Too much hat on the snare track
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Posted on Sep 07, 2005 12:43 pm
Karetaker
Member Since: Dec 23, 2003
Our drummer is a talented guy. However, he plays an open hi-hat so often. No matter how much I ask he won't hit it with the tip of the stick, or close the hat up a bit.... I gave up on that. He drills the thing with the body of the stick. I recorded the snare with one mic, on the top head coming in from the front. Now we are trying to mix the music and this clankin' hat is really a problem on the snare track. If you have some digital editing suggestion please stop reading this and click to another post. We are recording in analog 8-track. Here's how we recorded the song I'm having the problem with:
Track-1 empty
Track-2 Kick
Track-3 Snare (with bleeding hat)
Track-4 Low Toms, Overhead left
Track-5 High Toms, Overhead right, hi-hat
Track-6 Bass
Track-7 Guitar panned left
Track-8 Guitar panned right
Then we bounce and bring it back and do the lead guitar and vocals.
Obviously with an open track on this song I could re-record the snare. However, it's not going to be an option on some other songs that fill all 8-tracks.
I put a parametric eq on it and tried eqing it out. The problem is that the hat is clankin' right where I need to get some pop from the sare. I can eq it out but I loss the crack of the snare then. So, then I tried to sidechain a compressor at the worst part of the hat.... that didn't work at all. Then I tried to gate the snare, but I hate the sound of a gated snare. So then I ran out of the snare channel and into another channel. I gated the one channel and left the original ungated. Then I blended them. It was much better but it still sounds like too much hat. We've had this problem with every studio we've gone into with this drummer, and everytime we try to record him ourselves. Right now we have a nice plate reverb on the snare. The next thing I'm going to try is putting a short gated verb on the gated channel of the snare to get a little more body from it, and then bring it up in the mix more and bring the original channel down more. I was thinking about eqing a channel with the high end and running it out of phase with the mix. But, I'm still going to be left with the clank where I'm trying to get the snare crack.
Suggestions please!
Thanks
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Sep 07, 2005 01:19 pm you may need to re-record those drum tracks and reposition the snare mic to minimize bleed...otherwise im strapped for ideas, i mean, i used to record drums with 8 mics into stereo...so i mean, i know a thing or about not having digital editing and whatnot, but as a result i learned how position mics the right way the first time...
i hope someone on here can help you...
Sep 07, 2005 01:52 pm There's just not enough room for a whole lot of mic adjustment on his kit. It's an 11 piece kit so it's pretty tight. I just barely have enough room to get a mic into it, and keep it clear of the tom shells. If I pull it back into the tom shells I start to lose the initial impact of the snare, and it just doesn't sound good there. If I try to bring it in from the side it's in his way. The real problem is him! I tried to tell him many times to lighten up on the brass when we are recording. I've watched him at practice actually wind up and smash a cymbol.... the guy is just an animal and there's no changing him.
Thanks though.... I appreciate the input.
TadpuiI am not a crook's headMember
Since: Mar 14, 2003
Sep 07, 2005 02:09 pm Yeah about all you can do is re-record it with the snare mic in a different position. If you're using a SM57 or other dynamic cardioid, make sure that the rear of the mic is facing the hi-hat. That polar pattern picks up the least sound from the rear, so that should minimize the bleed from the hi-hat.
And make the drummer listen to the tracks so that you can give him an "I told you so" on the level of the hi-hat. Talent doesn't go very far if he's too hard-headed to adjust his technique to the situation.
Don't be nice, be honest and firm. If you're going to wear the engineer's hat on this project, then you have to take off the friendly hat.
Sep 07, 2005 02:09 pm yeah you're right, it's the drummers problem....but it's your job as an engineer to solve it...i'm strapped for ideas myself...i minimize hat bleed by placing my snare mic under the hats with the butt end facing the HH stand...it's worked well for me so far.
sorry not much help
try bringing the overhead's level down some and just do a small cut (-3db's) or so with a TIGHT Q, right inbetween the snare's "crack" frequency and the hat's....
Sep 07, 2005 02:39 pm I told him I'd kill his whole family! I think it's safe to say the "friend hat" is hangin' on the hat rack....hehehe
He's a drummer though, nothing wrong with that but they are very excitable. As soon as the red light goes on he's just wackin' away. At that point any coaching is forgotten.
flame...bringing sexy backMember
Since: Jul 01, 2002
Sep 07, 2005 02:55 pm tell him to play the track once whilst you get your levels, and record that one. bet its better...
Sep 07, 2005 02:57 pm Quote:
I told him I'd kill his whole family!
Whoa, ya don't wanna say that around some of the people I grew up with...
Sep 07, 2005 03:17 pm It was just a joke. Anyway, I'm Italian, I would never kill his whole family..... We have people who do that kind of thing..... KIDDING...hehehe.
jmailjimmie neutronMember
Since: Feb 14, 2005
Sep 07, 2005 05:33 pm BeeFoir youse do da fam-ily, try a little isolation with a coat hanger for a frame and some fibre board (homasote was a brand name I can remember), like an insulating material used on the side of houses, ya no? Build a 4 sided partial box with a top, two long sides and a front, mounted on a coat hanger, mounted on the mic to "isolate" the element in the head from direct hi-hat noise. Duct tape works wonders in the construction and mounting. It ain't perty, and it takes up more space, but might "hide" enough of the hat to allow a better compressor ducking technique. Try to get your "block" parallel to the hat cymbals... Also, see if he can play with the hat just a bit higher, and the snare just a bit lower, on their stands. It'll probably goof him up, tho.
Our old band went so far as to make circular disks (is that redundant?) of the fibre board and mounted them below almost all of our drummers cymbals, and mini-walls between his toms years ago. Looked wierd, and he kept hitting them, but it did help some with isolation on the tracking. Of course, it took like 48 takes to get one song down... lol
stupeMember
Since: Apr 03, 2002
Sep 08, 2005 01:17 pm I had this same issue w/ one drummer once. Try moving his hi hat stand further back and tell him that it's for recording purposes only.
face the mic away from the hi hat. Tell him to soften up on it a bit.
zekthedeadcowEat Spam before it eats YOU!!!Member
Since: May 11, 2002
Sep 08, 2005 07:48 pm well... if the snare hit is infact louder then the highhat bleed then you could trigger it no problem... if it works well you could chance recording the trigger over the origional track as the play head is probably before the record head... but if it misses ... :)
as a drummer, I would rerecord it though... however some drummers have a problem doing that accuratly and there may be some blee into the oter track next to the drum tracks... and if you try over and over again you will degrade the quality of the entire recording as the magnetic material is scrapped off with each pass through the heads. but the drum channels can become unuseable after a certain extent :)
I don't remember how many takes you can take with analog audio... but my analog video stuff (SVHS edit decks) gives me a max of three chances before things look ugly.
af_analogcrazy canuckMember
Since: Nov 25, 2004
Sep 08, 2005 07:48 pm I have had similar problems with this type of drummer...
I can usually persuade them to raise the hats up quite a bit higher so that the hats are picked up mainly in the overheads and not the snare mic. Most drummers do not find it very hard to adapt their playing with higher high hats
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Sep 09, 2005 12:32 am The only other thing you could try and it probably won't work to well is to use a bandwidth filter on the overhead mic over the high hat and get just the high hat as much as possible. Put that altered track in a mix with just the snare track. Line the two tracks up using the begining rising edge of a high hat hit as perfectly as you can. Phase invert the the new overhead track. Play with that mix and see how much high hat you can get out via phase cancelation.
Like I say, highly unlikely it will work as there is so much going on, but if you feel like toying around.....what the hey?
Sep 09, 2005 01:20 am i just talked to a buddy of mine...he suggested that you raise the hi-hats...
Sep 09, 2005 01:23 am also...a while back i read a great article about a drummer, and i wish i could remember who it was, who was said to have recorded some of the best and most influential drum tracks in rock history, and he said that recording is different than playing live...live you play with emotion, while in the studio you play with your head...everything should be relative...the drum hits should be just as hard as the cymbal hits and the hi-hat SHOULD always be closed more in the studio than live...i want to find it so maybe you can show it to him...
Sep 09, 2005 11:57 pm I've had that problem before, hi hat's seem to bleed into almost everything, especially snare and overheads. One thing I did to correct it was to get a piece of studio foam (auralex), cut it into a small square, (maybe 4x4) and cut a hole in the center. put your snare mic halfway through it (so the cardioid is all the way out) and mic your snare as normal. This will definitly tame the hi frequencies of the hats with ease. Plus, it's cost effective. let me know if you try it out!
Andy
Sep 11, 2005 09:14 pm He sounds EXACTLY like the drummer I'm playing with. He just goes crazy all the time.
What type of hats is he using? If they're the heavier type, which are more for live playing, maybe see if he could purchase of borrow a set of lighter hats. They tend to be a bit more studio friendly.
Sep 12, 2005 01:24 pm Thanks for all the input everybody, I truly appreciate it.
The one thing I refuse to do is re-record ALL the drum tracks. If I were to re-record it would be the snare track only. I'm not setting up 14 mics, eqing, and compressing all over again. I just don't think it's neccessary. Everything else sounds great! We had a gig the other night and I told our drummer what trouble we were having with it. I enforced upon him yet again that he was going to have to close these things tighter when we record. I'm not trying to point the finger at him as ultimatly it's my fault. I try to get everything sounding as close as I can to how I want it to sound in the end. I didn't have enough crack in the snare when we originally recorded the track. As I tryed to eq it in that's when the hat started jumping out at us. What's killing me even more is the last song that we recorded, he plays with an open hat as well. The hat in that song sounds perfect. But, the snare is a lot "darker" in that song, so who knows.... maybe the hat is under there waiting to jump out with some eqing. I'm just not sure where I went wrong, but it needs corrected.
I'm going to keep working with it, and re-record as a last resort.
Thanks again.
Sep 23, 2005 04:01 pm 1. Can we hear a sample? Before and after you EQ'd it?
2. Can you take two identical tracks, phase shift the second track, EQ out the snare's good frequencies, and then blend them back together? The phase cancelling would then effect just the hi-hat's frequencies and drown it out, while the snare's range is untouched?
Sep 23, 2005 05:28 pm Well I'd have to use someone elses computer to upload it.... I have dial-up. The hat is just all over the frequency where I'm trying to bring out the snare. I'll see if I can get on someone elses computer and upload it somewhere. My guitarist doesn't seem to think it's that bad. It's a lot further out front than I want to hear the hat though.
Sep 28, 2005 12:53 pm We wouldn't need a large sample. Just 10 seconds is more than enough, and I can always make Media Player play it over and over to hear it enough. Make it a small sound bite, and that should be good enough.
One thing I've noticed as I record stuff... opinions vary. Some guys will hate the sound of their own guitar, yet everyone will love it. Some singers can't stand the sound of their own voice when they hear it played back to them. It's weird, man. Maybe, that hihat actually does sound good!
So upload something small, and we'll let ya know.
Sep 29, 2005 09:31 pm *sighs* Now all I have to do is figure out how in the Hell to upload it! You see, I record with these big metal reels that spin round and round. I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to a computer... but I don't see a job with microsoft in my future either.
Sep 30, 2005 02:41 pm HAHAHAHA!!! Oh man.... that's good stuff.
Okay. Do you have a website or email service that also allows you to host files? If not, email it to me, and I'll host it for you for a couple weeks, to let everyone hear it.
Sep 30, 2005 02:45 pm Quote:
I record with these big metal reels that spin round and round.
huh? foreign concept to me :-D
Oct 02, 2005 12:48 pm Hehehehe.... Yup dB, I think it's a foreign concept to most people today. For the next CD we are going to get a computer and software. Then we will record in analog and dump to computer. That's the plan anyway.... who knows. We're just trying to get this first CD done.
Let me see what I can do Bryan316, I have to try and learn this stuff at some point. If I have to many problems I'll email it to you. Thanks much, I appreciate it.
jmailjimmie neutronMember
Since: Feb 14, 2005
Oct 02, 2005 10:08 pm man, metal reels. That's REEL high tech (get it? ah say ah say, thas a joke sun. Ennie bat-trees in thish har thang?) Reel high tech, mohnz plas-teek!
Oct 12, 2005 07:30 am Well I uploaded it, but I tried to play it, and it gave me memory dumps and locked up on me. It's also strange that the file is only 46 bytes. If anyone can get this file to play, you're a better man than I!
mywebpages.comcast.net/Bryan316/Track03.cda
Oct 12, 2005 07:37 am oh, thats cuz it's just the cda file, which is a reference file for CD standards, what you need to do is "rip" the track to wave file...there are many apps to do that, most mastering programs do, I am not sure, but even the free one, Audacity, may do it. audacity.sourceforge.net
Oct 12, 2005 07:38 am actually, I might be wrong there...I don't think it does.
Oct 12, 2005 07:51 am Hell, Soundblaster's Wave Studio can do that. Problem is, it doesn't play at all! Even after I tried converting it.
User error, man. User error.
Oct 12, 2005 12:38 pm Dude, I've probably recorded 50 drummers in the past year or so. I see this sort of thing from time to time.
IT'S ENTIRELY UP TO THE DRUMMER TO MAKE THIS WORK. No amount of dicking around will solve it.
If you have the resources, I'd suggest that you rerecord the drums to save time and drastically improve the quality of the project. This time simply tell the drummer "I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU RUIN THE TRACK".
You need to explain to him that if you guys were to get signed, he would either have to be adapt or he would not able to play on his own recording. Major labels don't have time to dick with drummers who sound like crap. Your drummer sounds like crap. He has a problem and he needs to fix it. Bottom line. HE DOES NOT SOUND LIKE A PRO DRUMMER!!
It sounds like you are micing things in a way that are more natural. You are not using tom mics and you are not using a snare bottom. Guess what. The hihat is probably too loud in those mics too. Sometimes I result to entirely close micing with this method and it works pretty good. It's more fake, but in the end on the right/wrong drummer it sounds more real.
Gating
I recomend that you use a gate lightly. I've always hated gates too (when set for extreme settings). Just set it so that it only reduces about 6dB or so. This will greatly clean up the snare track, but do it in a way that you really have to A/B to hear right. I'm telling you dude. Try this one. You'll be glad you did.
Brandon
