Hi-Hat Separation

[bniesz]

i did a little searching, didn't see anything specifically addressing this, so I'm askin....

What sort of techniques do you use to separate the hi-hat from the snare mic?
What works the best in your experience?

I'm tired of winding up with hats all over my mixes.


(also, i'm so happy to see the board again!!)

[joel hamilton]

i did a little searching, didn't see anything specifically addressing this, so I'm askin....

What sort of techniques do you use to separate the hi-hat from the snare mic?
What works the best in your experience?

I'm tired of winding up with hats all over my mixes.


(also, i'm so happy to see the board again!!)

Proper mic placement and proper gain structure on the way in.

Do you have a lot of hat in the snare mic when you solo the track, or do you get what sounds like a lot of hat in the drum mix because the phase relationships of all the open mics emasculates everything to the point that you are hearing the top end of the kit, and the hat is going all the time?

I have heard poor phase relationships in the drum department give the illusion of "too much hat" so many times.

That may not be it, and I am ranting....

[Mix413]

Often it's the drummer. It's unfortunate but many young drummers these days are cymbal bashers. The dreaded brass veil. Try turning the overheads up really loud in the headphones.

[lanterns]

take your hat off the bed.

[drumsound]

Besides mic placement and having a mic with good rejection (not the one used by most club guys...) you need to address the playing. You might also need a bit of absorption next to or behind the drums. Thinner hats are helpful, but don't work in every style. At TapeOpCon Linda from the Miracle 3 sad she's but a piece of paper between the hats when it seems really loud. Albini said he's put his keys in the hats to muffle them...

[bniesz]

Do you have a lot of hat in the snare mic when you solo the track, or do you get what sounds like a lot of hat in the drum mix because the phase relationships of all the open mics emasculates everything to the point that you are hearing the top end of the kit, and the hat is going all the time?

I have heard poor phase relationships in the drum department give the illusion of "too much hat" so many times.

Honestly, it's a little of both probably, but often times I find myself with too much hat with hardly any OHs. And there definately is an undesireable amount of hats in the snare mic, solo'ed.

When I can get away with it, I'll use split pair of mics for OHs, one directly on the crash and one directly on the ride. Then use a room mic much further away and squash it. If it's a bigger kit, I like to use an MS pair for OHs. So I don't think the phase has too much to do with it... unless the tom mics are killing me.

I've seen foam used in between the snare mic and the hats, but i'm worried I might wind up blocking the side rejection from the snare mic, and get MORE hats.

I'd rather not dampen the sound too much, I try to aim for big roomy drums.

Joel, what are some things for me to consider about my mic placement and gain structure to avoid hat-heavy drums?

and, KEYS? seems like that would worsen the problem.

[the riff]

The times when I have had the worst trouble with this is when the drummer played with his hi hat really close to the snare drum. If this is the case, I usually try and talk him into raising the hi hats (as long as it won't affect his playing). One drummer had it really close and had to keep it that way so I took the inside of a toilet paper roll and cut it in half and placed that along the edge of the snare mic and that seemed to help. I'm sure you could do this the wrong way and have some sort of phasing issues but I didn't.

[joel hamilton]

Well,

One thing you can do is listen to each mic in relation to each other. COme up with a combination that gives you results you want.

I usually listen to the kick to the OH, then the snare to the OH, then the toms... then even the snare and the rack tom. Alone.

(i dont actually go through this checklist every time I set up drums, only when I have some funky "honk" or notch that was not there when I was in the room, or just "feeling it" based on doing it a bunch).

Sometimes you can get an amazing amount of body to go away in the snare with the OH placement (regardless of MS/XY/anything)...

Just learn to hear the relationships. Dont think in terms of 180 when listening for phase relationships. Learn to hear when more mics make the problem worse, or more mics make a bigger sound. Consonant or dissonant, ya know? Like does the second mic add anything besides mucky/washy phase weirdness on your bass amp? either shut it off, or go in and mess with placement.

When I set up for drums, and start to get my gain structure together, aside from "feeling it out," I will actually look at the level of the drums NOT being hit to kind of get a feel for what is going on with what the mics are "hearing" other than what I want them to hear...

Really, feel it out. Mic choice, placement, and gain structure: what else is there to work on for a lifetime?

If there was ONE way to get it done I swear I would stop....

[Fletcher]

Try turning the overheads up really loud in the headphones.

[bniesz]

Great response Joel.

Honestly I was expecting some sort of mathmatical technique.
But it seems like it's less science and more instinct;
less about a formula and more about adaptation.

which makes total sense to me.
good to hear if from someone remarkably more experienced than I.

[jmoose]

When I set up for drums, and start to get my gain structure together, aside from "feeling it out," I will actually look at the level of the drums NOT being hit to kind of get a feel for what is going on with what the mics are "hearing" other than what I want them to hear...

Yah, that's a cool technique. Usually I look at kick & snare and how they show up in the tom mics to get an idea of what seperation is like.

I've found it's easier to build drum sounds from the top down...start with the overheads & room, get those working together and then add kick, snare & toms to fill out the rest of the kit as needed. And sometimes part of the problem isn't the level of the hats but the tone of 'em. SM57's can have a nasty off-axis sound so it's usually my last choice with something like a 441 or M201 being at the top of the list. As a last resort I'll patch a de-esser or expander across the snare channel to tame the hats a bit, and sometimes (usually) overdone or just plain bad compression on the snare will make the hats louder and more annoying then they really are.

[Slider]

This is usually a problem when recording drummers with questionable technique.
First off position the snare mic to cut down on ugly hat leakage (or make the hat leakage work to your advantage with placement.)
Using a bright bottom snare mic (which usually has mimimal hat bleed) for some added top can help too.
I personally also use a little foam baffle I built for blocking the hat from the top snare mic perspective.
I have a friend who uses a dixie cup stuffed with foam with a 57 inside.
Whatever helps.

You might simply try telling the guy to hit his damn snare drum and lay off the f-ing hats!
That doesn't always work.
10 years of bad habits are hard to correct on the day of a session.
I always give it a shot anyway.

If your eq'ing large amounts of top into the top snare mic, the hat will get very ugly fast. If the drum is dull due to bad tuning, crap heads, ect. work on the snare drum source to brighten it rather than eq in 8 db of of 7k right off the bat. Try those big bright marching snare strands on the bottom.
Make sure there's not a thick head on the bottom of the snare.
You'd be surprised at the stupid heads drummers will attempt on their snare drums, making them dull and generally shitty sounding.

There are also things you can do to tame it a bit while mixing.
Try a gentle expander to bring hats down a little while avoiding that "hard gating cymbal burst on every snare hit" thing. Gentle expansion can help the bleed without sounding too un-natural.
You can also mult the snare, gate the crap out of it, eq in the top you so badly want to add to the original snare track, and slowly blend it back under. Some folks do some serious compression on the mult too, but that doesn't really apply to this subject.

Lastly, if your sending the snare to a verb, the hat bleed can get washy.
I will sometimes use a clean triggered sample of the snare to feed the verb to avoid the hat bleed swimming around in the verb.
Avoid snare verb whenever possible, it's just the right thing to do.
You can also blend a snare sample under the real drum if you're really desperate to lose some hat.

The sad part of all this is if i'm recording a good drummer I really don't worry much about this stuff at all.

Hope this helps.

[jmoose]

The sad part of all this is if i'm recording a good drummer I really don't worry much about this stuff at all.

Ain't that the truth!

If asking the drummer to lay off the hats doesn't work you could always ask them to tighten up the hats so they aren't doing the semi-open wash thing. Closed hats & tight hats are good! Even switching to a different pair can help...I have a couple sets around for those occasions and they can be real lifesavers...if I can only remember to bring 'em to the basics session...

[fremitus]

old posts on this...

#1

#2

#3

i'm sure that there are more. we've all been through this particular version of drummer hell before. hehe.

[concubine]

[quote="jmoose"
....you could always ask them to tighten up the hats so they aren't doing the semi-open wash thing. Closed hats & tight hats are good! [/quote]

sometimes the open high-hat thing is a deliberate, stylistic choice. there are gazillions of songs that demonstrate this. 'kid' by the pretenders comes to mind. a quieter set high-hats are probably the best route for preventing that loud, persistent SHSHSHSHSHSHSH from drowning out everything else in the mix, at least when dealing with a drummer who lacks the necessary finesse.