isolating snare bleed from overheads

  • Thread starter Thread starter Foo-bu
  • Start date Start date
Honestly if you want total isolation, and have a load of gear, and even more time you can try to record just the drums and then add the cymbals in later. Best way to do this is to set up electronic drum pads for the high hat and cymbals and record away (so that the drummer has something to hit on and it triggers a sound so the rest of the band isn't thrown off... if they are playing as a unit to get the drum tracks down).

After you are done, tear down the drums and put up the cymbals, mic those how you want and have the drummer put in the high hat, ride, cymbals and so forth.

Guarantees you total seperation--but is a major pain in the ass to do.

According to what I've heard that's how Dave Grohl recorded the drums for the Queen of the Stone Age album.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
Guarantees you total seperation--but is a major pain in the ass to do.
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Scorpions used to do that with each individual drum. :D That would be a pain.

Just doing it with the cymbals like you describe shouldn't be a pain in the ass if the drummer is easy to work with and doesn't mind recording that way. The difference from how you describe it would be that . . . instead of tearing all the drums down when it comes time to record cymbals, mute them instead, using those funky rubber pads. Then the drummer at least has something to hit -- you could even replace them with pads again.

Where you'll run in to problems, mostly, is with a drummer who isn't good enough to give two consistant takes. For someone like Grohl, though -- piece 'a cake.
 
That ones a little extreme for me. But its not a bad idea and might actually be fun to do sometime :D.

Danny
 
i just find that its almost as if i really dont have much need for a snare mic because even if i crank it, it still doesnt seem to come out in the mix. thats why i was trying to find out if theres any way of making it stand out more. its a tight sounding snare so it cuts through a lot so thats why my overheads are probably picking it up so much
 
Since i normally do a low cut in between 200-300Hz on the overhead to help clean out mud, the close snare make helps bring the punch back in. You might night here it with definition, but its there to feel out the mid freqencies. I dont think micing the top of the snare really brings out any tone at all, just the punch. Which is why i recommend micing the bottom if you are going with extremely isolation and not letting the overheads pick up the tone of the snare.

Danny
 
If you want more punch, you can copy the snare track, compress the bejesus out of it, and blend with the original snare.

Also make sure that you snare and overhead mics are not out of phase with each other as that will rob the snare of a lot of punch
 
whoo, very interesting, the only thing i'm always cursing on is the Hihat-bleed in my snare mik..
and i also read that this is the way Nirvana recorded their drums most of the time : three mics on the snare (yes three...maybe not all the time, but thats what i read;.)
and they ducktaped all the cymbals like crazy so they could give the drums a real fat sound, and then later on they did overdubs of the cymbals

and thats the way i always used to work... record a drumkit with as good as no cymabals, and afterwards i just record the cymbals again
but its easier to do it all in one time ... that's a smaller pain in the ass :)
 
If your still getting a really loud snare even when the overheads're turned away from it, sounds (get it?! pun!!) to me like your room has an affinity for reflecting snare drums--try draping blankets around the kit (good practice in general if you don't have a great sounding room, I think; good at getting rid of some of that ambient noise overheads tend to pick up as well) to neutralize it as much as possible. The cieling could be another offender, however I have a dropped cieling so that makes things a tad easier :) If your room is already proofed or something, well then, you're screwed I guess. Oh well, I tried :-P
 
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