Well I messed up. Now I have a stereo drum track only and the hi hat is too loud. Any ideas or techniques to help with this? Does that Groove Extractor VST work?

I'm wondering if Melodyne editor would work with this... I've only just got it myself so I've never tried it.

Hi, Clint. Do you still have R-Mix installed? See if you can get the isolation circle to hone in on just the hi hat then turn it down.
 
This may affect the tone of the other cymbals BUT if you really dial in around just the HH freq (especially the attack phase of the hit) then it might be workable.
 
You could also automate the "inside" level of the circle (which would be the hi hat sound) so that it only turns down when the hi hat is actually playing. Like if the beat switches to a ride automate it so R-Mix isn't doing anything and then when the hh comes back in you drop it down again. Same for cymbal crashes (at least during the attack of the crash if the hh comes back in quickly).
 
Remember R-Mix is pretty heavy duty and I believe uses lookahead tech so you may want to bounce the effect after you get it set up how you like (and you will DEFINITELY want to bounce if you are going to be recording more tracks... I've had crashes trying to record with R-Mix running).
 
Cheers!

I dealt with exactly the same problem a couple years ago. What I came up with is this...
 
I first cloned the drum track. Then I put an EQ on the clone with very steep filters that suppressed everything but the hats. If you don't have an EQ capable of extreme slopes, you can use two EQs in series, or one EQ with multiple overlapping filters. Then I routed that nasty-sounding hats-only track into the sidechain input of a compressor on the drums. There were a few places in the key track where crash cymbals were coming through that I didn't want triggering the compressor, so I took them out with volume automation.
 
I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways of doing this, but it worked well and saved an otherwise-unusable drum track.. 

@bit...
 
 
Yup. R-Mix is really just an EQ that let's you get at the frequencies in a wacky, but ultra precise ways (which you of course know). It also let's you actually get at specific sounds on either side of a stereo track (so if the hats are panned to the left you can focus on that side instead of yanking the freqs out of both channels unnecessarily). That's why I recommended it but otherwise I'd totally do what you suggest (and have on stereo drums).
 
I'm betting some of the fancy Melda stuff you guys talk about could do a good job too and something like Izotope RX would probably be perfect.
 
Since I'm pretty sure Clint owned X2 though he'll have R-Mix around (even if a custom install is needed... if he removed it).
 
Cheers!
 
 
Edit: I didn't read the last part of your post. That's way fancier than what I've done but cool.

Multi-band compressors are useful for this sort of job, with just the frequency range of the hats being compressed. Even better is a multi-band compressor side-chained to a hats-only track along the lines of bitflipper's suggestion.

Clint... Bit and tlw are far more intelligent and experienced fellows than I am. I defer to the methods they are suggesting and now want to try that kind of thing out myself.
 
I would still try out the R-Mix thing (because I find it really quite good at just turning a specific sound down in a stereo mix) but in comparison with what those guys are suggesting.
 
This is why I love this particular subforum. Always wicked advice and approaches to try out.
 
I actually typed up a long winded mini success I attribute to listening to the heavy hitters around here but baleeted it because it's off topic. Essentially... all my dredging for info these past few years has resulted in a seemingly "balanced" mix (when summing to mono from stereo) without even really trying.
 
Cake Forumz Rool!
 
Cake Technique Forum? Epic ultra ROOLZ!!!
 
;-)

Can anyone elaborate for a second about that sidechaining to the compressor mentioned above.  What does that do ?  so if I have a track of isolated frequencies and I put a compressor on the original drum track then point the goofy track to the side chain input....does it only compress the frequencies it sees on the signal coming in from the side chain?    If thats true that is pretty cool and did not know that.
 
 

My poor man's attempt (assuming no R-Mix available) would be:
 
1. clone track (like Dave)
2. Isolate hats freq (like Dave)
3. bounce to track (for mixing)
4. phase cancel isolated track to stereo track
5. bounce those two tracks to a single new stereo track
6 use tracks from 3 and 5 to mix to taste

The effect of side-chaining would depend on the compressor.

If it's a full-range compressor (i.e. not a multiband) it will apply compression to the entire track the compressor is on every time it received a side-chain signal.

A multiband compressor with a switchable sidechain for each band would only compress in the frequency bands with the sidechain activated. There actually aren't many compressors with per-band sidechaining, Waves C6 is the one I use. Compressor pumping can be an issue though, so it's best done subtly.

An alternative is careful use of a multiband comp without side-chaining just reducing the hat's frequency band. It would require quite a bit of automation to set that up though, unless compressing everything in that frequency band throughout is OK.

Careful eq notching can help as well. R-mix is another possibility if you have it and it will work for you (it point blank refuses to load in SPlat for me, I think it,s only compatible with X2). Ozone can do this sort of thing as well.
To be honest, if you have the original drum tracks the easiest and least obtrusive thing to do is simply re-mix them.