26 Days to an Album

Whenever I get the chance, I try and listen to the tracks on different types of speakers. The last iteration of the mixes, I noticed the snare drum disappearing into the background while listening on ear buds, even though on speakers it had a nice pop. I think the main issue on that was over compression, and some EQ issues. So I went back to the Insert chain to take a look at what plugins I had in there. Turns out I was using an envelope filter on top of the standard compressor, and it was taking the transient and basically compressing it twice, resulting in a very snappy attack, but very little body. Also the snare was using the same reverb send as the rest of the drums (toms and overheads), and while I want the snare to have a good amount of breath to it, I didn't want the overheads and toms to share that same preset. So I found it best to just dedicate a reverb solely to the snare drum. So my new preset chain looks like this (see above). Drumagog is what is triggering the snare drum sample that we made back in the preproduction phase of the Tama 7x14" maple snare. The UAD 1176LN is the compressor I'm using with a modest attack and release at a ratio of 8:1. Finally there is a nice reverb at the end of the insert chain. I just used a preset that fit the best. The result is a snare that has some good presence and body, but also isn't too dry. Take a listen to the sample below and you can hear the crack and breath of the snare. Keep in mind this isn't mastered or a final mix.
My goal tomorrow? Stay aggressive... It's Saturday. Thanks Pete Sabatini for that suggestion. But I'll be aggressive by sorting through the vocal tracks and assigning them all to groups.