too much hihat bleed on snare track any tips?

[skyking]

seems like im getting too much hihat bleed in my snare mic....my approach to micing so far has been to use an sm57 comming in from the hihat side but facing away from the hi hat.....i point it toward the center of the snare.....so far ive only recorded 2 drummers and one i seem to have this prob with more than the other for what ever reason.....any pointers? i tried a paper cone that i made that i slipped on the mic to try to limit what could come in the backside of the 57 but i still got more bleed than i wanted....maybe some more dense material would have worked better i dont know.......what works for you? chas

[doylemusic]

Try gating out the hi-hat during mixdown. Or try micing only the bottom and letting the over's pick up the top. Or Try getting some typ of sound absorber in between the hi-hat and snare.

[rockrev]

I solved that problem by:

1. Making sure I have a good snare sound in the overheads. With a good snare coming through on the overheads, I find I don't need to much of the snare mics.

2. Making sure I have a good snare sound in the room mic (mono, about 6'-8' in front of the kit, omni pattern).

3. Using a 4" piece of Aurlex foam that I cut off a big sheet and putting an SM-57 through it (I cut a small hole & it fits nice and tight). It gives the top snare mic good isolation. I also aim the mic center-snare and away from the hi-hat.

4. Miking the snare with a second mic underneath (I use an SDC, phase inverted).

When I mix, I start with the overheads & room mics. If you can get a good snare sound with that, you'll barely use the close mics. You could also tell the drummer to take it easy on the hi-hat.

My .02.

rockrev

[meandeanmachine]

Soft foam around mic head maybe 4 inch air gap, place foam against, or very close to head.

you can also edit bleeds by cutting and deleting on the track between hits (in edit mode).

[skyking]

good suggestions thanks !

[BretFarewell]

I usually make a duplicate snare track, keep the original one a little lower in the mix, then gate the duplicate and set a compressor afterwards with a release of around 500. You still get a little bit of the hi-hat sound in the original track but the duplicate cuts in and out really nice in the mix without all the extra hi-hat noise. On top of that I usually trigger the gated/compressed track with a new file and bring those levels up until everything sounds more consistant.

[tempest18]

I'm not very familiar with recording drums so dont beat me down here but is cutting hi hat bleed all that important?

When all the tracks are played together its not going to sound any different is it?

The first time I was recording drums I had no idea of any configurations but was very sure of the sound I wanted so I played around for about 8 hours trying to get the sounds I wanted with my limited gear. I didnt get any hi hat bleed at all in the snare mic although it was pointing away from the hat.

I just thought with the overheads picking up the whole kit anyway, would it matter if drums bleed into other mics than their own.

Chris Tempest

[Joz]

Get a loud snare, and a quiet Hihat to make a big contrast in levels. Second really good drumers play the snare really hard and hihat/cymbals really soft (even if it sounds like bashing it's still soft)
Third, 57s pick a little bit of sound from the back, so don't have the mic directly behind the hihat.

Follow this steps and you wont have any problems. Doing this, sometimes I even need a hihat mic.

Joz