Hi Hat Micing techniques!

[bluesguy]

HELLO ALL!!!
Well so here is what I am doing. I have had WAY TOO MUCH trouble when it comes to just micing up an accoustic drum set. The hi hat bleeds over on the snare drum and vise versa! So the drums just dont sound very good. at least as good as I know they could. So I bought myself a good drum module so I can trigger the accoustic set and record them as MIDI. I want to keep a REAL mic on the hi hat and I already have a good kick drum mic. Whats a good mic for recording the hi hat?? Anyone have any good techniques that work well? Ive heard that you SHOULD use a condenser mic. Any suggestions?? Thank You!!
bluesguy

[lemix]

bluesguy,
Oh boy..
There are as many differing opinions/techniques as there are engineers.
The problem usually starts at the source; drummers touch !
Try a smaller (13") and thinner cymbal. Condensers are considered first choice for transient response and sweetness. I use a KM84 ~8-12 inches above, aimed slightly away from the snare.
-10dB pad in, of course. But..condensers are also more sensitive therefore will pick up more of the kit. You could try a dynamic fairly close in..depending what sound you are after. Stick tip point, or general sizzle, or open/close action. Let the drummer play and move the mic around.
good luck..

[JonnyGinese]

Hmm...

Why don't you jsut record everything miced up as best you knwo how and then use SoundReplacer and blend if the "perfect" drum sounds on a duplicated playlist track? That will drop the BG noise of your snare and other drums picking up cymbols... and it will also give the set a very solid sound. I did on all the drums of a band that i recorded... There set went from sounding "ok" to "Great"... It took out all the noticable Bleeding sounds and tightedned everything up.

As for Hi-Hat micing... I usually set a shotgun condenser even with the opening of the hi-hat about 4 inches away(on the opposite site of the snare of course). I barely get any snare bleed(even if he is using a picalo). The Snare usually comes out very crisp and clean with out even fishing aroudn for the "sweet spot". Thy it out. Just got to make site its far enough away that you dont' get the doppler effect. heh heh. Good Luck.

Jonny

[JonnyGinese]

Hmm...

Why don't you jsut record everything miced up as best you knwo how and then use SoundReplacer and blend if the "perfect" drum sounds on a duplicated playlist track? That will drop the BG noise of your snare and other drums picking up cymbols... and it will also give the set a very solid sound. I did on all the drums of a band that i recorded... There set went from sounding "ok" to "Great"... It took out all the noticable Bleeding sounds and tightedned everything up.

As for Hi-Hat micing... I usually set a shotgun condenser even with the opening of the hi-hat about 4 inches away(on the opposite site of the snare of course). I barely get any snare bleed(even if he is using a picalo). The Snare usually comes out very crisp and clean with out even fishing aroudn for the "sweet spot". Thy it out. Just got to make site its far enough away that you dont' get the doppler effect. heh heh. Good Luck.

Jonny

[IntelDoc]

Another thought to is to change up the kit position too. You might have a great sound, but getting reflections off the floor, wall, etc that are coming into play. I changed my kit position and had stellar results. The other tip is to 1 band it and cut all stuff like 12K and below (or startat 10K and go from there) and tweek it until you have that sizzle like hat sound. I cut all my stuff, overheads get hammered.... all the other mics take over. Kick, gets my lows, etc....

Good luck,
Doc

[bluesguy]

All great Ideas. So are you guys all against the triggering of accoustic drums?? as far as SoundReplacer I am not familiar with it. Does it come with Protools bundle?? That sounds like something I would like to mess with. Let me know! Thanx!
bluesguy

[lemix]

OK..this one goes to no-one in particular;
Please excuse my tone..but why do you guys have to reach for "Sound Replacer"..Midi triggers and such right away ???
We are talking about recording a complex and beautiful acoustic instrument here..
There were countless of outstanding drum sounds recorded long before these artificial manipulation tools appeared.
You have a room, mics, drumkit and a drummer. Many tracks to boot even to separate the individual parts of that kit.
And no...I am not saying there isn't a time or place to use the tools..I have Drumagog and occasionally employ it too.
It really pisses me off every time someone ask an acoustic drum recording question and a couple of post in the thread some one will "suggest" triggering/replacing/quantizing, etc..
Use you room, your mics, build your knowledge and experiment. You'll get great results ! And you won't sound like thousands of others who use sample # 27..

sorry for the rant..
happy tooling

[bluesguy]

I completely understand what you are saying. But lets say you HAVE experimented ect. (not to say that I am not willing to experiment more. But for me I CAN NOT get a good mix because of the bleed over from the hi hat to the snare drum and vice versa. I have to bring the recording level way down on the Snare drum in order to keep from clipping because of the open Hi-Hat hits. So then my snare signal is completely dead and cant come up enough. Or either that I may have a decent sounding snare level but when it comes to editing, I put some highs in the snare and it brings the hi hats highs out more then I want because of the bleed over and they sound too tinny. Any suggestions on that lemix?? I do like what you have to say about a beautiful accoustic drum set and everything! Thank you!
bluesguy

[bluesguy]

one more thing lenix. I dont quite follow you on the "you have many drum tracks". I only have FOUR inputs on the 002. What did you mean by this?? Thanx!
bluesguy

[rockrev]

One of my little tricks is to take a thin piece of Auralex (or other) foam and cut it into a rectangle (try 2 & 1/2"x4"). Now cut a little slit in it and shove a 57 deep into it (no dirty jokes folks!). Mic the snare, but don't let the foam hit the snare head - just hovering over. Now align the foam buffer b/w the mic head and the hi-hat. Works great for me! Oh, on the hi-hat, mic with an SDC from above and angled slightly away from the snare. Make sure that you use an SDC that's not hyper-cardiod or really wide. Use the most focused SDC you have (you may try the hi-pass filter on the mic/pre too).

rockrev