High hats too loud

Are they real drums or are they midi based.....?  I'm assuming that they are real since if they were midi, you could easily edit them and problem solved..... since you're not doing that... my guess is real drums....

Needless to say, it is not easy to fix a problem that should have been addressed during the session.  as you have figured out, EQ doesn't solve the problem it simply creates others.....

I really do not know of a solution other than to record it again...paying closer attention to details. That's why it pays to listen closely, and or record each instrument to a seperate track if that is possible.....

I hear ya.... playing drums to an existing track is not easy.....

Alrighty.

Shure SM57 on the snare
Shure SM58 on the crash cymbal
Shure Beta 52A on the kick
AKG Perception 220 (large condenser) on the high-hats (preeetty far away and panned to the right, pretty sure the SM57 was picking it up more than the condenser)
Two crappy Behringer area mic.'s getting pretty much everything on the right side (I know, not ideal, but budget) including two toms and a ride cymbal

I run these into my mixing board (EQ here to differentiate, pan), and my mixing board runs into a Lexicon Lambda USB interface, which I record direct into my comp.

Hope that's descriptive enough.

I took a listen. The fact that you think the hi-hats are too loud is your perception. It's a choice thing, there is no rules. Realize hi-hats in real life are kind of loud, they cut through, those hi-frequencies.

Get some shimmering guitar in there and the hats won't seem so loud.
IMO, I thought the hi-hats where okay especially with the loud kick. But the snare should come up and get tuned/eq'd differently.

Hey man it's kind of subjective, kind of depends on what you have in mind and what sounds good with the rest of the instruments. I hear major records some times where i question what they where doing mix wise.

I think the hi-hats sound good and you really won’t be able to judge them correctly until you start mixing in the other instruments.  After you start listening to it in the context of the mix, then (if you are not satisfied) you can apply compression and eq which, you will probably do anyways.  If you are anything like me, once you start mixing, you will probably start obsessing on the bass drum / bass guitar mix interaction instead of the hats.

Read skullsession’s post carefully (as I do whenever he posts about drum mixing), it is very informative.

I too record drums but, I only record myself in my basement in less than ideal acoustic conditions.  So here are some of the things (after many years of experimentation) that I do to compensate for limited mic’s, limited channels and less than ideal room acoustics:

I do not use a room mic and I do not close mic any cymbals.  When capturing the sound of the cymbals, the mic’s are configured in a modified A/B configuration.  The ceiling in my basement is 8 ft. so, I use 2 overhead cymbal mics with the elements of the mics roughly 7.5 feet off of the ground, the mic’s are situated slightly in front of the kit and the mics  point down and in (I aim them at the snare).  The mic's are panned hard left (ride side) and hard right (hi-hat side). 

The way I get the hi-hats to sit in with the drum mix (especially when they are played half open) is by arranging the overheads in an asymmetric fashion.  The mic on the ride cymbal side is almost directly over the ride cymbal.  The mic on the hi-hat side is set off to the side several feet.

Wrt your situation, the 1^st thing I would do is get rid of the sm58 on the crash and as skullsession suggests, place it between the rack and floor tom (a very standard arrangement that I have encountered many times when playing live).

Try skullsession’s overhead arrangement first.

Alternatively, try the A/B configuration described above using your Behringers, then experiment with and without the AKG (I would actually start with the AKG several feet in front of the kit and experiment with positioning from there).

Keep in mind, any time you have multiple mic’s picking up the same sound source you will have to deal with interference patterns.  So, record, save, flip the polarity, record again and compare.

Matt Chatham


Alrighty.

Shure SM57 on the snare
Shure SM58 on the crash cymbal
Shure Beta 52A on the kick
AKG Perception 220 (large condenser) on the high-hats (preeetty far away and panned to the right, pretty sure the SM57 was picking it up more than the condenser)
Two crappy Behringer area mic.'s getting pretty much everything on the right side (I know, not ideal, but budget) including two toms and a ride cymbal

I run these into my mixing board (EQ here to differentiate, pan), and my mixing board runs into a Lexicon Lambda USB interface, which I record direct into my comp.

Hope that's descriptive enough.

Was the AKG recorded on it's own track ? Try just taking it out of the mix and see what you think. If the hi-hat really is that loud maybe there is enough bleed into the other mics to achieve a nice balanced mix.