This little tutorial is the result of yet another question from one of our best, Ezekiel Banal!
His question was how to do this!
Response
This is a neat trick, I play with this on quite a few occasions, and my favourite is with THIS SONG : The Stand - Live in Miami
Timestamp to the segment is at 3:08.
"Snare bombs" are exactly what the name sounds like, it is basically explosions of snare drums.
We get that effect by putting a LOT of reverb on the snare drum.
Reverb is a beautiful thing, but too much of it actually makes your signal sound distant and washed out.
In general, you will find yourself using a sparing (little) amount of reverb on your drum kit.
I find having just a hint of reverb on your snare (and even a little less on the toms) help fit the drums into the mix without sounding too dry.
We will talk about why we put a little reverb on drums in a separate note Reverbs on Drums
For the Snare Bomb effect, we are going to push up the reverb an obscene amount MOMENTARILY to create what sounds like an explosion.
You see in that video that he pushes it up about 20dB and pulls it down as soon as the effect is done.
That is done because too much reverb washes out the direct sound and also makes the whole mix very messy. Try this at your next rehearsals or soundcheck to get an idea of how it sounds, how quickly to push up the fader and pull it back down!
Key Points and Considerations
- Choose your moments. What is one thing in common from the first video linked and the second?
- Hint - its a part of the song where there isn't much going on, and the highlight is the drums.
- This trick will not work when there is a full mix going on with drums, bass, guitars, keys, vocals and tracks going at the same time.
- Reverb takes space in the mix, and you want to use this trick when there is AMPLE space.
- Choosing the type of reverb.
- Reverbs come in all sorts of "flavours" - there are dark, bright, warm, small, large.. etc.
- This trick usually sounds best with a large, warm reverb. Try to find a "Large Hall" or similar sounding presets as a starting base and tweak to taste.
- Rehearse!
- Try pushing it! Is 10dB enough? Not enough? Too much?
- Practice your timing. You want the reverb fader to be up BEFORE the snare is hit, and pull it back when you need to create space again.
- Technique before technique
- This is where you are at the mercy of the drummer. This trick relies on the drummer being GOOD.
- A good drummer knows when to play simple and tight and when to make things busier and technical. Simple but tight - clean and tidy playing is what makes this trick work. Too much snare hits or ghost notes or busy playing around the toms and snare washes out the whole mix with the excess reverb and the explosion starts to just sound like chaos.
I hope that quick breakdown helped you learn something today. Reverb is truly a powerful tool, and you can use it to get quite creative and make some spectacular mixes! Like MSG, use the right amount, as too much is very bad.