[Grayburg]

I'd describe it as having a ton of sustain as opposed to having the bulk of the volume at the very beginning.

Here are some examples:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErprldOKGw#t=42s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_1drGGkYY#t=22s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOABz_fmNQk

And some regular snares:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsMNqUVv3mQ#t=1m
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2guiRH2FsSk#t=30s

I know it's probably just COMPRESSION!! and a ton of reverb, but regular snare samples never turn into anything that.. meaty?

There are a lot of good snare samples out there, but they don't seem to mold into this sound.

Tips or samples?

[DusK]

Try sending it to another channel with compression cranked in addition to wherever you normally route your snare to, and set that other channel's volume to taste; lower will give it more "meat" and sustain, and lower will make the sound more "poppy" at the beginning.

[SnappleMan]

Those are layered samples. You can get that sound either by EQ/compress/reverb a normal snare or layer a pre-processed cheapo GM POWER KIT sample over your drum track.

[SnappleMan]

Here I made an example:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32558357/ocr...drums_test.mp3

That's just a normal drumkit mixed with just EQ and compression, no reverb. The big snare sound is coming from the room channel. The key to most drum sounds is in how you treat the room mics and how much of the overheads you let in.

For this example I used a very fast attack on the room compressor (I don't really want any transients from the room mic, just the huge reverb that's naturally there) and a very fast release time (as fast as 10ms) to keep it from reducing that gain and letting the sustain out. As for EQ I took out a bit at 200hz to kill a bit of the low muddiness that rings out. All the attack and snap comes from the close snare mics, they've got a good bit of compression on them to bring that out and add some natural sustain on top of the room sound, (about 4ms attack and 100ms release) and bit of low end EQ around 200hz to add that thick body the sound needs, also top end EQ at 2k-5k and a tiny bit at 10k for the snap.

From here I can take this and layer on a cheap 80s power snare sample and make it even bigger, or turn up the room mic and get more of that huge live sound, or leave it alone.

Hope this gives you a rough idea.

[Grayburg]

Good stuff. ^^

speaking of...

Originally Posted by SnappleMan

cheapo GM POWER KIT sample

i've been lovin my gm power kit. lol