January 10, 2026

This snare sucks – let's improve it (mixing)

Mixing this hip hop album, there was a snare that sounded too lo-fi, like a kick.

I wanted to improve its presence. It's the type of snare where an EQ wouldn't necessarily help, and having it inside a drum loop exactly didn't help either.

Let's go through techniques and plugins that helped me to improve the presence of the snare.

Comments (2)

Austin Dominguez · January 10, 2026

Besides not high-passing, do you do anything special to get thick low mids on house drums? Also, do you sidechain any of your drums to the kick?

Fanu/FatGyver · January 10, 2026

EQ (and not highpassing) is the key! A lot of that chunky presence: find it with EQ, try 500-1K. I rarely sidechain other drums to the kick, but sometimes a shaker or top loop get it, for a little added groove. Gotta make sure things dont sound too stiff!