Snares: Punch?

Snares: Where to start... Where did I start? 
Layering 7+ samples, of snares, taps, claps and white noise in an effort to get them to cut through the rest of the tune... This was back in 2009, and all of which was a good call.
Panning - Left & right will get some desired effects.
What did I change?
Adding sounds that you may not think would be worthy of a snare.
Layer a kick, or an open hi hat, or even vocal stab, until the one sound all at the same time covers a wider frequency range... That has worked for me in the past. 
Ultimately now, more importantly than anything - The first and main snare must have a punch of it's own, and be a nice full realistic snare with some umph.
It can still be layered with other sounds, but it will remain the loudest pivot point of all the other sounds creating the snare drum, and will also be the track that triggers any sidechains (To be discussed in later posts) 
Next: The average snare frequency is around 200hz... 
Layer a kick with the snare but find one that is tight and short with not much sub in it.
Filter the kick with a high pass up to at least 150hz so that it won't interrupt any sub bass. 
Layer an open hi hat - But use a high pass and filter it up to over 1khz
Any other sound layered for the snare after this is entirely the choice of the creator.
Next: Envelopes
Shorten the release of any sound being used for the snare as much as possible, with any envelope vst available. for the O HH extend the attack so that all you get is the tail of the sound after the initial snare sample has been triggered. 
Next: Create a dedicated bus
Create a bus channel, and send all related snare samples to it. (Don't put any VSTs on the bus to avoid phasing)
Next: EQing the snare for the mix down. - 
A snare should be around 200hz. But to fine tune it with your mix. Work out the harmonic relationship between frequencies and the key of your track to 3 decimal places. 
For example - If a track is in the key of "F"
F over 4 octaves resides on the following frequencies. 
85.333hz 170.666hz 341.333hz 682.666hz

So, to boost your snare frequency in harmony with the rest of the track, if the track is in the key of F, set your EQ to 170.6 with a tight band width and increase it until it is as loud as the rest of the tune. It will sound nice and sit well with the volume of everything else. 

More to follow:
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