Too much snare on hi hat track (yes, you read it right!)

[jangoux]

So, today i recorded this drummer that played the hi hats so softly that there's too much snare and even bass drum on it (!!!!). What would you do besides EQ, to remove the snare body (too much crack still), to help improve this? Sidechain a compressor ? Anything else?

 

[JeffTD]

Not use the mic?

 

[jangoux]

Well, without that i get almost NO hi hat at all (as weird as it might seem...). It is a brazilian amazonian pop record so it kinda night a loud hh to make it groovy. I get almost no hh from the overheads also.

 

[barricade]

well...there's almost no cure for that... maybe you could post the hihat track sample...

 

[crosstalk]

If there's no hat in the hat mic and not enough in the OH and you need a lot of it, your only viable option is to retrack and get the drummer to actually hit the hats.

 

[Benny H]

what would happen to the snare in this hi hat mic if he brought the snare track up with it, but directly out of phase?

so- solo hi hats and snare - phase align snare hit against the snare hits in hats track - flip phase

?

 

[Aaron Smith]

That might work alright...but it also might just sound funny. I have a feeling it would end up making the hat sound weird and phasey too. Plus then you couldn't really use the snare track (even with a duplicated track that was offset to line up with the snare hits in the hat track, you would still hear snare and other things in the duplicated snare track).

Yeah, bad idea.

 

[JeffTD]

Time to get creative with filters and notch-eq'ing.

 

[Andy Sneap]

or just side chain the snare into limiter on hat

 

[xTomx]

Put an Expander plugin on the Hi-Hat track?

 

[brianhood]

+ 1 on the limiter, although i've never thought about using a side chain. That definitely makes more sense than just slapping a limiter on the hi hats and calling it a day.

i'll be doing that on my overheads from now on

 

[greyskull]

or just side chain the snare into limiter on hat

Yes indeed.
Out of interest Andy, when you do such things, like this or sidechaining the snare out of the overheads, what are you doing it with? channelstrip? or just the Digirack dyn3 or something else, would you poss post a screenshot, as for some reason ive never managed to get it sounding right with either!
cheers bud

 

[AStudio]

+1 on that! I can never get this working how I want. Always destroys my original signal too much (especially on OHs).

 

[jangoux]

Well, gonna try the sidechain today and see what happens. Tracking again is not an option, because the project is being done in a hurry and the musicians, while 'good' (well, pro level guys here are well....'pro', if you know what I mean), are kinda asshole when dealing with their own mistakes...So i'll try the sidechain and report back.

 

[crillemannen]

or just side chain the snare into limiter on hat

+ 1

I'll use Rcomp, but either compressor will do, just hit it with 3-6db and you're done. I always group my Overheads (hh,ride etc) and hit that buss with sidechain comp.

 

[wishtheend]

If there is barely any hats in the OHs, just pan the sucker center and either play with eq notches, or use it as part of the snare sound (might have to lower your snare track for balance).

 

[chrisjmp]

If there's not too much attack of the snare in the hat mic, you could maybe try a transient designer to bring up the stick on the hat without too much of the snare body. Andy's sidechain idea is a good one too, I've done it before, but the opposite way to pull a little hat out of the other mics

 

[jangoux]

well, tried it today and I got nice results. It is just a little weird to NOT have the hi hats louder when the drummer hits the snare...but at the end it made the drums somewhat groovier, with almost no hats when the snare is hit. Thanks everybody!

Btw, maybe ill try a transient designer too, but lately i've been avoiding them as i am not finding any improvement in using one.

 

[ahjteam]

I get almost no hh from the overheads also.

have you tried to duplicate highpass the overheads at like 500hz and then compress the fuck out of it? talking like 10-20dB attenuation with 1176 limiting amplifier (or similiar plugin)

 

[jangoux]

No I didnt but for that kind of music (brazilian amazonia pop or whatever) HH from the OHs have a too roomy sound - and the room i record in is very 'live'. So it ends up sounding like crap (not only for that, btw eheh). Roomy hi hats work ok only in rock for me.