No More High Hat Please!!

Bguzaldo

New member
I've done just about everything i can do, but when i open up that high hat on a recording it just overpowers everything. Its mostly coming from the snare mic. Any ideas on how i can eliminate much of the high hat noise i'm getting? I just get so much HH that it ruins many of my recordings.

THanks
-Barrett :confused:
 
1. don't hit the snare like a girl and the snare will be louder than anything :)
2. where's your mic positioned?
- I usually place mine about 2inches into the snare,
two inches above it, pointing towards the centerish...
 
You can also rotate the snare mic towards the hi-hat, so that it is aimed more in the direction of the floor tom. Assuming you are using a cardoid, that should take out a good deal of hi-hat sound.

Also watch your OH position. My OH on the snare side points to the spot between the snare and the rear kick drum rim. Too far to the side, and you'll pick up a lot of hi-hat in the overhead.
 
You might be depending too much on your snare mic, instead of getting it mostly from your overheads.
 
I've done just about everything i can do, but when i open up that high hat on a recording it just overpowers everything. Its mostly coming from the snare mic. Any ideas on how i can eliminate much of the high hat noise i'm getting? I just get so much HH that it ruins many of my recordings.

THanks
-Barrett :confused:

Ok, first im going to give you a good alternative for hi-hat micing, is to use a narrower polar pattern such as super or hypercardioid. Another alternative is pointing the mic to the left side of the drum kit (from drummers perspective, if you are right handed), and instead of micing it up from inside (meaning closer to the snare) mic it from the outside of the hi-hat.

Now regarding your bleed problem, what i like to do when im in that situation is to point the back side of the mic (where the cable goes into) to the hi-hat, it must look like the mic comes angled from the left rather than the front of the snare. This way, if you are using a cardioid pattern, youll have the most rejection, because the hi-hat will be at 180 degrees from the capsule. Another option, is to use a narrower polar pattern, again super or hypercardioid, this type of polar patterns have more rejection from the sides and a small lobe in the back, so dont give the back of the mic towards the hi-hat but more like a 45 degree. You wont be able to do it with the regular SM57 but there are also other good snare mic's with this kind of polar patterns.

Another technique which im not particullary fond of, is placing a Dixie cup or similar in the snare drum mic, like making a small tunnel to reject even more, the problem is that it might create weird resonances and may change the polar pattern, so be sure not to close up the cancellation ports on the microphone. If this still doesnt help, you can always use and expander which is almost like a gate, but instead of muting the signal it lowers the volume of the track when certain threshold is not reached.

Hope this Helps

Cheers !
 
Could be the type of hi-hats you're using or how low you position them. When I first started playing I had a set of Zildjian Amir's that were loud as F**K! Some of the cheaper Wuhans are uncontrollable as well.

Just throwing that out there.
 
Man you guys all helped so much!! Thanks a bunch, I'm definitely going to have to try all of these suggestions, the Hat 180 degrees from that capsule sounds pretty good, and i think i can use to higher my hats a little as well. ill try not to hit the snare like a school girl hahah.

Thanks a pantsfull
-Barrett
 
There's lots of good suggestions here.....but here's my 2cents worth.

1. Don't hit the hihat so hard.

2. Hit the snare harder.

3. Fix your room acoustics. A crappy sounding room will only make the hihat (and other cymbals) louder. Put in acoustic treatment (and lots of it) and you will be amazed what it does for the "too much hihat" problem.

4. Use larger hihats. Small hats often fall in the same sonic range as the snare drum. Conversely, tune the snare so it's outside the sonic range of the hats.

5. Adjust your mic position (and choice) so that you're picking up less hat in the snare mic. Like Rami said, the bulk of your sound should be from the overheads, however.

6. Use polarity reversal to your benefit. Mic the hihat and flip the polarity. Mic the hat from about the same place you're miking the snare, using the same kind of mic if you can. Then flip the polarity (phase) button on your console/preamp/DAW. What this does is puts most of the hihat's sonic information at the opposite polarity as the snare information.....which will attenuate it somewhat.

7. Make sure all of your phase relationships between your mics are correct.


i would concentrate on #1-3, with an emphasis on #3.


cheers,
wade
 
ill try not to hit the snare like a school girl hahah.

haha, btw, i didn't mean to insult you :)

but I did want to mention that your playing technique can have a lot to do with it.

The other guys did mention some good things.
If you're using certain mics,
they may not be rejecting a lot of outside noise.
i5's and 57's are solid (enough) to reject outside noise decently.
and yeah, get the mic pointing AWAY from the hat.
 
You might be depending too much on your snare mic, instead of getting it mostly from your overheads.

^^^^^^^Win

Thank you.:D

I'm willing to bet $1,000,000 he simply has his snare mic way too loud.

Question to the OP:

How do you have your overhaeds configured??? That's THE MOST important part of micing your drums.

If you're just throwing 2 mics up and then hoping you'll get a good snare sound by turning up your snare mic, that's the problem. Your snare should be loud enough in the overheads so that you BARELY NEED to turn up the snare mic.
 
Really??? You do that, Greg???

I've always found that to be a disaster for ghost notes, etc....

I can't play ghost notes, never try, and they don't really fit my musical style, so that's kind of a moot point with me. :o

I can see a gate destroying ghost notes though, so my gate recommendation is no good for you ghost-noters.

I usually gate my snare because my room is bad and my hats are loud. I go easy on my hats, and my snare mic is pointed away from the hats as much as possible, but it still gets a bunch of hat in it. To my ears, the bleed screws up my overheads stereo image even with the snare track low in the mix, so I just gate it. Seems to work fine for now. You just need to be dilligent and careful with your gate settings so you don't cut the snare tone off too early.

I'm just a basher with no real skills or technique, so maybe I'm not the best source of info on this. This is just how i do it and it works okay.
 
Question to the OP:

How do you have your overhaeds configured??? That's THE MOST important part of micing your drums.

If you're just throwing 2 mics up and then hoping you'll get a good snare sound by turning up your snare mic, that's the problem. Your snare should be loud enough in the overheads so that you BARELY NEED to turn up the snare mic.

I agree that the OH placement is critical, especially for those of us that mic using the Glyn Johns method (which is pretty much all OH's and kick). When I'm recording live drums, I use 2 AT2020's for OH - one hanging over the crash/snare/rack tom pointed at where the snare and bass drum meet, the other just outside the floor tom - about 12" above the floor tom batter and pointed back toward the rack tom.

Someone posted some great pictures and instructions here: http://www.blaxploitation.com/drums/ Ironically, this fellow happens to use the exact same mic's and setup technique that I use.
 
Yeah, sure. Fuck off.:eek:


Hehe.....I guess it's hard to do a ghost note when you're always motoring at 200bpm's. :D :D :D

Lol. Yeah exactly. I got nothing against that kind of stuff, it just doesn't really fit my music. I am trying to learn that shit though. I've never had any kind of drum theory or lessons or anything, and I don't know a paradiddle from a flamma-wamma-ding-dong, so I'm thinking about taking some lessons from a pro. I just learned everything on my own and I'm sure I do just about everything wrong.
 
For those of you who don't know Greg and think he's as talentless as he's making himself sound here....The dude's a great musician and puts up some of the best stuff in the MP3 Clinic.

And he's no hack as a drummer, either.
 
Lol. Aw shucks, thanks Rami. :o

I didn't mean to sound so pitiful. I don't think I'm that bad, I've just had no formal training and I think I could use some. People talk about triplets and time sigs and stuff and I have no idea what that is.

Anyway back on topic.

Do what all these other guys say and then try the gate if you need to.
 
Thank you.:D

I'm willing to bet $1,000,000 he simply has his snare mic way too loud.

Question to the OP:

How do you have your overhaeds configured??? That's THE MOST important part of micing your drums.

If you're just throwing 2 mics up and then hoping you'll get a good snare sound by turning up your snare mic, that's the problem. Your snare should be loud enough in the overheads so that you BARELY NEED to turn up the snare mic.

The G/J Technique
 
Back
Top