Well obviously it is important that the back of the 57 points to the hat. (as much as possible)And get the mic in there real close,like an inch above the rim pointing towards the skin. Another thing is to use a smaller hat in general. Use a bottom mic too and you should be fine. ;)

AS I wrote in another thread, try a side snare. The bottom mic generally provides that ugly "broken sound". The snare side is more detailed and there will be no big hihat leakages. Also, be careful with the mic gain.

Watch out for 57´s:
SM57 is cardioid.
Beta 57 is Supercardioid.
If ya have the back of the Beta facing the hihat, it will capture some hihats. 120 degrees is the null point, while 180 degress is the nule point for the cardioid pattern.

I am looking for a 10" recording hihat so as to kill as much leakage as possible. If ya find soemthing, please inform me. I travel to the USA at late Ocotober .

Hope it helped ya
:w:

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Good idea: get as much of the snare sound as you can from your overheads. Experiment with OH placement to maximize snare/minimize hats.

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Aside form positioning the mic for maxium rejection, and getting it in as close as you can to the snare...
one trick i used to use a lot (much to many a drummer's chagrin) is to put a bath towel OVER the hi-hat (that is, actually punch a hole in the towel so it falls down over the entire hat) and have the drummer actually play THROUGH it, bu hittiing the towel.
A mic underneath gets the hi-hat sound and it really cuts down on the leakage into both the close snare mic AND room mics.
It will NOT, however, win any drummer popularity contests.

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Originally posted by wwittman:
... put a bath towel OVER the hi-hat (that is, actually punch a hole in the towel so it falls down over the entire hat) and have the drummer actually play THROUGH it, bu hittiing the towel.

:) Wow, that is interesting W, the first I have heard that one. It would take a lot of the extraneous noise away from the hat as well I expect, leaving just the hat action. What EQ are you using, if any, to restore any deadening of the hat?

--Rick

Chris

I've posted this quite a number of times in a thread about drums/snare/hat bleed thread: try a Beyer M201 and you'll kill two flies in one stroke.

A better snare sound and less hat bleed, plus the bleed that remains will sound better.

Another very good mic is the Sennheiser MD441.

Needless to say, a crappy drummer who hits the hi hat harder than the snare is a waste of time anyway.

Originally posted by Rick Hammang:

Originally posted by wwittman:
[qb] ... put a bath towel OVER the hi-hat (that is, actually punch a hole in the towel so it falls down over the entire hat) and have the drummer actually play THROUGH it, bu hittiing the towel.

Another trick is to take a sheet - and i do this for all my brass - and cut it into small circles (and i do mean small) cut a hole in the center and drop over the brass. It leaves the cymbal sound - but takes away the over-ring.

For larger brass (like my 22 and 20 inch cymbals) i use a 3/4" strip of sheet - maybe 10" long - and just let it sit left to right...... same effect.

Play with the amount of cloth to make them either brighter or deader.

As a drummer - my only pause with the towel trick is that i can only see it working if you are striking the hi-hat with the side or flat of the stick - i do not see it working with any intricate work performed with the stick tip itself.

Rod

[ September 05, 2003, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: Rod Gervais ]

You don't want the back of a 57 pointed at the High Hats. A 57 is hypercardioid which means that the back is going to pick up high freqency stuff. You want to position the mic so the high hats are in the null of the pickup pattern. You find this postition by moving the mic around until you get the best snare sound with the least amount of highhat in it.

You could try gating the snare, so that it opens up only when the snare is hit. If it sound too obvious (meaning, you hear a big rush of hihat when the snare is hit) you could try adjusting the gate so it doesn't close all the way. This probably isn't the preferred way of geting rid of hihat bleed, but I think it's often better then trying to eq it out!

wwittman - i'm reaqlly interested in trying that bath towel trick out!! unfotunately, the drummer on my next session can properly play the hihate!

I gotta go with the Beyer 201 or a Beyer 422 both reject from the rear incredibly well and sound wonderfull.WW that is a very interesting trick...and you are so right, i could see this pissing a drummer off easily! but then....who cares.... :c:

Originally posted by Johnson Cabasa:
You don't want the back of a 57 pointed at the High Hats. A 57 is hypercardioid which means that the back is going to pick up high freqency stuff.

Can someone tell me if this is true? I always thought it was cardioid! I learn more about how little I know every day! :D

The 57 is a cardioid mic, as you can see on the Shure website. http://www.shure.com

The M201 is a hypercardioid as you can see here:
http://www.beyerdynamic.com/com/product/index_s.php3?find=M201&Submit.x=8&Submit.y=1

Peace.

Hi guys,
Try this.. ducking hat's track with compressor trigered by snare drums!
Adjust the right amount so it won't duck too much.. anyway, snare usually falls on down beat, so you won't feel that missing hats that much!

AS Johnson also wrote, please read my comments about SM57 and Beta 57
The towel trick is fine but what about opening and closing hats all the time?

Best solution: Have drummer lay off the hat and lay into the snare. While it is counter-intuative, most of the GREAT recording drummers hit their metal very quietly and abused their skins. This allows OHs to come in and do a better job of getting the drums. Live drummers usually don't get this until they hear it in playback.

Next best: move the hat out as far as drummer can deal with and play nauturally,

Next: Careful and serandipidous (sp?) mic choice and placement.

Last: Punch the bottom out of a styrophome cup and stick your sn mic in it lind of like a dog with one of those lampshade things keeping it from scratching its head... Liberally apply duct tape. This actually works!

I think this is interesting but can someone clear it for me?

"Last: Punch the bottom out of a styrophome cup and stick your sn mic in it lind of like a dog with one of those lampshade things keeping it from scratching its head... Liberally apply duct tape. This actually works!"

I got confused with some words...lol
Thanks for the idea bud!

Last: Punch the bottom out of a styrophome cup and stick your sn mic in it lind of like a dog with one of those lampshade things keeping it from scratching its head... Liberally apply duct tape. This actually works!"

This may cause a weird phase effect, and make the 57's pattern an irregular omni ,which may cause more bleed. But hey you won't know till you try! :w:

I agree with stuntmixer.
Fix it at the source.
I have a pair of 13" dark crisp hats.

Pretty easier to try to get a drummer and band to come around.
You play them back what you are recording.
ie all hi hats.
Then you show them no matter whcih mic is solo'd the thing you hear most is hats. Some guys evern the kick is getting lost almost. :(

All of these suggestions are good. The way I see it is to put up a "hi-hat" mic! This along with a "gate" on the snare will reduce those over tones your hearing.
See, a mic on the hat will compensate for the bleed into the snare mic, and make things sound so much better. You won't be battling the difference, you will have two seperate tracks/mics to work with. One being high and crisp, the other being big and fat!

Does that make any sense??

Mike

i personally like the bleed......
that's just me. it never mattered to me. sometimes i think we tend to make our lives a little more complicated than it needs to be. but i guess it depends on the situation at hand. i used to go crazy, but i really don't anymore. in the end does it sound like a drum kit or does it not?

I remember for one drummer who really wanted to hit the hats softer but wasn't. I made sure the hat mic in his foldback was real loud so he knew he did not have to push more.

Originally posted by launchpad67a:
All of these suggestions are good. The way I see it is to put up a "hi-hat" mic! This along with a "gate" on the snare will reduce those over tones your hearing.
See, a mic on the hat will compensate for the bleed into the snare mic, and make things sound so much better. You won't be battling the difference, you will have two seperate tracks/mics to work with. One being high and crisp, the other being big and fat!

Does that make any sense??

Mike

Mike

A gate will only work on a steady drummer that hits the snare loud and consistent. But what about a very dynamic drummer with lots of 'ghost notes' on the snare?

And a good steady drummer won't need any gating and won't give you the bleed problem what this thread is about.

I too use a hat mic in order to add that little shiny edge to the hat sound (when needed).

Peace.

Han,
very good point, you are exactly right!!

Mike

I just can´t wait to pick my 10" recording hi-hat.

i leave the drums and the cymbal choices up to the drummer. if he can't tune the drums i will hire someone to do that but i never tell a drummer how and what to play i just get him the best sound possible.
Originally posted by Joe Chiccarelli:
Let's just always remember that what we do in the role of a producer or engineer is to channel and facilitate, to relay and communicate. We are indeed the messenger not the author of the message.

I remember reading an article about recording Bon Jovi's latest album, and they had a little trick for helping to eliminate hat bleed into the snare.

What they did was get a small piece of cardboard, maybe 4-6 inches square, then they punched a hole in the middle, and stuck the 57 through the hole. Now they positioned the mic so that the back of the cardboard faced the hats.

I have never personally tried this technique, since I like a bit of bleed myself, but it is worth a try I guess.

I also have to agree with Han on the use of the Sennheiser MD441U on the snare...

Double, I have been testing this technique for a few years. It minimizes around 15 to 20%.

Originally posted by Alécio Costa - Brazil:
I just can´t wait to pick my 10" recording hi-hat.

Buddy,

Did you go with the Zildjian?

Rod

Hi Rod!
In fact I am planning to pick it at Manny´s or similar store in NY.
:)

Kewl my friend,

I have the 12" - and the way they cut through is unbelievable - one of the sweetest sounds..... i suppose one day i will have to pick up the 10" as well - just to say i have them...... lol....

Seriously - i believe you will not be anything other than pleased with these hats - they are really that good.

Ya can see them if ya check out my kit in the drum forum - in the "dream kit" thread... the 12" recordings are the HH's set on the right side of the kit)

Rod

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pictures in there?
Rod, there is a brazilian factory called ODERY, they are doing and exporting stuff to the entire world.
I would compare it to top DW kits/Pearl Master customs with a fraction of the price.
I have a recording kit here that my aux tech did the specifications.
Evryone who used to have pearl, Tama, Mapex have just sold and gone Odery.

Alécio,

yes - there is a picture of my Kit in there.. but - i went and checked out the drums you refered to - man that is some beautiful workmanship........ I may have to put together a spec and see what their pricing is like....... :c:

Rod

pretty cool. I will email Maurício, the owner/designer of the company.

I half-expect to get flamed pretty hard for this, but this is what I do...

I get so much snare thru my overheads that I didn't even bother micing it last time. I used the extra channel to put a 4041 on my hi-hat (and trying to keep the snare out of it had me moving it around a bunch) and the mix had all kinds of snare punch. It was my own playing that I was recording, but my band's drummer and I both rim-shot the snare pretty regularly. If you're recording a drummer you're not familiar with, having him rim-shot the snare for regular beats might help out a lot, too.

If I have my overheads up as high as I can get them, hit the cymbals hard enough to live up to the snare sound, and control the snare's volume in the mix by putting a compressor/limiter on the overhead tracks (to bring the snare down closer to where everything else is- usually only 4 or 5db of reduction), the snare sits right about where I want it. All kinds of punch, neck-and-neck with the perceived kick volume.

This, however, is the result of 3 or 4 years of intermittently recording my own playing and my band's drummer, just to experiment with the sound; we pretty much know what to expect from it. Having played drums myself for almost a decade helps a lot too ;) Your mileage may vary... but it's worth a try, anyways.

If nothing else, just keep it in mind that when recording a drummer that lays into the snare drum, your snare track might be expendable. Mine just seem to do more harm than good, so I kicked 'em to the curb.

Didn't John Bonham record with just a kick mic and a couple overheads? I read the setup they used, but it was a while back. Someone remind me.

Anyway, about isolation in general; One of the things I've noticed about my drum tracking is that the more work I do to keep things isolated, the less perceived space there is to the drums. The toms on my kit ring a lot with the kick drum hits, but having a small amount of bleed is sometimes preferrable to chopping up the sound just on the principle of keeping things isolated or super-gated. Again, just make sure you're not doing more harm than good. If isolating everything makes the drum sound suck, then don't worry about it.

Just thinking out loud.