Nolly Tips: A Practical Guide to EQing any Snare Drum 

We need more Nolly!

Speaking as an independent artist who composes, engineers, mixes, and masters on my own… These are invaluable to me. You’re giving me a workflow and a methodology that will help me keep creating quickly and authoritatively. Since you asked for feedback, here’s my humble take: I really needed to hear the vocalization of snare sounds, Ka, Pa, Bub, Ta, whatever you said lol, and how these are affected by low end; I REALLY love how we could see the approach done on two different source tones, and I would love for that to be a constant in these videos. It takes the “law” and makes it more of a “suggested approach.” I would have definitely done the low boost on the M&M snare without hearing you say “This snare doesn’t need it.” Even though I could use my ear, I’m still green enough at this process that I would have been tempted to just follow the steps to some small degree. I don’t think you waffled too much, I don’t care about the length of the video, I’ll watch the whole thing a couple of times probably and really soak in the details. Thank you for being our collective mixing professor haha.

"Nolly Tips:" Wait, is this becoming a video series? Because I'm here for it.

Sounds so good! Would love a similar video on your kick drum processing techniques. It sounds massive in this mix!

This kind of tutorials are the reason why so many people continue getting into audio produciton more and more. Thank you Nolly! Looking forward to your next videos

I remember watching bare Knuckle tutorials like 12 years ago and it really showed how good Nolly was at explaining things. Now he's like a pro teacher

i know you probably hate doing full mix videos, but man i'd love to see a 2023 edition. hell, seeing one every few years just to learn how your process changes would be awesome. hope you find the time to do that again!

your humility is almost shocking. this is some of the best mixing content I’ve ever seen. very, very helpful - don’t change a thing! if anything, feel free to “waffle” more. thank you so much!

Another Nolly knowledge bomb 😍 grabbing a coffee right now ☕️

I can’t believe Nolly is just giving away his time and expert knowledge. I’ll watch as many of these as he’s willing to make. This tutorial alone has opened up tons of new ways for me to hear a snare and better identify and express what I want to hear during mixing.

I’m glad I watched this because I was having the hardest time with the high end clack frequency in modern & massive (my fave kit). Thank you Nolly! 🙏🏽

That lesson changed my thoughts about how to EQ a snare properly! Thank you so much Nolly! Keep doing videos! We appreciate it a lot!

We need more Nolly with invasion!! Invasion is so cool and is criminally underused on this channel. Mixing videos especially, this kind of vid for invasion is a god send

We’re honestly so spoiled to be able to get this kind of knowledge so easily through the internet, and for free! Thanks Nolly for helping save us from the years of anguish that I’m sure teaching yourself audio engineering pre-internet would have been lol. I mean I’m sure there were books and videos and stuff..but still. Always look forward to your videos because you always explain exactly WHAT you’re doing and most importantly, WHY you’re doing it. The “what” is like “giving a man a fish” which is dope but the “why” is like “teaching a man to fish”, which is what gets you from copying settings from RU-vid to being able to find your own sounds that you’re actually happy with.

Yes! Between this and the fab filter tip , hoping my snares won’t sound terrible when I record them again 🙏 thank you nolly!

I owe more to you in terms of my journey in recording/mixing music than anybody else doing it. Your impact on the world of rock and metal music creation is impossible to overstate. Thank you for all you do.

I’m very much a noob with recording, mixing, and mastering my own work in a home studio type enviroment 😅 These videos are very cool to see and help to train my ear to listen to the correct frequencies. My horrible mixed are getting perhaps a tiny bit less horrible after watching each video 😉 Thanks Nolly!

Ear safety warning: lower your volume before you get to 1:36

Just the dude with consistently some of the best snare sounds ever showing us how to get there. Any Nolly video on any topic is a pleasure to watch, but I'm especially thankful for this one!

I keep coming here over and over again because of just the process and you walking us through it, really love it. I would actually love a kick rundown as well. Would be pretty neat.

Hey Nolly, I constantly evaluate my own moves every time I'm seeing a new tutorial from you. The way you tell us your thoughts behind your craft is really helpful to me. Thank you so much for giving us insight on how you work on your mixes! And besides that, you're such a great dude!

Bop bop bop. In all seriousness, this is really useful

I always enjoy watching your process, Nolly! Thanks for sharing it with us!

Thank you so much! I wouldn’t be where I am without the knowledge you’ve shared. I would love to see a deep dive into kick processing, specifically around how to balance the low end to have it be weighty and meaty with that wet thucky character without being overpowering. Specifically, your kick sound on Virus is the ultimate example of that.

Just posting to say that, watching this video, right now, along with referencing Zagreus and Have a Blast, finally helped me sculpt the perfect snare sound. Videos like these are invaluable - thank you Nolly and the rest of the GetGood team!

You're a treasure. Thank you, Nolly.

These are the kind of videos I actually learn from, the getting TO the sound instead of just showing a sound and bypassing things to show the difference. Incredible

It's so interesting to see you slightly changing your plugin chain over time just to try out different approaches. I'd genuinely love to see an overly long, waffling video or podcast explaing why and when you made some of the changes. Your mixes are the gold standard of modern rock and metal!

Exactly the video I needed right now in my mixing journey. The same video but for the Kick Drum would be absolutely gorgeous! Thank you Nolly 🤘🏼

That transient designer trick just blew my mind. Simple but so effective. Can't wait for the next one ! 😀

So glad to hear that we'll be getting more Nolly tutorials!

I must admit, drums sound sick but the guitars sound amazing too haha! Always very informative Nolly. Thank you!

Great video Nolly! That mixing with the transient designer trick is super super cool, I'll be trying that on some mixes I'm knocking out this weekend. I think we all can agree that you can ramble on for as long as you want, I much prefer these 30+ minute videos, going in depth and explaining, trying different source materials, etc. Especially with Invasion since I felt a few people didn't understand how to shape the snares in that library with how raw they were. Very VERY informative and helpful to people I know that don't have access to many different resources or tracks for mixing. I've been doing a similar thing with multi-band transient designers (waves trans-multi) to shape the attack with all shells for a while now with great results. Most times I'm reducing the attack in that 800-2500 range, which has made a huge difference in taming those aggressive 'clacky' transients, and leaves a much punchier and solid sound. Then I'm free to shape around attack of the other bands and can really get it feeling like the drummers hitting harder. Has me looking to get oeksound's Spiff actually!

Thank you for all your tutorials, Nolly!

Amazing video Nolly, all these videos are priceless!

Nolly these videos are amazing keep them coming! Thank you greatly for passing on your knowledge and experience, iv'e learned so much through all your videos.

These videos are super helpful and I really appreciate you taking the time to make them. All your videos are game changers. Cheers!

Thank you Nolly , I very much enjoy learning about mixing from your videos. It helps a lot

Thank you very much for this Nolly. I always love seeing mixing tutorials from you. You have a great way of explaining your process where it's technical but still understandable.

Thank you Nolly, u are great engineer and have great abillity to teach and convey knowledge!

These are lovely. I’d love to see a video on how you approach balancing elements too. It’s so basic and so overlooked, and it’s apparent you’ve taken great care with it. Balancing kit pieces, or full mix, either would be well worth a watch 😊

Very helpful with just the right amount of waffling to help me get an insight into how you approach these things. Really hope you'll be inspired to make more. Personally I'd be interested to hear how you work with reverb on drums, how and if it's informed by snare reverb, your room mics and so forth.

Please do one on TOMS! there is very little on mixing toms on yt This was one of the most educational vids ive seen in years btw

Thanks so much for sharing and really happy to hear that you now have the time to do these kind of videos more frequently! Invaluable mixing guide and tips, as all your other masterclasses! Smoothly delivered, on point and very specific. If school was like that, I'd want to stay in class 24/7 lol. Your voice-over quality sounds top notch too!! Like velvety smooth and freshly cut butter, If anyone can relate.

Thank you so so much Nolly for this amazing content!

As someone who is just starting to dip there toes into the mixing world, this is MASSIVELY helpful, especially since right now I'm only dealing with midi drums. You rock Nolly. Would love an in depth video on how you manage your kick drum tones as well!

This is great and the comforting thing is that when I think about my approach for EQ and compression, it isn't that far from Nolly's method.

This was awesome information, its completely vhanged thethe way I look at snare drum EQ. I bought the invasion kit a couple years agonhave have struggled to get a desirable snare and kick tone from it. I just don't know what moves to make. This helped immensely. I'm sure myself and lots of others would be eternally grateful for a full invasion mixing tutorial. Of all the drum libraries I have, it is the one that's the most challenging to me to mix. I would love your clarity and process on it.

Such an awesome tutorial, definitely will try the transient designer cut trick!

I could listen to you all day mate

Nice video this will help me immensely for layering snares for thicc EDM genres

the OG nolly!! Passing down some wisdom fellas, more please!!!!! 🙏🏻

The trick with the transient designer is brilliant

Thank you Nolly, really helpful tip on using the transient designer when eqing.😁

as always just well done. love these videos.

Absolutely love this. Already been a huge help. A similar video on Toms would be extremely helpful too! 🤘🤘🤘

These are some great tips! Thank you!

Nolly and Buster Odeholm are the todays best Mixing Engineers 💪🏼

Great explaining and hints.

For me, it's always difficult to have a sound where I'm very happy with my snare. It looks very "simple" for you and it's frustrating but a lot, let me reapeat that (!) a LOT of good advice here ! :) same as others guy's suggest : same video for kick would be awesome... guitars here is punchy and punishing too ! a guitar tutorial with the cali plug-in would be awesome :) love my GGD modern and massive and PIV and fucking love the cali cab plug-in ! Big thanks to you for bringing awesome plug-in and your mixing video help me so much ! love you nolly

Hot damn, that transient designer tip was great. One thing that would be REALLY neat is some way to trigger GDD samples from live tracks. The only way I've found to do it is to export the entire kit as a TCI file for Slate Trigger. It... takes quite a while. I got one invasion kit more or less done with 127 samples per drum. It took me a weekend lol. All to avoid writing MIDI every time.

Great video nolly! I'm recording drums for my bands first album next month and would love to have some tutorials on mixing real drum audio. I find that mixing samples is much easier than recordings as there are many more ploblems to deal with like phase and bleed in live drum recordings. A video going over some tips and tricks like the saturn trick for cutting cymbal bleed would be great. Thanks for all the tutorials you have made though, you have made myself and thousands of others much better at mixing than we would have been without them.

Insane tips as usual.

9:24 this is so wholesome! Joyful laughing Nolly was what I missed in my life Anyway, thanks for the mixing tips !

It would be cool to see Nolly go over how he approaches correcting phase on a live drum kit. It seems the technical aspects of this subject are rarely covered on RU-vid. For example: when to phase align the multiple mics in the plugin chain, which plugins to use to correct phase. How to address the room mics when all other mics are phase aligned, and pro vs cons on phase alignment of certain elements.

YES MAN, WE NEED MORE

Another great video there Nolly! Good job once again on bringing your technique and knowledge like that, it's really cool and it makes all the sense at the same time... No wizardry techniques or anything. It would be really cool to see you with the kick mixing too on this, cause it sounds really great ;)

LOVE THIS VIDEO

Thanks for all the videos man, I would kill for a video of you mixing Invasion in a rock setting.

Great and useful video, would be nice to have something related to OH and cymbals.

at our most dire times, it's always Nolly the one who saves us, the undeserving

Great info. thanks

Excellent !

I actually didn't pay attention at first how could onomatopeyas be silly, this is awesome, useful and entertaining lol

Nolly we greatly appreciate you sharing your knowledge! Don't worry about waffling, I could listen to you read the phone book :D

you sir! a GENIUS!!!!

That's so Cool!!! Thank you!

🎉 we need more video tutorial )

Loved it! Can we get another one for Toms? I think getting them right is super hard, because the might and power of them is overlapping with a lot of other instruments, yet they need to be there and I'm having a hard time getting them through a dense mix. I appreciate those tutorials, they are great! Thank you so much

Another move I'm experimenting with, is using the envelope follower in Saturn 2 to modulate the amount of saturation (and/or EQ, dynamics, even feedback), for example setting a slow attack, fast release envelope (~75 ms attack, 100 ms release) to modulate the drive between 1 khz to 2.5 khz, really helps bringing out the sustain of the snare. Again, moderation is key and I've definitely overdone it before.

Dr. Nollz Mix Medicine ™

Valuable info. I'm eager to try these methods out. I think one of my biggest problems when trying to mix is that I have conflicting end goals for how the overall mix should sound for when writing/imagining ideas. I want a snare to crack and ring like a John Feldmann record from early 2000s, but then I also want it to cut through a spread of engine-revving low-tuned guitar and bass that you hear a lot more in more recent metal. I'd also want to know how to get more stick definition on cymbals to cut through such a mix, despite how uncommon direct miking probably is on them. If these were ever addressed and had some insight provided on how to make it work, I'd love it.

that guitar crunch, though 😳

Awesome video! Such a great explanation all around, that transient designer trick is fantastic. Curious why you switched your inst bus eq’s to your drum bus. I experimented a bit with it and felt the biggest thing I was missing was the saturation from the drive on the fg-n on my bass guitar. Would love to hear more about why you switched it up and about how you’re stacking the grey and red.

woah, this helped me a bunch! Could you do these types of tutorials for the rest of the kit aswell? I'm struggling getting the kick to sound good in my mix. :o

Really interesting, thank you. Regarding editing, I'd like to hear Nolly's voice louder, since when the music kicks in it is really loud

Awesome 👏

Definitely not too much waffling, Nolly. It seems like the right amount really. But since you asked for feedback: It would be extremely helpful to have access to a set of high-quality stems (guitar, bass, drum and vocal tracks) like from the project in the video. It could serve as a test bed for any experiments for whatever element one might want to learn about. Bootstrapping a good mix that can serve as a good base for experiments seems like an unsurmountable step for beginners. I realize there might be copyright issues. I'm just saying that this would probably be most helpful.

I remember seeing somewhere that Zakk Cervini was using M&M on his recent mixes (BMTH, Bad Omens, Motionless In White...), was that true?

Hell yeah! As always: Very nice and informative video and killer sound! But what about the REAL Snare? I would love to see more new mixing tutorials with "real drums" and especially mixing tutorials from the new Periphery Album!! ;) (maybe on another RU-vid channel ;)) Looking forward to your next videos! Thank you Nolly!

great video! would you be able to make a video on how you mix ghost notes?

Great Video! Idea: You should do the same kind of process (wich has "matured") for kick, toms, etc... Cheers!

More please! I would love to see how you would process the “real” snare as well

I'd love to see a basic template setup for ggd programs in general basically setting up your bus and common plug-ins used for kick, snare, cymbals. Don't really need an explanation on the eq process just a general idea of "okay opening up my daw, opening Matt halpern pack and then this is how I route everything" hope that made sense lol Edit: if there is something like this that Nolly has made please link it!

This info is going to help me a bunch! I always struggled with my midi drum snares being way too pokey. I’d like to see your approach to getting the other part of the snare… ambience! Getting that room sound just right is another battle I have every mix

Need to video on just doing toms, especially the toms from Bleed From Within's newest album.

My mixes tend to be a bit dry; do you have any advice for adding more wetness/space without muddy-ing up the mix and losing punch? I'm working with software drums, so I could use some guidance with how to create/handle a drum room, and how to create a good sounding delay/reverb on vocals. Thanks in advance!

For comparison: Invasion: 23:16 Modern and Massive: 33:10

Nolly is the best

T his is gold!