Mixing with the snare and vocals

Sup guys hope ur all chillin

So basically I've been working on my beatmaking and I really like making them drums bang and that snare to snap. The problem I seem to be getting into with alot of beats is that when my snare is hitting, I can barely hear the vocal. It's as if the vocals are being overshadowed and ducking under the snare when it's playing. I usually layer about 3/4 snares and put an eq to boost the mids slightly but thats pretty much it (no eq).

When the snare is hitting the volume goes through the roof and is hitting the red zone of the fader (like 6+) db. I try to lower the pad fader for the snare but it won't do much and if I do it too low the snap of the snare is completely gone and you can barely hear it. A friend of mine told me that gainstaging would solve it but I don't know if that's possible in the Rens mixer. Does any of this make sense to yall reading this? If so help would be appreciated



peace and love

https://soundcloud.com/user-53430503/track
Heres a little part of the track, I put a nas acapella over it so youd get a general idea

Is that all you’re using to process? It seems like if not limiting and compression would be your friend.

Not too experienced with vocals but you may want to use some effects in stereo and wrap around the mono snare. Work with the eq on both to emphasize the two in different pockets.

Cockdiesel wrote:Is that all you’re using to process? It seems like if not limiting and compression would be your friend.

Not too experienced with vocals but you may want to use some effects in stereo and wrap around the mono snare. Work with the eq on both to emphasize the two in different pockets.

Wazzup man appreciate the reply. Yea I've tried working with compression and EQing different parts for the vocals and snare but I don't really know my way around it and it usually ends up **** up the sound of the snare and removing the snap of it. How would one go about limiting in the renaissance software (i have the 1.9 version) ?

peace

Sounds like a problem with mixing process in DAW rather than technical one with the MPC, but I can tell that not long ago I had similar problem with snare and vocals
What I did was EQ cut on the snare around 3kHz exactly where it was clashing with the vocal and boost on the higher one around 5-8kHz that gives the snare kind of presence. You loose some of the click so you have to boost a little that drum somwhere else. Not sure if its a good approach coz I am not that experienced, it just worked for me. You have to figure out yourself where those sweet spots will, anyway get some decent mixing guide man

Yerbalist wrote:Sounds like a problem with mixing process in DAW rather than technical one with the MPC, but I can tell that not long ago I had similar problem with snare and vocals
What I did was EQ cut on the snare around 3kHz exactly where it was clashing with the vocal and boost on the higher one around 5-8kHz that gives the snare kind of presence. You loose some of the click so you have to boost a little that drum somwhere else. Not sure if its a good approach coz I am not that experienced, it just worked for me. You have to figure out yourself where those sweet spots will, anyway get some decent mixing guide man

Nah that's not a bad approach at all, thats exactly how you're supposed to do it! Every track and instrument you record is gonna be a little different so those numbers are going to change, but the method is exactly the same every time. Just play with each one, figure out where you can cut/boost each one to make them stick out without stepping on each other. Every instrument has various frequency ranges where its components live, a kick drum is anywhere from 80 down for the boom, 100-200 for the thump, and the actual beater sound comes out around 1.5-2k. Something like a snare drum has a lot of an ugly 'boxy' sound that lives in the middle, grab an EQ at 400hz and scoop the crap out of it. Now every other instrument with energy at 4-500hz has more room to breathe and you just took the cardboard sound out of your snare drum giving you a nice tight and crisp SMACK. You find all the unnecessary elements and get rid of it so the stuff that DOES live there can be free to do what it does.

Mix the song dry until it's sounds great.

Appreciate all yall responses, I'll keep working with the EQ then! Much love