Animals As Leaders Snare: Nick Morzov on Taming Bleed & Crafting Punch

Alright, let’s talk Animals As Leaders. Specifically, those mind-bending drums. Matt Garstka’s playing is legendary – complex, dynamic, and full of nuance. But for a mix engineer, that can mean one thing: a serious challenge, especially when it comes to the snare drum. We got a peek into how Nick Morzov tackled this beast, particularly focusing on controlling hi-hat bleed and sculpting a snare tone that cuts through without sounding artificial. Spoiler: it involves some clever processing and a whole lot of “trolling” with automation. Check out the full session here. Let’s dive in!

The Arch-Nemesis: Hi-Hat Bleed in the Snare Mic

If you’ve ever miked up a drum kit, you know the struggle. Hi-hats, bless their rhythmic hearts, have a nasty habit of creeping into everything, especially the snare mic. With a drummer as expressive as Matt Garstka, where ghost notes are as crucial as backbeats, this bleed can become a nightmare. Nick pointed out that in some Animals As Leaders recordings, the hats in the snare mic can be almost as loud, if not louder, than the snare itself!

Now, you might think, “Just slap a noise gate on it, right?” Not so fast. For the level of detail required in Animals As Leaders’ music, a gate can be too blunt an instrument. You risk chopping off those delicate ghost notes that are essential to the groove. Nick needed a more surgical approach to preserve every nuance.

Building the Snare’s Foundation (Before the “Trolling”)

Before diving into the meticulous automation, Nick first sculpted the fundamental snare sound with a chain of carefully chosen plugins. Each step played a role in enhancing the snare while, sometimes, initially making that bleed even more prominent – all part of the plan!

H3: Adding Warmth and Preceived Loudness with McDSP Analog Channel

First up was the good old McDSP Analog Channel (AC202). Nick’s goal here wasn’t to slam it for compression, but to leverage its saturation characteristics for warmth and perceived loudness without actually cranking the fader.

• Mode: He opted for the “Modern” ones to avoid excessive “tape squish” often found in vintage tape emulations.
• Tape Speed: Running the tape a bit faster helped maintain top-end detail, crucial for snare snap.
• Release: A moderate release setting kept things natural.
• The Magic EQ: The real star here for Nick was the built-in EQ, specifically the “M” type. He pushed this all the way up to 100. Why? Because this EQ offers a broad, wide Q. When you’re doing additive EQ, wider boosts tend to sound more natural and less “phasey” or “pokey.” This particular boost helped bring out that desirable low-end depth in the snare, targeting that sweet spot between 100Hz to 250Hz, without making it sound muddy. Check out more EQ strategies for mixing modern metal to understand how broad Qs can be your best friend.

The result? The snare felt more forward and warm, without a huge jump in level or loss of detail.

H3: Surgical Strikes on Bleed and Resonance with Soothe2

Even with the McDSP adding some nice character, the symbol bleed and some inherent snare resonances needed taming. Enter Soothe2. This isn’t just for smoothing out harsh vocals; it’s a dynamic resonance suppressor that can work wonders on drums.

• Targeting: Nick focused Soothe2 on specific problem areas: the ever-present symbol bleed and some boxy or resonant frequencies in the snare itself. He mentioned identifying a “woody” sound on the initial attack that he wanted to control, while still letting the snare ring out naturally.
• Settings: He engaged “hard mode” to better isolate the frequencies he was working on, adjusted the attack (a little later), and bumped up the sharpness for more selective reduction. The idea was to turn down the symbols without squashing the life out of the snare.

This step was crucial for cleaning things up, allowing the next stage of aggressive processing to work its magic without making the bleed unbearable.

H3: Injecting Aggression and Snap with Slate Digital VCC

With the snare sounding warmer and cleaner, it was time to add some serious attitude. For this, Nick turned to the Slate Digital Virtual Console Collection (VCC), specifically the Trident emulation. He has fond memories of hearing a real Trident console get pushed into beautiful saturation, and this plugin helps him chase that sound.

• The Goal: This wasn’t about subtle coloration. Nick was aiming for noticeable saturation, an aggressive character, and an almost “fake attack” or crack on the snare that wasn’t there before.
• Driving it Hard: He pushed the input to “kiss red” on the meter, really making the emulation work. This added distortion and harmonics that gave the snare a distinct, aggressive edge.

Of course, adding this much saturation and aggression brought back some of that hi-hat bleed with a vengeance. All these moves, while making the snare itself sound awesome, also amplified the wash from the cymbals. This is where the real fun begins.

“Trolling” the Snare: The Power of Hyper-Detailed Automation

Nick laughingly calls his next step “trolling” the audio – a testament to the insane level of detail involved. After building up this powerful, aggressive snare tone, the amplified bleed needed to be dealt with, and that’s where meticulous automation comes in. This is what truly separates a good drum mix from a great one, especially in complex genres like progressive metal.

H3: Precision Control with Pro Tools Trim Automation

For this task, Nick utilizes a feature in Pro Tools Ultimate: Trim Automation. This is a game-changer because it allows you to write a secondary layer of volume automation that doesn’t affect your main volume fader setting. You can make all your fine-tuned, hit-by-hit adjustments to control bleed and enhance ghost notes, while still being able to adjust the overall snare level with the main fader without overwriting your detailed work.

• The Why: After all the EQ boosts and saturation, the hi-hats in the snare mic were LOUD between the actual snare hits.
• The How: Nick went in and manually automated the snare level down in the gaps between hits and subtly (or not so subtly) brought up the ghost notes. It’s painstaking work, looking like he manually pasted in volume changes, but the result is worth it.
• The Benefit: This allows every ghost note to be heard clearly without a wash of hi-hats accompanying it. The snare retains its punch and detail, and crucially, it helps keep the drum image wider. Excessive center-channel bleed from cymbals can really narrow your stereo field.

By “trolling” the snare track with this level of automation, Nick was able to get the best of both worlds: an aggressive, full-bodied snare sound with all the details intact, and a clean, controlled drum mix where the hi-hats stay where they belong.

The Result: Clarity, Punch, and Natural Dynamics

Dialing in the Animals As Leaders snare is clearly a meticulous process. It’s not about finding one magic plugin, but about a chain of well-thought-out moves, each addressing a specific need:

• Building foundational warmth and body (McDSP Analog Channel).
• Cleaning up resonances and initial bleed (Soothe2).
• Adding aggressive character and snap (Slate Digital VCC).
• And finally, using hyper-detailed Trim Automation to control the now-amplified bleed and bring out every nuance of the performance.

This approach ensures that even in the most punishing sections, the snare cuts through with clarity and power, the ghost notes speak, and the overall drum sound remains wide and impactful.

Want to see how pros like Nick Morzov make these decisions and apply these techniques in real-time? At Nail The Mix, we give you the chance to watch world-class producers mix actual sessions from bands like Animals As Leaders from scratch. You get the raw multitracks and an all-access pass to their entire workflow. If you’re ready to move beyond presets and truly unlock your sound, seeing these detailed processes unfold is invaluable. Dive deeper into the Animals As Leaders mixing session with Nick Morzov and see exactly how these killer drum tones (and the rest of the mix!) come together. Get ready to elevate your own mixes by learning directly from the engineers who crafted the sounds you love. Explore the full Animals As Leaders session and more on Nail The Mix!