Hi-Hat and Cymbals

[torquemada]

What plugins or effects do you use on the Hi-hat and the Cymbals, do you use some EQ or compresion so it doesn´t sound too harsh.

[Ryan Young]

None, one, or both. Play around with different settings on each, mess around with putting the EQ before the compressor, and the compressor before the EQ. Mess around with cutting some (probably extreme high and some low) frequencies and/or mess with a 5:1 compression ratio up to 100:1 ratio. Because I always set my drum mics up differently (still learning and using what has given me best results in the past), I usually save a preset for each and work from there until it sounds the way I like it. Very general answer, but in my opinion it's helpful. Good luck!

[rockrev]

Well, there's usually so much hi-hat in the overheads that you shouldn't have to push the actual hi-hat track up too hot. Personally, I like to compress it just a little (2:1) using the Waves C1 (which is precise but adds no color) and then do a little bit of EQ - usually a HPF, a cut around 500hz, and a slight boost anywhere from 6k to 10k, depending on the natural color of the hi-hat itself. I like a crisp but not too bright hi-hat - no verb . . . others may differ.

For cymbals - I treat my overheads as mics that capture the whole kit - including the cymbals - so I don't hype those mics with EQ too much. Usually a HPF and a nice boost at 10k does the trick. Compression is a must and my most recent fav is Smack! If you don't have Smack! the BF76 is a good place to start - there are also many, many others that do wonders for overheads (all with different colors). Verb is merely an option on overheads - not a must. For a tight, dry sound I'll use none. For a splashy sound I'll crank some in. For somewhere in-between I'll use Waves TrueVerb, but disable the reverb and only use the reflections (blend to taste). That way the reverb tail doesn't form a bad blend with the plate I have on the snare.

Hope that helps,

rockrev

[Naagzh]

What plugins or effects do you use on the Hi-hat and the Cymbals, do you use some EQ or compresion so it doesn´t sound too harsh.

On overheads I like to use a very fast attack and a medium release for that very reason, if the music calls for it. I only go for a few dB of reduction. I love the Bombfactory Fairchild plug for this, if I can get the attack and release to work right. If not I go for Smack or BF1176 (I'd actually prefer to use Smack, if it weren't for that one little annoying sample of delay! Digi, would you mind fixing this in an update?).

As for EQ, usu. it's necessary to scoop out some mud (350 Hz area), and a soft boost on the highs, or no boost at all. Usually I EQ before compressing here, because I don't want all the mud triggering the compressor.

I've never found it necessary to mic the hi-hat, but I read about an engineer who did, not to track it, but only so that he could feed the that signal into the drummer's cans real loud (without telling the drummer), so the drummer wouldn't bash the crap out the hi-hat during tracking. He claimed it worked.

[daeron80]

If it sounds too harsh without any plug-ins, then it wasn't tracked properly, and the best you can hope for is some sort of fix-it-in-the-mix compromise. It will probably never sound really good. Harshness in a cymbal can be caused by any of several different things, or a combination of things, and the approach to mitigate it will be determined by the cause.

First, roll off the lows with a 6 dB slope until it starts to sound too thin, then back off. Do this in context with the rest of the drums. That will get rid of most of the info that doesn't need to be corrected so you're only processing what you need.

Loop a section soloed and sweep a narrow bandpass filter (like Digirack EQ3 with the Start/Command key held down while varying the frequency, Q=10) slowly up and down the region from 2K to 20KHz, to see whether it might be just one or two frequencies jumping out that you could cut with notch filters. That's the easiest problem to fix.

A brickwall compressor with an ultra-fast attack and release can smooth out harsh high end if the problem is spikey audio. The Digirack Dyn3 Comp/Lim does a brilliant job of this. Start with the Attack and Release set as fast as possible. You may need to slow down the Attack a little if it introduces a "ticky" sound. Set the Ratio to 100, Knee to 0 (sometimes higher but usually 0 works best). Turn on the LF high pass filter in the Side-Chain box - it works whether you're using a side-chain signal or not - and bring its freq up to around 5KHz, give or take a few thousand cycles; that will prevent the compressor from pumping on the lows that are modulating the hat signal. Lower the treshhold until it's shaving off the nasty spikes on most hits. Play with the Attack, Knee, and side-chain frequency until it's doing what you want. Do this in context - the hat soloed may sound a little bizarre processed this way, even though it adds just what you want to the mix. You might need to follow this with a slower attack 2:1 compressor to restore the transients unless there's enough hat transient in the OHs (there usually is).

If the unprocessed hat track sounds OK soloed, but harsh when mixed with the other drum tracks, it's a phase problem. Use a short TimeAdjuster plug-in on each drum track, and fiddle with both the "phase" switch and the amount of delay with all drum tracks sounding. At 44.1 KHz, a change of 39 samples is equivalent to moving the mic one foot, in terms of phase relationship to another track. The goal is not to get all transients perfectly lined up on all tracks - that's not even possible, never mind a good idea - but just to get the relative phases of the mics to agree better overall. The thing to do may be to move the hat later so it lines up better with the OHs, or to move everything but the hat later, or just inverting the hat or the snare might do it, or something more complex.

If none of those approaches works, try hitting a tape saturation plug-in fairly hard. www.smassey.com for a free one (doesn't allow you to save settings, but there are only three settings to type into the track comments, and it's only $69 for the full version). Massey's vt3 EQ is also a good one for adding high end without harshness. It's a wonderful sounding plug, in any event. Instead of boosting the highs, cut the "bass" and boost track volume.

If you happen to be the tracking engineer as well, next time try to determine why the hat sounds harsh and nip it in the bud, to quote the sagacious Barney Fife. It could be that the hat actually sounds harsh, in which case the drummer needs to get a new one or figure out how to fix the one he's got (a few carefully placed pieces of duct tape can do wonders). It could be the drummer's style of playing, in which case he needs to learn how to play better or be replaced (neither of which is usually practical, I know). It could be mic choice or placement; unfoturnately, smooth mics are expensive. A darker, fuller sound can be gotten by placing the mic 12-18 inches away, not higher over the hat but out from the kit a little so that it has to be turned at maybe 30 or 45 degrees to be pointed at the hat (with the hat between the mic and the snare). Sometimes, moving the mic over the bell of the hat can smooth it out without loosing sizzle. It might be the pre - small format mixer pres, for example, usually sound harsh on hats. A tube pre should smooth it out. Focusrite pres are noted for their smoothness.

Didn't mean to author a whole epistle, but it's a complicated subject.

[JFreak]

What plugins or effects do you use on the Hi-hat and the Cymbals

a high-pass filter.