BMOG
Danny Danzi
BMOG
I am trying to find a way to mic my hi hat without getting so much bleed from the snare. I have tried a condenser pencil mic pointing straight down with a cardioid pattern that did not work. I tried the same pencil mic pointed away from the snare that did not work, I tried an Audix I5 that did not work. Is it better to use the overheads to pick up the hi hat? I tried to line up the snare hit in the hi hat track with audio snap threshold a 0 pool transient window at 150 and with those settings it won't give me a transient to line up but you can see the wave. This is causing a problem when I am trying to tighten up my tempo for the drums and cause them to lock. Thanks in advance for your help
I think you got some great advice from everyone so far. However, I'm in the "mic that hat" camp because there are times when the over-heads just don't give me the hat sound that I want. I've also noticed in today's times of recording that room mic's are not as relied on as they once were years ago. What I mean by that is, you don't hear much room sound on a drum kit like a John Bonham type sound. When you listen to current drum sounds today, you don't hear massive hat bleed from left/right due to over-heads being the only hat signal. You hear that hat right in your face panned a bit because it was either:
a) Mic'd up close
b) A sample was used
That's not to say using the over-heads as the only hat source is wrong. I'm just saying it's not going to get you a "today" sound where instrumentation is up front, in your face, raw and you can't even hear much room ambience playing a role in how the sound is being projected. I like the up front, up close sound. The bleed you get shouldn't be bad while the hat is being hit. You can always EQ or gate out the snare/offending piece if need be. Even if you don't totally remove an offender, you can really make a difference.
Next, slip edit the clip and take away anything that shouldn't be there. Meaning, you only want hats on that track. So if anything else bleeds through that CAN be removed without messing up the hat hits, remove it.
I do the same thing with ride cymbals. I literally mic them too and just slip edit and gate out the unwanted stuff. The reason being....I can't tell you how many times just relying on over-heads left me needing more hat or ride cymbal control. I really hate manipulating a hat or snare mic because one or the other is causing a problem....or the hat's are too dominant, not dominant enough or it's not the sound or "up close and personal" effect I'm looking for.
So if you want that up close and personal sound, you're going to have to work it. But in the end, to me it's the right way to go because you have so much more control when you do it right. Good luck! :)
-Danny
Good stuff I went a bought http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/sterling-audio-st31-small-diaphragm-fet-condenser-mic and it has helped with some bleed because of they hyper cardioid pattern but I still get some lead. I like your suggestion of slip editing out unwanted bleed. I tested mic hats close and the sound was gongy if that is a word so I have a find a close sweet spot that get's good tone and less gong. Now I am back to the drawing board of recording a drum track :)
"Gongy" is a good way to explain it. Moving the mic to a sweet spot will stop that. Usually when you face it shooting at the hat in the center you'll get that sound. I have the best results as close to the edge as possible without allowing the "open/close" wind artifact to get into the mic.
Like instead of pointing the mic down at the hat, bring it up a little at a time (up meaning bending the mic clip, not raising the mic via the stand) and the gong type sound will go away. If you still aren't successful, try raising the mic a bit higher from the stand. It's just one of those things you will have to experiment with. Make every move you make in increments as you will find it amazing as to how little movements will make a HUGE difference.
Just some "for your head" stuff with cymbals. When we mic a guitar amp, if we put the mic right on the cone in the center of the speaker, it gets harsh sounding. As we move away from the center of the cone to the edge of the speaker, the harshness goes away and the sounds gets a little warmer. It's the opposite with your cymbals...hats, rides, crashes etc.
The more you shoot at the center of the cymbal bell, the warmer and gongier it is. The more you move towards the edges, the more high end you get. Now the other thing to watch for is height and how the waves of sound from the cymbal move into the mic. Certain crashes will give you a phased sound when you whack them and as they die away, they don't fade well losing volume. I know when a cymbal fades it's supposed to lose volume....what I mean is, when the mic is not positioned just right (and you can get this on open hats too which is why I'm mentioning it) you're not getting the full sound wave, so some mic manipulation is needed to stop the phased sound.
It's sort of like the splash of the cymbal is going beyond where the mic can pick it up correctly...if that makes sense to you? So what I'm getting at with all this is, placement is extremely crucial no matter what mic or cymbal you have...so just don't get frustrated. The last thing I worry about is bleed these days as long as the bleed is not affecting my kit in a bad way. Gates (before or after recording) are loaded with enough options these days to where between eq, gating and slip editing, bleed is nothing to worry about.
Some hats are really horrible and just sound like trash can lids unless you spend a few bucks on some decent ones. It's very possible you can be in that situation. However, I've been in that situation many times and have always figured out a way to get a good sound. Most of the time (if you're working on limited funds, which most are these days so I'll stay in that range for you) I've been really successful with Shure SM-57's, Sennhesiser 421's (I really like the 421's on drums in general other than over-heads) and the old EV (Electro Voice) PL 60's, EV 357, 457 and 757's. They all seem to work really well on close mic'ing if your budget is limited. The reason they work so well is because they AREN'T super clean like the big pricey mic's are. Sometimes "clean" can sound a bit too stagnant on certain kits and a little dirt under your finger-nails is a good thing for a drum sound.
See, it all depends what kit you're working with as well as how good or bad your cymbals are. For example, you can just about put any mic on a DW kit with a good drummer and get killer results. If you used an old set of Kent or something...or some generic cheapie kit, lower grade mics can make them sound worse....and real good mic's *MAY* make things sound even worse. LOL!
The good thing about this is, after some experimentation, you'll get a good drum sound/cymbal sound with what you have. It will just take some experimenting and you finding the sweet spots for your kit using your mic's. Someone may show you 300 different ways to mic that hat.....it doesn't mean ANY of them will work for you. You may lose the bleed problem but may hate the tone. This is common. You fix one thing, something else breaks.
So just try to have some patience and experiment. You'll find that happy medium. The worst thing you can do...is stay conservative. You may wind up with the whackiest looking mic placement on that hat. It may be upside down, under-neath, connected to another drum....whatever you have to do, try it. There are no rules in this field that state you need to do something a certain way. Best of luck BMOG. :)
-Danny