Snare Drum Mic picks up too much other crap

It's really just a matter of what's important to the drummer, and where his priorities lie.

If he really wants totally clean snare hits, and he wants them bad enough, then he should listen to the expert and take his suggestions ... provided the Engineer knows what he's talking about.

He doesn't have to listen. No one's holding a gun to the guy's head. The drummer can take it in to consideration and act on it ... or he can chime in and tell me he doesn't like the idea. But as an engineer, I think I owe it to the guys I'm hired by to at least tell them the best way to achieve what they're trying to achieve. Maybe the drummer wants the clean snare hits, but not bad enough to alter his playing style, and that's fine ... so you settle on another compromise and move on.

Getting back to my point ... using the hat as an accent isn't a problem, but using it as an extra crash or ride cymbal is. And you have a choice in this matter. This isn't about the skill of an engineer. We're talking about the laws of physics and sound ... and no matter who you are, you can't get around the fact that there is a cymbal less than 6 inches away from the fucking mic, and someone is bashing it with a wooden stick. That's not bleed. That's just the mic doing what it does -- pick up sound.

If you stick your mouth six inches away from a mic and yell really loud, and the mic picks up your voice ... do you call that bleed, too?


.
 
Last edited:
SouthSIDE Glen said:
This is another one of those "Are you dealing with a musician or a mullet with an instrument?" issues.

Assuming he actually IS a drummer and not just some chimpanzee with sticks, telling him that he has to change his arrangement because you aren't good enough of an engineer to make that arrangement sound good is probably not the way to go.

OTOH, if you're dealing with someone who simply doesn't know how to play drums - a far too common occurance these days of independant recording - then I probably wouldn't have a problem instructing him that his "playing" is what's messing up the mix. That's no different than telling a guitarist that his track sounds horrible because his still hasn't learned how to play an Am chord cleanly.

As far as gates, they aren't going to help with bleed during the meat of the snare envelope. If the bleed is thick enough to audibly coexist with the main snare sound itself, a gate isn't going to do any good there.

And, FWIW, I heartily agree with the school of getting the main kit sound from the stereo mics (OH or front) and using the individual mics - if any - in supporting roles beef up the main kit sound from "underneath" the mix. But, admittedly, that's a matter of style and taste only, not something to be chisled in stone.

G.
Click to expand...


That is the main problem, I've recorded 20 plus bands in the last 2 years. All the drummers but 2 weren't really drummers. They were bass players, singers, guitar players or just a guy the band knows that figures they can do a good enough job. The real drummers I've recorded, both of them, I didn't have to do a thing to, everything was top notch and beautiful, which makes my job easy as can be. Just to show you all what I personally deal with around these parts, I had a band come in and the drummer claimed he's played for 10 years, but hasn't really played in 5. I was like, OK, it's like riding a bike you'll pick it right back up. NOPE. He completely lied, he'd never played actual drums, just a lot of hand and foot tapping. I had to teach him how to play his song, before I jumped in the help the chorus's consisted of mashing the 16" crash and that was it, not one other piece of percussion. Guys like these need their hi hats set for them. BTW I've never had a drummer that I corrected give me much resistance at all, they were always eager to pick up new tips.
 
chessrock said:
Jesus Christ, guys. I apologize for getting a little steamed, but think about some of this stuff. You're not a bunch of idiots, because I read some halfway intelligent stuff from some of you once in a while. But collectively, some of you really test my patience sometimes, and this is one of them.
Click to expand...
By my count, chess, since your first post taking that position, the number of people agreeing with you (including myself, BTW) outnumber those disagreeing with you two to one. For this board, that's actually a pretty good S/N ratio. I'm not sure just what you're so steamed about?

G.
 
I briefly read thru the thread, so I apologize if this has been said, but to minimize the hi-hat, you really need to be aware of the mic's pattern and placement. I get very little bleed from the hats in my snare tracks....
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
By my count, chess, since your first post taking that position, the number of people agreeing with you (including myself, BTW) outnumber those disagreeing with you two to one. For this board, that's actually a pretty good S/N ratio. I'm not sure just what you're so steamed about?

G.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out who that was addressed to considering everyone but the first poster pretty much agreed with him. :eek:

Edit: I gues it's rude to refer to someone in the third person like that. No disrespect intended. I like Chessrock, one of my favorite dudes here actually. Tells it like it is. :cool:
 
Last edited:
Yup. Again ... just having a bad day. Sorry.


... there, I just went and edited all the f-bombs out of my post. To those of you just joining the discussion ... your pal Chessrock just went and flew off the handle. Please excuse his momentary lapse of judgement, and continue with your regularly scheduled programming.

.
 
I missed the f-bombs, but while we're on the subject of snare mic bleed, I have a story to tell.

The last drummer I recorded had those dang metal click pad things on his kick drums. I don't know if anyone is familiar with these, but theyre made by Danmar and theyre actual metal impact badges that stick to the head. So every time he hits a kick theres a loud metallic click. I didn't have a problem with hi hat bleed and I didnt think the click pads would be an issue as we were using triggers on the kicks, So I didn't make him remove them. (plus they just wanted a quick demo).

I don't know how I missed it during tracking but I was kicking myself during mixing. I noticed that those damn things were clicking like crazy and the snare mic was picking it up clear as day. The overheads were catching it too, but too a lesser degree. To make things worse he was a pretty soft hitter, so the click was pretty loud relative to the snare beats. I was able to minimze the effect and the band was happy with the end result so I guess it worked out okay afterall, but next time I'll be sure to save myself a headache and have him take those damn click pads off.
 
those kick pads are weird shit, man...i did an EP for a band a few months ago whose drummer used those, and will be doing another 11 tracks for them starting saturday. it's nice to not need an EQ boost in the high end, but they do have a tendency to make things more complicated in other areas.

anyways - the best way to combat bleed is with proper mic placement...do everything possible to get the ass-end of your snare mic pointing towards the hat. after that, do what you can to maximize the effect of the hats and whatever else is bleeding into the snare...remember that a little bit of hat being picked up from the side of your snare mic will also serve to create an accurate stereo image of the kit
 
KenekeBarnes said:
I'm trying to isolate a snare drum in a set with one of those clip-on condensers, but the high hat right next to it keeps coming in (even with noise gating), making it hard to add FX to the track.
Click to expand...

Everybody gave really good answers, but I wonder how many people read the original post.

Yes, the snare sound should come largely from the overheads, etc etc, but the problem is he wants to add FX to the snare without adding them to the rest of the kit. At least that seemed to me to be the crux of the question.

Here is what i would do:

Mult the snare track (or duplicate it, if on a DAW). Gate the hell out of the 2nd track, so that only the snare can be heard, and use that to trigger a sampled snare. (You may find an HPF and/or LPF may also, along with the gate, help to eliminate the kick and cymbals from the 2nd snare track - doesn't really matter how "bad" the second track sounds, because you are just using it as a trigger.)

Now add the FX to the sampled snare and blend back in with the original. You may need to listen to dozens of sampled snare options to find the one the works best for the situation.
 
if you do get hi hat bleed in your snare mic - try a deeseer. i use the 263 for this...it can work wonders.

Mike
 
Re:

This is a good discussion. I play drums on our songs and I'm happy with the sounds I get with the exception of wanting the high hat bleed a lot lower. It's just too loud in the mix (if you're being hypercritical). I was thinking of perhaps getting a electronic high-hat so that it wouldn't generate any sound.

As far as my overheads I am using two AKG c1000s's. They seem to do an okay job with my only complaint being that they loose a little bit of the ride cymbal when played back thru the mix. I have one of the mics positioned closer to the ride to try and compensate. Should I be looking to upgrade those mics? A pair of Royer ribbons perhaps? As for the kick, it is a trigger and the toms and snare use SM57's. I also have a blue baby bottle I own which currently only gets used for vocals. Perhaps most of my issues will disappear when I use my upgraded mic pre's on the kit this time around.

Which mics are the most important to use the good pre's on?

Have 2 overheads, two tom mics, bass trigger, snare trigger snare mic.

Have 4 good API 512 pres; the rest are mackie vlz and a pair from the behringer tube ultragain.

I know...crap in=crap out...workin' on it! lol...
 
re:

bigtoe said:
if you do get hi hat bleed in your snare mic - try a deeseer. i use the 263 for this...it can work wonders.

Mike
Click to expand...

How about just dipping some eq frequencies? (I usually drop out the ~1k range when de-essing vox).
 
sbc -

a de-essser works differently than EQ. It is basically a compressor that keys on a certain frequency. The advantage is it isn't removing that frequency all the time, just when the level of that frequency crosses a preset threshhold. EQ makes no such distinctions.

as for upgrading the C1000's, it is no secret that I think they are among the least musical sounding mics ever supposedly designed to record music. So my belief is that almost anything you try would be an upgrade. Whether Royers will be the best choice is hard to say - I would say maybe not if you have low ceilings, because they are figure-of-eight, but otherwise they might sound fantastic. But at the price point for a pair of Royers, you have LOTS of options - 414's and Josephson C42's come to mind as a starting point. But anything in that price range will sound SO different than your C1000's, you'll have a hard time believing it!
 
sbcgroup2 said:
As far as my overheads I am using two AKG c1000s's. They seem to do an okay job with my only complaint being that they loose a little bit of the ride cymbal when played back thru the mix. I have one of the mics positioned closer to the ride to try and compensate.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to get into an argument about whether the C1000's are good mics or not, because I know alot of people calim they don't like them. But I've had my pair, which I'm using as overheads, for about a year and I have no problem with them. In fact, when I tell people I use C1000' they're always very surprised. But regardless of whether one likes their sound or not, if you're having trouble picking up the ride cymbal, I'm sure that has nothing to do with the mics themselves. You have to learn about mic placement and experiment. Simply "moving one mic closer to the ride" is not the solution, because that implies that you're not aware of issues like phase cancellation. Placing mics is a very precise and sensitive thing. An inch can make a difference. try the different configurations, and if possible, different ride cymbals. But I don't think the C1000's are the reason you're not "picking up the ride cymbal". Maybe you're using too many mics which is causing phase cancellation and your ride cymbal is suffering because of it.
 
Ymmv

littledog said:
sbc -

a de-essser works differently than EQ. It is basically a compressor that keys on a certain frequency. The advantage is it isn't removing that frequency all the time, just when the level of that frequency crosses a preset threshhold. EQ makes no such distinctions.

as for upgrading the C1000's, etc...
Click to expand...
i've actually used a de-esser to tame the hats in a snare mic before.
worked good that time, but YMMV and all that.
+2 on the c1000 comment as well.

littledog said:
Mult the snare track (or duplicate it, if on a DAW).etc....
Click to expand...

following the same lead, you could remove all the hi's and lows from the duplicated track (say below 700hz and above 2K hz, but i'm guessing.... you'd just have to play with it.)
and use that track to key the gate on the actual snare track. sometimes that works.
 
Re:

I'll admit, I have to learn a lot about mic technique and phase cancellation (the only thing I try to do is to reverse the phases on the mics on the preamps when mic'ing in stereo). Again, this could be totally wrong...lol...

Otherwise, you guys really think picking up two AKG 414's for overheads would yield MUCH much better results (I know technique needs to be good too...:)

-sbc
 
Just imagine the post, as it is. Only with a bunch of f-bombs in there for accent ... along with a few "you guys are bunch of idiots" comments thrown in ... just for good measure. :D

.
 
sbcgroup2 said:
I'll admit, I have to learn a lot about mic technique and phase cancellation (the only thing I try to do is to reverse the phases on the mics on the preamps when mic'ing in stereo). Again, this could be totally wrong...lol...
Click to expand...

DON'T DO THAT.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top