Placement, placement, and placement... Oh, and did I mention placement. You're never gonna get the hi-hat totally out of the snare mic, it's just not meant to be in this universe. :) But you can control it to an extent by what type of mic you use, and where you place it. You want to keep more of it out, try and place the mic in a position where the back of the mic is facing the hi-hat. If that's still not enough for you, you can try making yourself a "device" to keep out more of the sound comming from the back of the mic. And I use the term "device" loosely by the way. :) The simplest thing to do is to take something like a piece of foam, or a paper cum, or whatever, and cut out a hole in it big enough for the mic to fit through from the bottom, but will seat snuggly up by the head of the mic. With that on the mic you'll reject more of the sound comming from the back of the mic than the mic can do on it's own. I hope that makes some sort of sense to you, because I'm not really good at explaining things. Hope that helps. Take care

Mike

Oh, and I guess the other obvious thing, which I forgot to place in my last post, is the use of a gate. That's a simpler solution, but comes with mixed results. If the hi hat is just too loud on the snare track to begin with, whenever the gate opens to let the snare though, youre gonna hear hi hat along with the snare, and then it'll cut out again when the gate closes. Experiment, see what you come up with.

Mike

ive done everything uve said, and it totally does not work. i hate the sound of a gate on a snare it just washy with the hihat blaring. its more of the drummers tahn anything, i know but id at least like to tame it a lil. i use a sm57 mostly, any other suggestion other tahn that?
thanx,
jal

Hmm... the only other thing I could think of is perhaps different hi hats. I don't know what the drummer is using now, but perhaps a smaller, thinner pair of hats would be in order. Might wanna try a pair of 12" Zildjian A customs or something comparable to them next time around. Other than that, like you said, a big part of it is the drummer and his/her technique. You didn't mention what type of music you're recording, so I'm not sure this would exactly apply, but if it's something in the rock range of things, it's all about hitting rimshots for a loud cracking snare. I guess maybe one more thing I can think of, but this comes with mixed results also is really heavy compression with a quick attack and release. That usually makes the snare really loud and obnoxious, almost like its sucking the tone out of the drum and throwing it right in your face. But that might not be what you're looking for. I've really only used that on loud rock/punk/metal type stuff, I couldn't see it working well with say jazz or any type of lighter music, because it tends to throw dynamics right out the window. I'm surprised youre having trouble with the placement thing though. Being a drummer myself, and spending god knows how many hours mic'ing up drums, I've always found that placement is a HUGE part of things when it comes to stuff bleeding into mic's. Where exact did you place the snare mic, if you don't mind me asking? Hope some of this helps... and sorry for the babbling, I just started typing it all out as it popped in my head. :)

Mike

Hi Jal,

There is only one way of totally removing the Hat from the snare track and that's to multitrack it. The problem then of course is for the drummer to maintain the feel, which sometimes just isn't possible.

If this solution is too radical then there is not much you can do but experiment with the ideas suggested by Mike. The only thing not mentioned off the top of my head that may help a little is a hyper-cardoid pattern mic on the snare.

Greg

thanx greg.
yeah i know im gonna try that soon.
hers my list of mics:
microphones: 4 - Audio-Technica ST90's
2 - EV n/d 257s
3 - Sennheiser e-604's
1 - Shure bg 2.0
2 - Peavy condenser electrets
1 - Realistic PZM (original)
1 - AKG c-1000
1 - AKG c-3000
1 - Royer R121
1 - Audio-Technica 4050
Matched pair of OKTAVA MC012 mics
1 Lomo head for MC012
what do u suggest i use for a snare?
thanx,
jal

Hi Jal,

<< what do u suggest i use for a snare? >>

These days I tend to avoid threads on mic'ing snare drums. There are so many different types of snare sound that people are after and an almost unlimited number of mics and mic patterns/positions that have been employed. Arguably, more time and effort has been spent by recording engineers over the years on mic'ing and processing the snare drum than any other instrument. It's not particulalrly difficult to get a good snare sound down to tape/disk, what is often difficult is to get the exact snare sound that you or a drummer/band/producer wants. The best advice I can give is for you to set aside some time to experiment. Try mic'ing both the batter head and snare head or just one of the heads, try mic'ing just the shell, try just about all your different mic's on it. By the time you have finished you still may not have the sound you want but you'll have learnt a lot along the way! :)

Greg

good answer. thanx

This probably will be in the category of "when all else fails", as i'm not saying it should ever be your first choice. Also depends on kind of music (wouldn't recommend it for jazz, e.g.) but you always have the possibility of taking your recorded snare track, gating it, and then using it to trigger a snare sound you like on a drum module. The Alesis D4/D5 for instance have trigger inputs on the back. Then you have the option of blending it back into the original snare track (maybe now with some radical gating or eq to fix the HH bleed) or even replacing it altogether (the original will still show up in the overheads of course). Note: this is much easier done on a DAW, as there is a delay in the triggered track that may cause a flam with the original snare unless you can nudge it back into place. FWIW, I know that Aerosmith, among others, used triggered samples blended in with the original drums on their latest albums. ;)

I was having the same problems. My snare mic picked up loads of HH, as did the overheads. The problem I have is a combination of kit, room and player and called for a more radical solution so I changed my mic setup.

Now I have a higher Hi Hat (about 10" above the snare) with a 57 under the HH pointing directly away from the HH stand onto the snare. I've also stuck another 57 (out of phase) under the snare, mirroring the one above. This works to capture more snare 'bite' and just help push the HH out of the picture.

I've also moved my overheads onto the toms, panned nine and three o'clock (I only use 1 rack and 1 floor tom). This helps keep the HH out of the overheads but the stereo image is compromised. I also use 1 omni room mic about 10 feet away in from of the kit for ambience.

This setup isn't ideal but I'm getting useable sounds which is always an improvment!

sweet thanx dude, the other da was thinkig about the mic under the snare to phase out some of the hihat
jal