First I'll introduce myself.

My name is Drew, and I'm a producer/keyboardist. Though I know quite a bit about engineering, I try to keep myself away from it to allow my musical creativity to flow better.

My residency studio:

-Pro Tools|HD 7.1
-HD 3 Accel
-Control 24
-Focusrite Red Pres
-UA 2-610
-DynAudio Air 15/Air Bass 2 5.1 Surround
-McDSP CB and FB
-Focusrite D2/D3
-TL Space
-TC MasterX3
-Waves RennMax
-Fairchild Compressors
-Moogerfooger
-Guitar Rig2
-Stylus RMX
-Minimoog V
-And Other Various Digi Bundled Plugins

Getting beyond all that...

Most projects I send off to be mixed professionally. I have a side project of my own, that I'm working on. Since I'm don't want to send these tunes off to be mixed until I have a full album's worth, I decided I would mix them myself for the time being.

I have access to all this great equipment, and I am now needing some mixing help. Currently, my problem is drum sounds. I'll give you a rundown of what I have done so far. Starting with mic technique: Close Miked.

2 Mikes for the Kick-one internal Cardoid one Subkick External.
2 Mikes for snare Cardoid top Large Condenser Bottom
1 Condenser for hats
3 mikes for the toms 2 condensers for the hi and mid tom, one cardoid for the low tom.
1 "crotch" mike with high compression
2 Overheads, condenser, equidistant to the snare
2 Condenser Room Mics,

All mics are phase aligned to the overheads.

What I am wondering about after all this, is what can I do to make the snare have that modern day country big room snare sound? i.e. Rascal Flatts "Mayberry" or similar? Or how about general mix principles for the drums beyond what I've already done?

Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

Can I get a *bump*?

I'm not exactly familiar with the song you mentioned, but I do know a few things about mixing a snare. If your looking for the big room sound then most of that sound is going to come from your reverb. The longer the decay time the bigger the room sound, just don't get too carried away and make it sound too unatural. Try about 750ms of decay with about 10ms of pre delay. Of course mess around with it but thats a good place to start. Also I like to boost the 4kHz-5kHz range to get a little more snap. The exact frequency will vary depending on your snare, but again a good place to start. Try it out, and keep toying with it till you find a sound you like, hope that little bit helps.


-Mike
www.michaelspranger.com

to get more bottom end out of it, boost it around 150-200Hz with a narrow Q.
For more snap or stick sound, boost it somewhere around 3-5Khz. since you have your overheads you should low shelf cut it at about 10-12KHz.
also, if you follow this method, you should sweep around 400-700 Hz at narrow Q and boosted all the way, listening for that honky, cardboard snare sound, you then want to pull this out all the way. these EQ settings will only bring out the best of what the snare has to offer, so make sure you are using new, well tuned heads, propper dampening, and a good drummer.

They are sound replacing the snare ,if not everything else toms, kick etc..., in those recordings. So basically even though they're getting a really nice recording they're putting a MIDI sample of a snare underneath every snare hit and blending the two. That has a lot to do with that "sound". But also you should try what the other two replies say as well.

You said it, "big room sound snare". Record the room as well as the drum.

www.elementalrecordings.co.uk