Cymbal Height

[Via Noctis]

I searched, and the threads didn't seem relevant. I have been looking at the pictures and videos of Arch Enemy and Nevermore in the studio for years and it never occurred to me til now. In some of the pictures the cymbals look set pretty high. For those of you that track drums and don't sample replace toms. What height do you have the cymbals set at? The reason I ask is I have a band coming in, and the drummer is one of the best in my local area so, I want to make sure I get it right. I am mixing an album now for a band that tracked drums somewhere else and the drummer hits the cymbals really hard so when I clean the tom tracks I end up cutting a large part of the floor tom because of the crash that always seems to follow. So, another question is, do you guys tell your drummers to hit the cymbals lighter? Thanks.

 

[Sloan]

I always considered it best to keep the cymbals as far away as the drummer is comfortable with. It amazes me to no end how cramped drummers typically seem to set everything up. I also believe it's best to hit the drums hard and cymbals light, I've never really worked with many good drummers so they smash the shit out of everything and hit toms like babies. The best drummers have enough control to know how to balance their drums vs cymbals - i dream of working with them.

 

[Trevoire520]

Keep the cymbals nice and high to get as much physical separation between the drums and the cymbals as possible. This helps cut down on bleed.

 

[Via Noctis]

Awesome, thanks for the replies! That is what I was thinking. But that brings up a question. How do you convince a drummer who plays blast beats faster than hell to move his cymz up.

http://youtu.be/UF8x8gEJh8g

PS. Sorry for the link I couldn't figure out how to embed it.

 

[if6was9]

Yeah the higher the better. Depends on the drummer really how comfortable they are with moving their stuff. I've had guys that let me move stuff with no problem and a few guys that went crazy when I asked to move stuff.

Also, for the bleed when the drummer hits a big crash right at the end of fill/start of the next beat after a tom fill. Manually drop in a clean hit for the last hit of the fill and you'll get the full, clean resonance from that hit without a weird cut off decay. Need to pay attention to the volume of the hit so it sounds natural but it's a tip that can really be a life saver!

 

[greyskull]

Higher tends to be better! Some mics are. Better/worse for spill Than others. Senn 421's if you don't get te positioning right have awful spill, but sound great!

 

[Via Noctis]

Thanks for the help! I will try to talk drummers into raising their cymbals from now on.

 

[Sloan]

Thanks for the help! I will try to talk drummers into raising their cymbals from now on.

Tell them that the other option is to pay for a day of tracking individual samples of each drum at double pay rate for an entire 8hr day. LOL

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

The best is when the ride is literally 2" from the top of the floor tom hoop.

RAGE ENSUES.