Overheads are too busy

[BeniRose]

I have this old mix that I'm trying to play around with, since I've learned quite a lot since the first time I mixed it. I went to go take a listen to the drums, and apparently I had no idea what I was doing because they sound awful. I still tried to work with that I have and started mixing them. I noticed that there's way too much bleed on all the mics, which I can take care of using noise gates on most of them, but my main concern is that the overheads are too busy. I tried starting the mix with the overheads, but then when I brought in the the snare top and bottom mics, I could hardly tell the difference, since they're so prominent in the overheads. Is there a way I can tune them back a bit so they aren't so loud in the OHs?

 

[Massive Master]

You could roll off all the low end and try to notch out the heads...

But the point (IME) of the overheads is to capture the kit -- A great OH mix is supported by the rest of the mics. The reason for a lot of issues at that point is that many don't really know what the kit and room sound like until they hear a recording of the overheads.

A great sounding kit in a great sounding room - You can almost just use the overheads and add a little kick.

 

[deshead]

If you have a sidechain-capable compressor, you could duck the snare hits a little in the overhead track by using one of the snare mics as the sidechain input.

Or, sometimes you can get away with limiting the OH's to bring the snare level in line with the rest of the drums. Fast-attack, and lower the threshold until the snare stops leaping out at ya. It'll change the character of the kit though, which, like Massive sez, is basically defined by the overheads.

 

[RRuskin]

There is no law stating that you must use everything recorded in a final mix. See what happens if you don't use the overheads. In the alternative, try using the overheads and not using some of the other tracks. This kind of approach can be a lot easier and possibly better sounding than adding more devices somewhere in the signal chain.

 

[Dogbreath]

And just as another thing to try...

Copy just the OH tracks, paste them to two new tracks, compress the snot out of them, maybe add a touch of reverb and bring the new tracks up in the mix to where you just start to hear them.

It may or may not work but something to play around with anyway.

 

[BeniRose]

Thanks guys, I'm not really sure how I did it, but I got everything sounding pretty great actually. I put a dip in the EQs on both overheads of -4.5db at 240 and then also added a low shelf, and but then put +4 and +3 at 2450 and 10000 respectively. I guess this boosted the important frequencies enough so that I could turn the overheads down quiet a bit, leaving the close-mic'd snare plenty of room to be heard. It wasn't that I only wanted the cymbals in the overheads, it was just that the snare was so loud in the overheads, it didn't really give my close-mic snare any room to be heard. I think the main problem was that my overheads were up too loud, I tend to do that when I start mixing drums and then realize how loud they are about halfway through.

There was a ton of bleed from all the close mics, especially the toms, witch where ringing specific frequencies even when they weren't getting hit, so I noise gated all of my close-mics with long releases and then EQed most of them. I tried adding compression on the kick, but I don't think I need it, half the time I wasn't seeing any gain reduction, and when I tweeked it to get some, it didn't sound any better/tighter. I'm gonna put some reverb on the snare and toms using a bus with a second, shorter noise gate to just verb the attacks and see how that sounds too.

 

[RAMI]

Getting most of the kit in the overheads is what you want. The close mics should be supporting the overheads, not the other way around. If it means turning down (or off) the snare mic, that means the overheads did exactly what you want them to do.

Like RRuskin said:

There is no law stating that you must use everything recorded in a final mix

.

 

[RRuskin]

Getting most of the kit in the overheads is what you want. The close mics should be supporting the overheads, not the other way around. If it means turning down (or off) the snare mic, that means the overheads did exactly what you want them to do.

I've gotten some excellent results not using any overheads. It all depends on the material and what is being sought by the one(s) calling the shots.

 

[RAMI]

I've gotten some excellent results not using any overheads. It all depends on the material and what is being sought by the one(s) calling the shots.

And I've gotten (sic) some excellent results NOT using close mics, other than the kik. Like you said, it all depends.

 

[mixsit]

..Or, sometimes you can get away with limiting the OH's to bring the snare level in line with the rest of the drums. Fast-attack, and lower the threshold until the snare stops leaping out at ya. It'll change the character of the kit though, which, like Massive sez, is basically defined by the overheads.

A great example for the RNC -fast and flexible enough to pull a hot snare right out of the kit mix. Need a bit of the front end left in, slow it down a wee bit.