Occasionally I'll come across a recording technique that I must pass on to the rest of the world. The following happens to be one of them.
It's a pretty neat technique that I would never have dreamed of doing, but it's quite effective.
And incidentally, it was shown to me by a Nashville drummer who frequents my studio.
I'll show you execute this technique very quickly and easily.
Instructions
1. Once the drummer has set up and the engineer has placed all the mics, take a single sheet of paper and place it on top of the snare drum.
It can be any type of paper. I usually grab a sheet from the computer printer. I'm sure you could even get away with tearing out a page from a magazine.
You will probably have to apply gaffing tape for the paper to adhere to the drum.
2. Return to the control room and have the drummer whack the drum with a stick.
Listen for the differences between the paper on and off the snare drum.
3. The sound derived is pretty much what you'd expect. It will give more of a smack to the snare sound and really embellishes the the snare strainer sound.
In a recording situation, these simple little tricks make the difference between a run-of-the-mill sort of sound and one truly unique to the recording.
4. This technique works very well at accentuating the nuances of a snare roll-very similar to how you'd expect a marching snare to sound.
