Mic Bleed

I'm sure that the method you suggest is great - if you've got a recording studio with all kinds of samples at hand along with a piece of electronics that can be made to respond only to taps on the high-hat but nothing else, then trigger the desired sample. But your electronic triggering device would have to be a bit more complex than a simple circuit with only one trigger output in order to get a variety of sounds that might come from a high-hat.
Then, too, if you are in a situation like mine where you don't have all that fancy electronics available, you have to go a different way to get a sound at least somewhere near what you want. I would probably resort to a somewhat "knobby" approach since I would alreadyhave some kind of multitrack capability (a Tascam DP24 in my case): I would record the drum part in at least two passes - maybe more. My first pass might be all of the drums EXCEPT the high-hat; my next pass would be ONLY the high-hat. The high-hat is now on its own track, allowing me to apply EQ on it different from EQ on the other drums. Would you believe that I borrowed this idea from the "Demo Song" that came with my recorder. The manual talked about using the sliders on the machine to set up a desired mix, and some of the drum parts were on their own tracks. Not only could you apply different EQ to each drum "instrument," you could move each "instrument" independently to where you want it in the stereo field. Granted, it would take special skill and practice to create a complete drum track by playing parts in two or more passes, but that would not be an insurmountable task. One thing for sure: your high-hat won't bleed into the other drum sounds unless you make that happen with the knobs on your mixer or whatever you are using.
I have done my share of those "knobby" tricks. On one song I remember, the guitar I had at hand had some "regulation" problems such that I could not get my "ol' country C-chord" to play in tune though the G-chord and D-chord sounded great. My solution" I played my first guitar track staying silent on every C-chord. Before my second pass, I retuned a string or two on the guitar to make the C-chord sound in tune the way I wanted, then I recorded my second pass playing only the C-chord when it was needed and muting the guitar strings when it was not to sound. In listening to the whole song, you wouldn't know that I had done the C-chord on its own pass unless you had my guitar in hand and checked its regulation on the three chords involved using accurate tuning of the strings. I eventually took the guitar to a music store which does instrument repair and regulation; but at the time, my "knobby" approach worked fine.
Of course, it's nothing new for some of us home-recording hobbyists to do something strange to get as near as possible the sound we want.
 
The biggest problem I have recording drums is the drummer. Play every item of the kit at the same volume, the drummer needs to balance the volume of the individual drums and cymbals. The drum kit is a single instrument.

When I get a good drummer in the studio I can almost record them with 1 mic.

Oh and Drum Samples? Hate them, every bloody recording of drums sound the same.

Alan
 
I just don't get it. I have never really had the issue of HH bleed in tom mics. Maybe I am just lucky with my room or drummers.

I am a hard beater of drums and HH myself. Never has an issue with toms. Snare a bit, but proper placement of a 57 with it's rejection or whatever you call it at the back makes that not an issue. I suppose it can vary with room and music style as well...

I also never point the first tom mic at the HH. Why would you?

I have seen some try to get un-realistic sounds out of a drum kit/toms. Metal stuff usually can't get that attack ridiculous tone without triggers. So maybe it is the genre or what some think is cool that causes an issue?

A well tuned kit in a well treated room with good mics placed correctly just works. If there is an issue, it is going to be one of those that is lacking. Or the drummer just sucks balls and shouldn't be recording anyway. I doubt that...
 
Mics are like torches - picture them as a beam of light in a dark room. If the tom mic lights ups the hats, or the snare, move it! Miking across the drum is rarely best, a glancing blow across the skin captures more overtones than fundamental, and EQ makes spill worse., So get them further way, but then angled to face the skin, so the spill comes in from the mics least sensitive angles. That's pretty much it. The first image we had showed the problem. It needs fixing.
 
Mics are like torches - picture them as a beam of light in a dark room. If the tom mic lights ups the hats, or the snare, move it! Miking across the drum is rarely best, a glancing blow across the skin captures more overtones than fundamental, and EQ makes spill worse., So get them further way, but then angled to face the skin, so the spill comes in from the mics least sensitive angles. That's pretty much it. The first image we had showed the problem. It needs fixing.

You can even buy a mic with a built in LASER!

Dave.
 
The thing is: If bleed is an issue, probably the performance (or mix) wasn't great. Sure you can move the mics a little, but the difference in terms of bleed will be slim. If the performance was great, a hihat that's a few dB'd too high won't be a deal breaker.
 
Why not have the mics set a bit higher and point then down towards the drum lees across the top like it looks in the picture? I use condensor mics on toms and I have them almost directly facing the skins so the spill is very small. Not sure of the mic pattern you have but I think it will be cardioid but if these don't work for you try a super cardioid pattern mics like the CAD TSM411, which is my go to snare mic now due to getting less hihat spill, and it sounds great on snare as well. These also make great tom mics and are cheap.

Alan
 
Got to disagree here Chris. When I was in charge of Music Technology exams in the UK years back now, I must have heard thousands of terrible drum setups and in most of them, the photo they submitted told you it would be bad before you even listened. Bleed is a real pain when you need to treat drums, and moving a mic's angle of dangle to reduce spill is so easy and makes a HUGE difference. Pointing a mic at the hats from maybe 450mm will capture quite a bit of the hat sound - what a shame if this mic is meant to be hearing the toms! Accuracy in orientation, distance and mic type are all critical things.

I also just don't get that if you get bleed that's a performance issue? It's an issue with the miking, not the player - that's crazy? You can mic jazz drums with one mic overhead. It doesn't work for rock though!
 
Bleed caused by inappropriate dynamics is a performance issue. The most comm9n version of this is hat bleed in the snare Mic, caused by the drummer beating the crap out of a half open hi hat, while gently tapping on the snare drum.

You end up cranking the snare Mic to hear the snare, but the hat is then too loud in the mix.

In this type of instance, the kit will also be unbalanced in the overheads and room mics.
 
How good can drums sound in a home studio, here is a friend of mine Freddy Poncin, who used to live down the road from me until he moved to Amsterdam to further his career, which he has done.

Notice he was tracking with a presonus studio live and some not too expensive mics. He tracked drums for people all over the world playing to click tracks and backing. No drum samples used here, just excellent playing and good sounding drums. The room was in the back of his house.

Alan
 
Bleed by inappropriate dynamics? Inappropriate to whom exactly? Bleed is the engineers problem. The musician should NOT have to modify technique to cope with mic technique that is compromised. This is like me once telling a well known concern pianist that every time he pressed hard on the right pedal and releases there is a clunk, because the felt pads were old and hard. He looked me in the eye and said in a rather hard German voice "This is technical problem - yours. Playing is an artistic problem, which I fix". At the time I didn't understand many years later, I do. It's similar to the guitarists who slide ups and down and the string noise is horrible. It means mic changes, NOT trying to get them to change - which many will try to, but play worse by doing it.

If the drummer wants to beat the crap out of the hats and play quietly on the snare - that is a performance decision. I really think telling musicians how to play is bad news for anyone wanting to become known as a good recordist or live engineer. Sure - recording it is a problem, but that is what we do. I've actually done this one and you need a popper stopper and replace the mesh with foam backed with a bit of thin ply or MDF. Mic up the snare so the hats are in the side lobes of the 57, and then drop the popper stopper in just to the hats side of the 57 and it cuts spill nicely.

I learned the hard way you don't tell the musicians how to play. It works with the green ones, but not with the pros. I'd love to be there when somebody tells one of the name drummers they've got to ease off on the hats and play the snare louder. Can we sell tickets?


Witsendoz's video is a clear example - the hat work is fast and dry, the snare very reverbs but while it's decaying there's not any hat in it, or it would mess up the reverb. Proper placement promotes professional performance - I just made that up!
 
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I'm not sure I totally agree with that.
If a piano pedal thuds or a kick pedal squeaks then that's an equipment issue, if it's an issue. Switch out or repair the gear if it bugs you but it's unreasonable to ask a performer to work around that.
The pianist was quite right, in my opinion.
Finger squeal from an acoustic, though, is on the player. Now I get what you're saying - Good luck trying to tell a seasoned pro to change that, not everyone will be accepting of that or capable of fixing it on command.
I also get that it can be made worse, or better, with mic choice and placement but if it's loud enough to be considered a problem a seasoned pro should have worked on that years ago.

For me the same is true with a hi-hat being disproportionately loud. If the drummer is bashing away on it and it stands out, as is often the case with enthusiastic inexperienced right-handed drummers, (taking gear etc out of the loop), then that's a performance problem.
Whether addressing it as such is practical or not is a different story and often we have to work around these things on our end for that reason
but a professional drummer, particularly a session musician, should be welcoming of instruction and capable of executing it.

It's subjective - The musician may simply disagree but if it's widely agreed that the hats are just being hit too hard I'd want to at least try fixing it at the drummer before taking second best.
 
If the drummer is bashing the hats disproportionately to how he is hitting the snare on purpose, then it isn't a problem. That is an artistic choice and the drummer will expect the hat to be much louder than the snare. If he complains about the snare being too quiet, that's on him.

Professional studio musicians tend to not have this problem, because they understand that they are responsible for the balance of the kit.

I think it would be closer to the pianist always hitting middle C too softly, that is a performance issue, not a technical problem.
 
Or hit everything equally as hard...

I never quite got the whole playing style being an issue unless the drummer is just shitty. I have had in my studio, and was a drummer myself, who hit really hard. I never had an issue with bleed being a problem with metal drummers.

Did have a guy once that hit his snare like it was a ripe peach. Only triggers helped that one. He was a guitar player playing drums...
 
Hah! For some time now, each time I see the thread title pop up I cannot help thinking it would make a good moniker for the lead singer of a rabid punk band!

Dave.
 
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