also got some stereo field to it. 

And a lot of the times when i pan the claps, I don't pan it 100% to the right and 100% to the left, I'll pan them 75% to the right and to the left. For example if you're working in ableton, 37L and 37R.

And I'll change it up here or there and just experiment with it. It all depends on your song, your samples, and just whatever mood you're in while you're writing. I will usually group them too and then apply some eq, and some saturation and compression just to kind of glue it all together. Of course this isn't a formula you should follow to the tee, you should always be experimenting and tinkering, this is just what I've been doing lately. Will probably be different a month from now  :) but for now it sounds good to me

Lydian

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2016, 04:54:05 am »
Interesting. How about your snares atherton? Aren't they usually left in mono on a normal drum kit?
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Marrow Machines

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2016, 04:54:40 am »
mono.

the more mono the sound, the more likely it will be present in the mix.

typically you reserve things more stereo to be in the back ground. This is including harder pans and volume adjustments. Also depending on the buss setting (pre and post) and buss effect (reverb) will also depend on it's width and location in the mix.

It's good practice to slap on a width control aspect and make things more mono in the mix that are more important. Things with less importance can have less mono, or more stereo. If you're using buss effects correctly, this will allow you to adjust the amount of effect (pre and post send inputs in conjunction with channel volume) being projected, then you will ultimately create the buss effect that is placed well around the original sound source.

By doing this technique, you will achieve a better stereo image over all, because you controlled individual aspects that are being summed as one unit.

This will apply to drums and any component you want to use.
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Lydian

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2016, 05:00:54 am »
mono.

the more mono the sound, the more likely it will be present in the mix.

typically you reserve things more stereo to be in the back ground. This is including harder pans and volume adjustments. Also depending on the buss setting (pre and post) and buss effect (reverb) will also depend on it's width and location in the mix.

It's good practice to slap on a width control aspect and make things more mono in the mix that are more important. Things with less importance can have less mono, or more stereo. If you're using buss effects correctly, this will allow you to adjust the amount of effect (pre and post send inputs in conjunction with channel volume) being projected, then you will ultimately create the buss effect that is placed well around the original sound source.

By doing this technique, you will achieve a better stereo image over all, because you controlled individual aspects that are being summed as one unit.

This will apply to drums and any component you want to use.


Interesting perspective in regards to things being more present in mono. I'm not sure whether I understand though because I always felt that when I gave an instruments stereo it made it louder in the mix versus being in mono. Then again I do notice that whenever it came to mixing lead guitar melodies or vocal melodies they were always kept in mono with the exception of the reverb/delay.



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Marrow Machines

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2016, 05:14:02 am »
mono.

the more mono the sound, the more likely it will be present in the mix.

typically you reserve things more stereo to be in the back ground. This is including harder pans and volume adjustments. Also depending on the buss setting (pre and post) and buss effect (reverb) will also depend on it's width and location in the mix.

It's good practice to slap on a width control aspect and make things more mono in the mix that are more important. Things with less importance can have less mono, or more stereo. If you're using buss effects correctly, this will allow you to adjust the amount of effect (pre and post send inputs in conjunction with channel volume) being projected, then you will ultimately create the buss effect that is placed well around the original sound source.

By doing this technique, you will achieve a better stereo image over all, because you controlled individual aspects that are being summed as one unit.

This will apply to drums and any component you want to use.


Interesting perspective in regards to things being more present in mono. I'm not sure whether I understand though because I always felt that when I gave an instruments stereo it made it louder in the mix versus being in mono. Then again I do notice that whenever it came to mixing lead guitar melodies or vocal melodies they were always kept in mono with the exception of the reverb/delay.

It's not a loudness thing, it's a perception thing.

it's not really an opinion, i've researched this to be a pretty fool proof and consistent method way of doing things.

It's only mono in the stereo sense of things, but not mono in the panning sense of things. I could give two shits about how you pan stuff, what i do care about is how you control the stereo aspect BEFORE you pan the stuff. and this control before you do any panning (or after but as long as you do it), is where you'll ultimately balance effect and signal as i've stated above with the bussing effect (more on that later if you want to pm me or start a new topic).

Quick google search, if you haven't done so.

GearSlutz
^highly recommend you browse this

This blog
^more about recording, but if you understand this you can better understand creating your own samples and the samples you'll be analysis for use

The moral of the story that you should of got was that, you need to control the image of the individual components in order to best deliver the clarity of the mix given the parameters and the desired results of the parameters.

And this is not panning, that's location of the space you're in. this is about, how big of an area you want the original signal to cover with in that location.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2016, 03:18:47 pm by Marrow Machines »
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Lydian

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2016, 05:35:34 am »
mono.

the more mono the sound, the more likely it will be present in the mix.

typically you reserve things more stereo to be in the back ground. This is including harder pans and volume adjustments. Also depending on the buss setting (pre and post) and buss effect (reverb) will also depend on it's width and location in the mix.

It's good practice to slap on a width control aspect and make things more mono in the mix that are more important. Things with less importance can have less mono, or more stereo. If you're using buss effects correctly, this will allow you to adjust the amount of effect (pre and post send inputs in conjunction with channel volume) being projected, then you will ultimately create the buss effect that is placed well around the original sound source.

By doing this technique, you will achieve a better stereo image over all, because you controlled individual aspects that are being summed as one unit.

This will apply to drums and any component you want to use.


Interesting perspective in regards to things being more present in mono. I'm not sure whether I understand though because I always felt that when I gave an instruments stereo it made it louder in the mix versus being in mono. Then again I do notice that whenever it came to mixing lead guitar melodies or vocal melodies they were always kept in mono with the exception of the reverb/delay.

It's not a loudness thing, it's a perception thing.

it's not really an opinion, i've researched this to be a pretty fool proof and consistent method way of doing things.

It's only mono in the stereo sense of things, but not mono in the panning sense of things. I could give two shits about how you pan stuff, what i do care about is how you control the stereo aspect BEFORE you pan the stuff. and this control before you do any panning (or after but as long as you do it), is where you'll ultimately balance effect and signal as i've stated above with the bussing effect (more on that later if you want to pm me or start a new topic).

Quick google search, if you haven't done so.

GearSlutz
^highly recommend you browse this

This blog
^more about recording, but if you understand this you can better understand creating your own samples and the samples you'll be analysis for use

The moral of the story that you should of got was that, you need to control the image of the individual components in order to best deliver the clarity of the mix given the parameters and the desired results of the parameters.

And this is not panning, that's location of the space you're in. this is about, how big of an area you want the original signal to cover with in that location.


I'll give that article from the recording revolution a read. I've read a couple of grahams articles but not that one. The gearslutz one actually didn't work for me and just sent me to a blank page.


I'm not talking about panning either but I kinda get what you're saying. Kinda the same reason why you wouldn't put vocals in stereo unless you wanted them to be background vocals. That's the best example I can think of really.



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Lokan

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2016, 07:43:37 am »
I try to keep them as mono as I can. I add a bit of reverb and add distorted noise for more transient.
No, try again.

Atherton

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2016, 12:00:09 pm »
Snares tend to be kept mostly mono for the most part. Although if you listen to someone like tennyson or anybody that does jazzy stuff sometimes snares will be panned to one side of the other. If you're looking for the crunchy kind of progressive deadmau5 clap then the key to that is shifting your claps and having them be in more of the stereo field definitely helps. If you tell me what kind of genre you're looking to do then I think I could help you a little bit more

MifzanHerawan

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #9 on: February 17, 2016, 12:13:40 pm »
depends~ if you wanna make the clap to not strike through like what a snare would normally do, put it on sides. but i mostly do it mono (with minimum stereo), because nowadays you would use claps for buildups/rhythm, therefore you'd need a strong clap. keep it mono if you'd like to do it like that.

cheers

Marrow Machines

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2016, 03:19:26 pm »
I'll give that article from the recording revolution a read. I've read a couple of grahams articles but not that one. The gearslutz one actually didn't work for me and just sent me to a blank page.


I'm not talking about panning either but I kinda get what you're saying. Kinda the same reason why you wouldn't put vocals in stereo unless you wanted them to be background vocals. That's the best example I can think of really.

lol quotes were getting out of hand...

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/441240-mixing-drums-mono-stereo.html

Edit* there's some general advice when it comes to panning here, but it seems there's some confusion when it comes to actually controlling the width of the sample.

IDK what context lydian describes the issue at hand is, but i know that it's a combination of both, but primarily an issue with sample control rather than panning.

I do know that you can get some interesting effects if you over lay more stereo clap or snare on top of a less stereo snare of clap. Then you adjust the level to give you a balance of "what do i want more in my context?"
« Last Edit: February 17, 2016, 03:22:19 pm by Marrow Machines »
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birdwork

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Re: Snare/Clap Stereo?
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2016, 07:08:17 am »
And a lot of the times when i pan the claps, I don't pan it 100% to the right and 100% to the left, I'll pan them 75% to the right and to the left. For example if you're working in ableton, 37L and 37R.

Yeah 75% stereo claps with enough mono power layered in with a snare matches a lot of pro tracks really well. If you have iZotope Ozone or something similar you can load up the Vectorscope and check out the stereo width of claps and snares in pro tracks. 100% stereo will sound unnatural but impressive in headphones. All mono with a bit of stereo reverb may sound constrained. 75% stereo delivers both power and width. A good final result can take 3 or more sample layers: a 75% width stereo clap, a beefy mono snare, and a "interest" sample hitting -15ms to 5ms before or after the other samples to make it unique.