[barters81]

Wow...thanks for all the ideas.

What I used to do which obviously didn't work was jamming a sm57 on top and worrying entirely too much about bleed from the high hat and not enough about the sound of the snare. I ended up getting way too much ringing out of the snare, and the overall sound was dull and lifeless. Of course because I had positioned the mic in a way that I didn't get much bleed from the high hat I could then eq quite heavily and compress a fair bit to get my poppin snare with enough life to get out of the mix. I lived in this world for far too long my freinds.

Now I take a lot more time placing my mic up front before recording, use a bottom mic etc etc.....and am much happier because of it.

I'm yet to really get into the whole world of mic pres etc so I'm excited/worried about that side a bit too. Excited that there are more ways to get better sounds, and worried that my bank account might be savagely hit once again.