I'm still having a bitch of a time with hats and snare bleed

[Executioner213]

In a nutshell, I'm still having a difficult time keeping the snare out of my hat mic. Last session I did (my own band), we had a shitty room to do it in and the kit was kinda up against a wall...which I think contributed to the issue. I used an SM7 on the hats, positioned with the hats blocking the snare. Still, I have a ton of snare in my track. I have since been meticulously drawing midi hits to replace the hats in SD2 because I hate the way it turned out. I'm kinda worried about panning my hat mic over and having a wider snare that sits over the top of other stuff in the mix.

Am I doing something totally wrong?

Do I need to use a different type of mic?

I understand there will be *some*, but I would like to get it as minimized as possible. Fuckin snare ended up like 2x as loud in my hat track as the actual hats. Should I point the mic the opposite direction, with the ass end facing the snare, next time?

Thanks in advance.

 

[-Loco-]

Being close to the wall will probably intensify the reflections. Have you tried dipping out some of the fundamentals of your snare from the hi-hat mic and a high pass?

 

[John_C]

Try a hypercardiod pattern mic pointed so the side is facing the snare and it's pointing towards the hats

 

[ahjteam]

or then just don't use the hihat track. It usually comes pretty fucking loud from the overheads anyways.

 

[Glenn Fricker]

or then just don't use the hihat track. It usually comes pretty fucking loud from the overheads anyways.

+1. I rarely, if ever, mic the hat.

 

[darthjujuu]

nothing gets hipassed more than a HH track. the overheads should be getting most of it, and the hat mic just adds a bright shimmery "chick" to the closed hat parts (if any...seems we rarely encounter that, these days...heh...) but given the context of the mix i don't see why snare bleeding in would be so bad, itt'l just add some brightness/presence to the snare. the hat mic should be a very small addition to the mix.

 

[slashvanyoung]

but given the context of the mix i don't see why snare bleeding in would be so bad, itt'l just add some brightness/presence to the snare

Can get problematic if your main snare track(s) are edited/replaced and you suddenly have "2 snares" going due to the off-positioning.

I'll usually have a combination of gating/eq-ing/hpf and automation/deletion going to minimize snare bleed.

 

[darthjujuu]

Can get problematic if your main snare track(s) are edited/replaced and you suddenly have "2 snares" going due to the off-positioning.

that should never happen if edited properly o_0

 

[slashvanyoung]

Ideally not. But if you have a snare-track that was edited independently, leaving the other tracks alone, it might happen.

 

[006]

Ideally not. But if you have a snare-track that was edited independently, leaving the other tracks alone, it might happen.

The proper way to edit drums is by editing everything at the same time though. Rarely will anyone that knows what they are doing edit the snare totally independently from the other tracks. When you do that you are just asking for phase and flam issues. It's not like the kick where you can HP it out of the other mics for the most part and get away with independent editing.

Personally I do mic the HH every time, sometimes I do end up just trashing it if it's clean enough in the overheads though.

 

[slashvanyoung]

You really don't need to explain that to me but thanks for implying that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I only gave an example for when this might happen, because I've been handed such files on occasion. There are people out there who use single-track Beat Detective on snare and kick independently because they don't have access to multitrack BD.

Never said it's the proper way or the norm. It's certainly not my way when I edit myself.

 

[Pipsymbol]

try pointing hi-hat mic outwards from the kit like on the image

you could also try some small diaphragm condensers

 

[waltz mastering]

You could have the drummer use a light stick on the high hat and a heavy stick on the snare.

 

[Morgan C]

You could have the drummer use a light stick on the high hat and a heavy stick on the snare.

Portnoy often turns his right-hand stick upside down and uses the butt for extra power on the snare.


If it's already recorded, try a limiter and/or sidechain from the snare. Or just make the hat track centred. Will brighten your snare track, and hats aren't usually panned very wide anyway.

 

[AdamWathan]

High pass them, manually cut out all the sections where they aren't being played and then keep it quiet it in mix. You can't turn them up anyways without it getting obnoxious, you will have tons of HH in the overheads already.

 

[greyskull]

man... im totally the other way round.
hi hat in the Snare mic is a bitch.

 

[avrinder]

man... im totally the other way round.
hi hat in the Snare mic is a bitch.

agreed!

 

[Trevoire520]

man... im totally the other way round.
hi hat in the Snare mic is a bitch.

Yep. Total bastard.
SPL attacker is quite good for bringing out some attack in the snare when there's alot of hat bleed.