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I am looking at buying some sm 58's to have around my studio.
Just curious, has anyone had good luck with using them on the Hi hat?

If not, what other mics would you list as a hi hat goto mic?

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Davedog Thu, 03/10/2005 - 09:30

An SM58 is a good mic for live performance vocals and IMHO not that good for micing things in a studio.It will work on certain sources and is bulletproof as far as build quality but it has a very pronounced proximity effect and would not be good at all for hihats.Unless you're looking for a really dark deep sounding hat that will pretty much cover up any other instruments recorded with it.Get SM57's to have around the studio.A Beyer 201 or 422 is my favorite HiHat mic though I rarely record with a mic on the hats. Sometimes I'll put one up as a safety if the song needs a lot but generally the overheads in an X/Y stereo pair will suffice for the hat being where it needs to be .

Davedog Thu, 03/10/2005 - 15:30

Ya see how subjective this business is.All great suggestions.I used to use the condensers on the hat...Mostly SM81 with the hyper capsule..Occasionally a KM84,sometimes nothing.Since rock drumming has gone from close micing EVERYTHING to a more 'room sound' I just dont find I need em anymore. Then one day I was screwing around and had our studio drummer over for nothing but testing mics and drum area setups.Had a huge mic locker then.....sigh.....I stuck the Beyer 201 on the hats....and this is a drummer who had three sets of hats!...SUDDENLY....I had CONTROL of the gawddammdest instrument to mic there is.I used to stick the 422 Beyer under the snare...tried that one on the hat....MAGIC....something about the hypercardioid dynamics with less sensativity therefore no spill...Not quite the same in the upper end as a KM Neumann but at the time we were using two purple badged U87's as over heads.....whatt'aya gonna do?!Recently we were in to a friends studio doing drum replacement tracks....Used the Audio Technica 4051 on the hat.....Excellent.