Wow, we’re halfway through this month of mixing madness. I hope you’ve been enjoying it thus far. I know I have! Today’s tip involves taking advantage of your reverb’s pre-delay setting to get a fat, big sounding snare drum without washing it in reverb decay.
It’s All Smoke And Mirrors
Good mixing is as much about tricking the ear as it is being honest and revealing. Using things like reverb effects in a mix are a trick, they convince the listener that something like a snare drum is in a bigger space than it actually is. But if you go too overboard, your trick can fall apart and people can tell that it isn’t real. I find that using the pre-delay setting on my reverbs gives me more control in the mix and can sound more realistic!
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
I’m really enjoying this stuff Graham, thanks for all your work! Great tips for a rainy month (in MA anyway!) mark
Hey Graham – great stuff bro. What reverb plugin are you using here?
Travis, this is just the AIR Reverb that comes bundled with Pro Tools.
Great tip, Graham! Did you ever used this trick on the kick-drum?
I have actually 🙂
what amount of predelay do you use? 1/8th note 1/16th note?
maybe my question was a little vague. Do you set up your predelays to sync with the timing of the song? for example, if the song is 120 BPM do you set the predelay to .125 so that it starts 1/8th note delayed? thanks
I actually just tweak till it sounds good 🙂
Awesome tip! Always wondered about pre-delay on reverb. Quick question though: I’m using a VST drums (Slate) and I also have a reverb buss that I send certain instruments through (including the snare) to give the illusion that they’re sharing the same space. So I wonder how I should apply this to the snare — do I put it on the actual (dry) snare track? do I put it on the ‘room mic’ in my drum VST, which is the ‘natural space’ of the kit? do I then take the snare out of my reverb buss? Any thoughts/suggestions?
JT – You could simply create a version of the reverb with less “room” and more pre delay and then send the snare only to that.
Hi there Graham, very nice tip on using reverbs in general, you could also apply this to other types of instruments.
Vocals and harmony vocals for example. Thanks for the tips and the series!!
Keep it up.
Graham, thank you for the tip. I’m going to give it a shot in the next few days.
BTW, how in the heck do you get that snare sound. I’ve been trying for a loooong time to get a snare sound like that. The snare in the video about this tip, just cracks. I woukd love to get that type of snare sound and to have it pop in the mix like yours does. Any tips on this that you can share? I’m always fighting to get good drums it seems. They always sound dead to me for some reason. Very frustrating.
Thank you,
John
Hey John – on this song all you’re hearing is a snare sample 🙂
Well, it sounds really good to my ears. I do use Drumagog to resample when I need to. Do you have any videos on getting a snare to crack? Maybe compression setting or any tips I could try to make it a little easier so I’m not spending so much time on drums. I record a lot of rock songs and don’t get me wrong, they sound pretty good, but sometimes I just can’t seem to get the drums right from time to time. Thank you Graham.
http://therecordingrevolution.com/2012/11/28/mix-a-fatter-snare-drum-with-compression-video/
Get tip Graham. I will use this next time I’m in the studio.!!!
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