Snare micing problems

[Signal 9 Studio]

I am having problems with micing snares. I am using a shure 57, but it's picking up too much high hat bleed. If I put a gate on it I get a loud Psssst with every snare hit. I have tried putting a piece of cardboard on the mic to seperate the snare hit from the high hat strike. Not really working. It's really killing my overhead signal. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Track Rat]

I'd try a lighter set of hi hats.

 

[triple-zero]

play hats with hot rods and hope you dont have to any fills...?

or maybe try ( i know its hard ) to play the hats quieter

apart from that I'm not sure there is much you can do ....

 

[mixsit]

Slamin' on the hat, limp on the snare= a worst case SOL. At the other end of the spectrum, there's always some bleed but it doesn't bother much.

My setup for trouble makers is a 57 pointed at the shell-top rim tucked up in a plexiglass shield (shaped like ( with an inch of foam on the inside). Then a 56 stuck in tight on the head. Naturally, the 57 sounds like a nice bright snare, and the 56 has good signal-to-noise but sounds like shit -but if it came down to it, could trigger a mdi input.
The shield helps just a little bit (not as much as you might expect from just looking at it) but it's worth the effort to keep from having to mic closer.
Otherwise the 56 track just ends up being extra setup and baggage so I skip it.
Wayne

 

[tubesrawsom]

i just point my 57 away from the hihat then i point it about 30 degrees downward sometimes i use plexiglass to isolate
then i work with the gain, volume , compression in tht order!!
walla only a bit of blood and guts, see most of the time you dont need a gate to keep out the killer
its all about mic placement and technique
peace

 

[studiodrum]

Loud HH, soft snare!

Yeah, that can definitely ruin your day, and be a problem .. .especially among drummers that are not that experienced in recording in the studio-- I have to say that I was among those 'troublke makers' who would play heavy on my hats, and lighter on my snare-- until I got my act together, and worked on my dymanics .. . its all about experince.

But, I have to agree with 'Track Rat' smaller hi-hats would be the way to go, and my first choice-- like a pair of 13's-- Try to stay away from the Zildjian Z's for recording (vert loud hats) However, sometimes you dont have that option of changing HH's.

Also, it depends on what type of music your recording, and the drummers playing style-- If he is playing the hi-hat slightly open on most of the tracks all the time-- without too many dyanmic changes, its going to over power your snare all the time! Try to convince him to experiment with keeping the hi-hats closed when keeping time with the hats, rather then that bashing sound of slightly open-- it will limit the overtones and wash slightly.

Also stay away from piccolo snares with a drummer that is too hard on HH's, and too light on the snare-- try a 5 x 14, or even a 6 1/2 x 14, depending on the music-- even though I think that the piccolo snares are the best! type of snare to record with-- other than the Ludwig Supraphonic-- it becomes too shallow and weak for a heavy HH hitting drummer.

You might want to try micing snare from the bottom-- (pointing away from the hats), and experimenting with that-- a lot of engineers stay away form micing the snare from the bottom, since it brings its own host of new problems to the table-- But, given your situation-- it might be worth a try.

Lastly, if you have an extra mic-- place it pointing right at the High-hat-- you wont be recording the hi-hat mic to the track-- But, just using it similar to a Scratch vocal, or scratch instrument mic) load up the volume as high as possible on the HH mic, and rig it so it is just getting pumped through the drummers cans-- trust me, he will start backing off the high-hat quickly enough .. .it sometimes forces the drummer to lighten up on the hi-hats, and play with more dynamics. . . Anyway, Good luck!!

 

[mixsit]

As for pointing the hat 'into the mic's back-null', I did a little test once with a few cardioids and hyper-cards (57 and D-1 for example) rotating them around looking for these great quiet spots at the rears -it was not what I expected. I found very little difference between the two types, and in general, not the large amount of isolation you'd expect from looking at the graphs. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe the sound source has to be farther way for the patterns to take effect?
I'd still like to land on a good snare mic that's small enough to get between even some of the snare/hat setups. A 57 is obviously way too long mostly.
Wayne