Having natural tail on snares

I think that everyone who sample their drums have this problem: most of the time, there is a sound behind the snare, so you don't have the tail of the snare, it ends in an abrupt way.
Do you have tips for recreating this tail? I tried reverb, it's better but it doesn't sound very natural most of the time. Thanks!

a few things to think abou maybe.. Some reverbs allows you to choose which frequencies to affect, you can use this to prolong certain parts of the drumhits spectrum.. And it can be done in steps where maybe you only give the low end a subtle and shorter tail, and maybe the mids a bit longer. Often its the high end and mid-highs that makes a cut kill the tail, and using reverb to rebuild that part isnt always possible, as a reverb cant make the texture longer, so it will just smear it to give a tail, which obviously isnt ideal as it can easily ruin the sound and feel.. Buuut, lows and mid lows are usually more easy to re-create, as they tend to be more tone than texture. To rebuild texture there are many ways, but best is if you can use material from the same source, even noise that the cables picks up can be used when layering and shaping a new tail as it can contain distinct character that a reverb wont be able to recreate.. Noise and room air that is free to grab from other parts of the sample source may also be useful, and it may be all you need for the full spectrum.. Otherwise you can look elsewhere for noise textures that may work as a tail.. Also a great way to train the sense for details, subtle or not.

great question, something i've considered often when chopping breaks.

my only strategies for this are A, a reverb on just the snare AND a reverb buss for the entire drum track (1st reverb to create a tail, 2nd reverb to create a cohesive "space" for drums that might have come from multiple sources)

and B, layer with a multisampled set of oneshot snares with recorded tails.

the last is something i have not mastered and it works better when sampling loops in DAW instead of chopping them on the MPC, and that is to use the hats with the snare tail immediately after the snare hits - that way the original tail is preserved. this is much less "play on MPC-pads" friendly, though, so i have not mastered this technique.

my fix for this would be to get the first snare sounding best u can with decay then resample so you can use the decay again on the same pad, then layer air and decay it out so it sounds natural as someone said. or just use two pads(easier) then u can also flam the two to get dif sounds.

my other method would be to use alternate/reverse looping in trim mode, set the bounce of the loop to after the transient and end point so there is no gap, then set pad to note on and adjust decay while pressing pad for dif lengths of time. this works great for strings/horns/piano etc, less so for snares but u can get more hang time for sure.

and/or a combination of the two above tricks..

then theres stretching, which i would prefer do software.. chopping in recycle is good for adding tail also but sounds less natural imo.

my other method would be to use alternate/reverse looping in trim mode, set the bounce of the loop to after the transient and end point so there is no gap, then set pad to note on and adjust decay while pressing pad for dif lengths of time. this works great for strings/horns/piano etc, less so for snares but u can get more hang time for sure.

ah! i completely forgot about that one. great technique. artificial tails. sounds best with crossfade loop IMO if you can sacrifice 2 or 4 voices at every snare hit.

It's called fkn decay.

amp envelopes work on what's already there on a sample. they don't add onto it (except for release, and that's only if there are loop settings on the sample being manipulated).



increasing the decay parameter in the amp envelope for this sample will not yield a natural tail.

Thanks for all the answers!

Nym wrote:and B, layer with a multisampled set of oneshot snares with recorded tails.

the last is something i have not mastered and it works better when sampling loops in DAW instead of chopping them on the MPC, and that is to use the hats with the snare tail immediately after the snare hits - that way the original tail is preserved. this is much less "play on MPC-pads" friendly, though, so i have not mastered this technique.

Yes, I tried this a bit too, seems to be a good solution, I should retry to do it

id say decay and release. Then you can compress the snare if the tail is too meager for your taste.

again man decay and release will do nothing for you if your snare doesn't have a tail/simulated tail to begin with, which defeats the purpose.

decay will never give you a tail. ever. that's just not its purpose in an amp envelope.
release will only give you a tail if you have looped what little portion of the tail exists and are using the release parameter to artificially extend/fade the sample.

Nicley put Nym

Maybe use layers? That's what I do most of the time, it's all about picking the samples, I guess. Then again... my drums usually don't sound as natural.. 'specially when using "single hit samples". Good way to have a natural sound is to chop the breaks in 1/4 s... But that's a diffrent topic I guess.. Still thought it might help..
Keep them tips coming peeps

Id just find another snare

poundaproblem wrote:Id just find another snare

..

use ur ears to chop it

poundaproblem wrote:Id just find another snare

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AND you can load your own drum sounds in there and play with them. After installation I made my own folder in the location where the defaults are, placed som 44/16 wave drum sounds in there and I can choose them from the menu just like the defaults. it's free.

"Additive Drum Synthesizer"

DrumSynth is a synthesizer for producing drum sounds. It can reproduce sounds from classic analogue drum machines with new clarity and programmability as it uses the same building blocks (oscillators, noise generators and filters), but also make entirely new drums, pitched sounds and sound effects!

DrumSynth is not an analogue synthesizer simulation (check out TS-404 if that's what you're looking for)! DrumSynth can't play it's sounds in real-time, isn't polyphonic, and has no LFOs or resonant filters.

What DrumSynth does have is a range of synthesis methods based on analogue electronics, with enough parameters to produce a wide range of sounds, all available for fast, convenient operation. DrumSynth also allows you to organise and audition your sounds, and store and distribute your sounds in very small .DS files.

DrumSynth is perfect for use with HammerHead's Userbank Creator or any other drum box that lets you import your own samples as you easily can save your sounds to .WAV (which then, of course, have to be converted to .RAW with for example Cool Edit 96).

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