Open your preferred digital audio workstation -- for example, Ableton or Pro Tools. Depending on the program and your set preferences, either a blank session or the last saved session will open automatically. To call up a work in progress, open the “File” menu and click on “Open,” “Recent” or “Recently Saved” and select from the drop-down menu.
Identify all of the snare audio channels. It’s good practice to name the channels as you go, but if you haven’t, you can identify them by clicking the “S” icon on each channel. This solos the audio and mutes all other channels, enabling you to listen in isolation. The song must be playing for this work. Name the channels for the microphone position if you haven’t already -- for example “Snare Top,” “Snare Bottom” and “Snare Room.” Typically when you record a snare, one microphone points at the top of the drum head and a second microphone points at the bottom. The top microphone channel has a more punchy and immediate sound than the bottom microphone. A third overhead microphone captures the snare ambiance.
Click on “Snare Top” to highlight it. Highlighting a channel assigns subsequent commands to that channel specifically, rather than to the entire mix. Click “Send To” and select “Bus 1.” If “Bus 1” is grayed out, it means it is already in use, so select the next available bus. In audio, a bus is a master mix channel. It’s distinct from a regular audio channel because it is specifically for routing multiple audio. Click on and send each subsequent snare channel to the same bus channel.
Click on the selected bus channel to highlight it.
Export the bus channel audio as a wave audio file, or “.wav.” This is a lossless file. The specific command for export varies according to which program you’re using, but the command is typically located under the file menu. For example, if using Apple’s Logic, click “File” and select “Export as Wav.”
Save the audio when prompted, naming it “Snare Submix.” This file is now ready for mastering, the process of volume and frequency tweaking.