How to Mix the Snare in a Rap Song

Video Transcript

"Now we are going to talk about mixing the snare. After you have your kick mixed, you have your kick in there. Grooving to the kick, the kick is as loud as it is going to go. You mix the snare. You just listen, all you do is just listen, you get it to a real good level that you like. It's like OK, maybe it needs to be turned down, maybe it needs to be turned up, but get the kick to where you want it to go. Another thing you want to do, you want to have your kick in the middle. A lot o f times you can pan the kick to the right or left, or you can pan the instrument to the right or left, make sure the kick is in the middle and make sure your snare is in the middle. Not to the left, not to the right, you want to keep those two things straight in the middle. So you just want to continue just to listen. Mixing has a lot to do with listening. These are just some tips. Some people mix different than other people. But these are just some standard tips. Just keep your kick in the middle, keep your snare in the middle and just fool around until you get both of the levels that you want it to be. Your snare shouldn't be as loud as your kick, but it should be pretty loud where you can here it sometimes. If it the type of song where the snare is not supposed to be popping, then you want to turn your snare down. This song right here you want the snare to be kind of popping. That's the kind of sound I want. You just keep fooling around until you get the sound that you want. Another thing you want to do with your snare is listen to your snare, it is good to EQ your snare, and also put some reverb on your snare. These are just some tips, you don't have to do these all the time, but these are just some general things that we do when we are mixing songs. Put a little reverb on your snare, not too much where it is like , WOW, what is that, but just put a little bit, it gives it a fuller feel when you hear that snare like pow, tsk, tsk, pow and it just gives it a whole fuller feel. So that is a tip you can do when you are mixing your snares. Add a little reverb to your snare, it will give it a real full sound also when you are doing your kick. Your kick, you can put a little reverb on that and it gives it a real hard hitting, drawn out sound if you want your kick to have a longer drawn out sound, you can put a little reverb on it. If it's a punch and kick and you put a little reverb on it, it will give it a little bit more of a bass feel. A lot of people like to have that when they are making their bass cd's or if they really, really want to bump in their cars and they have the really big subs, you've got a little bit of reverb on there kicking. It gives a little extra kick to it and it makes that kick draw out a little bit more."