While as a general rule we want to keep our snare panned in the center of the mix (see my drum panning guide), adding some size to our snare after the fact can help it sit better in the mix overall and give this top-three essential component of the mix the real estate it deserves. Let’s cover 4 proven ways to add snare width to your mix while keeping the mix clean or without overreaching on the snare.
How to Add Snare Width
Let’s begin the first of these 4 ways to add snare width to your mix – the tried and true if not obvious method of using reverb on your snare.
Snare Reverb
Snare reverb is the typical go to when it comes to adding any kind of size to the snare.
It’s so popular in mixing that I put together a cheat sheet with the best snare reverb settings:
The key with using reverb on your snare is to keep the size/time relatively short because the last thing we want in achieving that snare width is to have the tail of the reverb last too long and step on the next hit, suffocating the transients and muddying up our snare.
I generally like to keep the snare reverb relatively clean as is reflected in the rest of the settings. Above pictured is my favorite all around reverb plugin in general, FabFilter’s Pro-R 2, for its versatility in allowing me to dial in any kind of sound I want.
It has coloring settings which let you sculpt the tone of the reverb itself, so again I like to keep this on the bright side.
Using its onboard filter or following it (in the case of using this effect as an Aux/Return track) with an EQ to filter below 600Hz and above 6k (the Abbey Road Reverb Trick) is a good way to ensure the body of the snare is kept clean and unimpacted by the reverb.
The “Width” controller is especially important when we’re dialing up the snare width. Keep in mind that 50% is true stereo; going above that begins to favor and then push the reverb exclusively to the sides of the mix which you might want when using snare reverb as this keeps the snare tone itself clean in the middle.
Snare Plate Reverb
Arguably the best TYPE of reverb for the snare is plate reverb.
Unlike most reverbs which mimic or otherwise simulate real world reflections, a plate recreates the sound of sending vibrations through a metal plate, capturing them through a microphone.
The prevailing characteristic of plate reverb is clean and bright, making it a perfect match for creating snare width without worrying about the suffocating artifacts you can oftentimes get with reverbs.
I put together an overview on the best snare reverb to use where I talked specifically about plate reverb for that very reason:
Above you can see I’m using ValhallaPlate to dial in some bright flavored reverb created width with a touch of depth on top of it. The decay is 0.7 seconds, but you can adjust this as necessary (or even sync it to the tempo of your song with this calculator).
The pre delay is kept under 40ms in accordance with the Haas Effect so that it’s not perceived as being a separate snare sound or a delayed reflection (we’re not trying to create a slapback effect here); it’s meant to be perceived as an extension or part of the original snare itself.
Again, the width and even size are to taste and again the higher you go over 100%, the more you’re pushing the location of the reverb in the stereo field to and exclusively to the sides.
Snare Delay
Snare delay is a cleaner alternative which many producers reach for in place of reverb simply because it’s inherently cleaner and doesn’t require any EQing.
Here are the settings I like to dial into my snare, taken from my dedicated snare delay overview:
I’m dialing in these settings by way of Soundtoys’ EchoBoy, my favorite delay plugin for its simplicity and variety of parameters including the ability to add different flavors of saturation to the delayed signal.
We’re still keeping the delay time sub 40 milliseconds to act as an extension of the dry signal; in this case I’m aiming for 32ms.
While you don’t need to EQ your delayed signal as its literally just a carbon (delayed) copy of your dry snare, you can high or low pass your snare delay to give it a slightly different flavor than the dry. I’m also keeping the feedback nonexistent so it’s not bouncing around; it’s simply width.
From there it’s just a matter of how much you want to blend in. In this case I’m using it as an insert directly on the snare itself with a mix blend of around 30%, or 70% dry and 30% wet delay. This is subtle width, but it can be all you need without any cleaning necessary.
Snare Chorus
I recently did an overview on chorus on drums, and I specifically pointed out one of its primary uses is to dial in a bit more width into the pieces of your kit of your choice.
Chorus is a modulation based effect which modulates the timing and pitch of your audio which helps to sell it as an authentic unique instance of your audio which creates authentic sounding width rather than a carbon copy.
Here I’m using the Arturia Jun-6 chorus plugin with max 180% phase, a rate of .4Hz, and a depth of 4-5ms:
These are the settings which are ideally suited for achieving that classic, lush, evolving chorus effect that we think of when we think thick chorus. You can apply these to your chorus plugin of choice to get that classic sound for some classic width on your snare.
On this specific plugin (which I recently covered in my overview of the best chorus plugin), you can also just use the first button (Mode I) to instantly achieve a similar perfect chorus sound for snare width.
MicroShift
I can’t talk about adding width to anything in a mix without giving Soundtoys’ MicroShift a deserving acknowledgement.
I talked about EchoBoy earlier, but I absolutely love Soundtoys’ Microshift (or even more specifically the simpler Little Microshift) for instantly adding width to any track.
It’s embarrassing how often I throw this on a Return/Aux track (or just use a mixing template which already has this on one) in my mix and turn up the send dials on any number of tracks I want a bit more stereo width on.
It’s too easy to get good results with this without having to dial any further settings in (I like 100% wet for Return/Aux tracks and on Mode II) which is why I mention it, and I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t mention how often I use this for width.
Note that just because you’ve used one of these techniques for adding width to your snare doesn’t mean you can’t leverage a second (or third, or fourth!). Mix and match techniques to blend extra width into your snare because they all add different flavors of width, some of which won’t step on one another, depending on the sound of your snare, so experimenting is key.
Snare Width Tips
- There are plenty of ways to add some width to give a thin or small sounding snare the size it needs in the mix.
- Reverb and specifically plate reverb is a relatively clean way to both add width and some depth, just be sure to clean it up with a bit of EQ filtering.
- Delay is a cleaner option for just creating a little size on the sides without needing to pass it, as well.
- Chorus gives the snare some unique width by way of the pitch and timing modulation to give it an evolving width, albeit being an effect which is best when used with subtlety.
- MicroShift is a dirt simple and lazy YET effective way to add some width to any track in your mix, as well.
- Mix and match any of these to add even MORE width to your snare to give it the real estate you’re looking for.
