Recording Snare Drum:

One of my favourite microphones for the snare is the cheap condenser AKG C525. It's a hypercardioid, with a weird frequency response and a bit of self-noise, but it really yields a crisp sound. I often use it on the bottom of the snare to get some more rattle, as a compliment to the very standard SHURE SM57.

Be careful when you compress the snare: it is extremely important to re- member that the snare is very often the loudest piece of the kit, and overheads will swallow its sound very happily. So, in a mix, what you get is not only a close-up sound (not so exciting, at times!), but a sum of what the overheads pick up and the snare microphone contribution. So, once you're satisfied with the sound of the latter, listen to it with the overheads microphones on - and you'll be amazed at hearing how relevant the change often is. If you compress the snare too much, though, you will probably lose the dynamics and nuances in the playing.

If the snare "sings" - that is, it shoots harmonics into the air, try muffling it a bit. I'd argue that a bit of a note from the snare it's not a bad thing in itself, also because it often improves definition of the drum in the final mix. If it's too annoying, though, you can try and angle the microphone, before using eq: the more you tilt it, the less you should hear the note.

Author of this posting is Marco Olivotto, songwriter by mission, producer by chance and engineer by choice (priest by necessity, at times) - but mostly engineer. He runs Sonica Studios in Northern Italy, and Sonica Stu- dios keep him running. He's 32, and would love to receive comments, flames and careful mumblings about these subjects - at sonica@tqs.it