From the course: Real Recording School Weekly

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Parallel gated snare drum

Parallel gated snare drum

- [Instructor] When I mention the phrase gated snare drum, some people's eyes glaze over with visions of '80s hair bands and synth pop. Yes, there was a trend back then to use tightly-gated drum sounds where all the bleed from other parts of the kit was eliminated with a hardware gate that only opened when a drum was struck. Frequently, the drum sound was then highlighted with giant, unnatural, processed digital reverbs. But here's a little trick I use to help a snare drum that needs more definition or punch, or a track that suffers from too much hi-hat or cymbal bleed. First I'll duplicate the existing snare track, or I'll mult it like a Y-cable split if working in the analog realm. We'll solo that track. On this new track, I'll apply a gate, or in this case, a plug-in. We'll go to a quick preset and I'll set it to completely shut off the audio when the snare is not being hit. (snare drum hits) I will adjust the sustain or the hold and release settings to make the decay somewhat…

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