While SoundBrigade is an amazing tool to control and tame unpleasant frequencies, it’s equally suited for emphasizing and boosting a certain sound. Let’s see how we can add more punch to an electric snare drum with the Rotate-mission!
Here’s a drum loop with the dry snare:
It already sounds good, but wait until we get our hands on the plugin!
Start by inserting SoundBrigade on the track with the snare, and choose the Rotate-mission on the right. The snare drum has already been processed and mixed, which means that any rumble in the low frequency range has been cut. Therefore we can let the plugin work on the whole spectrum by setting the Center-knob to about 12 o’clock and turning the Range-knob all the way up. Since the Rotate-mission doesn’t react to the level of the incoming audio signal (i.e. there is no threshold before the effect takes place) we can ignore the Action-knob, simply because it’s not active here.
The interface should now look something like this:
Now listen to the same drum loop with SoundBrigade active:
Notice how the snare just got more powerful and distinctive, with a subtle ‘zap’-type sound that gives it more punch, while still retaining its original character!
You can download the preset for this sound here: SoundBrigade Punchy Snare
However, if you feel that the result isn’t dramatic enough you can still increase the effect by turning down the Range-control, and thus bringing the filters in SoundBrigade ‘closer together’. This will enhance the ‘zap’-sound and you can then use the Center-control to dial in the right position in the frequency spectrum. While this can quickly lead to quite extreme results, it can be very good for sound design and turn your snare drum into something completely different!