Using a limiter to smash a Snare out of overheads

[NSGUITAR]

I've been trying my best to get rid of the snare in my overheads, but I can still hear it.. It's really annoying.


Right now I'm trying a highpass filter at about 700Hz followed by L1 limiter, but whatever I do, I CAN'T get that annoying ass pop out!

Any suggestions?

 

[timislegend]

try a compression side chain from the snare drum to the overheads (carefully) and adjust the the compressor to taste. this will achieve a ducking effect however you must use this carefully.

 

[paladin shredder]

try high passing around 1k with an additional bandpass scoop around 600hz. i know that seems extreme, but if you just want the cymbals from the overheads you gota cut a lot of stuff out!

 

[crillemannen]

Sidechain compressor. I cant understand why people would highpass at 700hz though. I usually do it around 200 before the hihat and cymbals are getting to thin.

 

[ahjteam]

use better micing technique

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Sidechain compressor. I cant understand why people would highpass at 700hz though. I usually do it around 200 before the hihat and cymbals are getting to thin.

Yea I question that too, Glenn was talking about how he passes at 600 on overheads because nothing is important under that. To me it just takes away from the depth of the cymbals and tends to make them too bright. I lilke to get my three dimensional space on the toms and snare from the overheads so by all means I would not want to get rid of them period in the overheads.

In NS's case, the best bet would be to pass the cymbals where he wants and rather sidechain the close snare mic to the overheads.

 

[NSGUITAR]

use better micing technique

I'm using spaced pair technique and each mic is pointed at the edge of the cymbal AWAY from the snare.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

I'm using spaced pair technique and each mic is pointed at the edge of the cymbal AWAY from the snare.

I've noticed that some drummers just have LOUD snares. I've miced up kits before and not even used the limiter trick at all and it was fine - but then I just started drums for a band today where I pulled out every trick in the book and still couldn't get the snare out enough.

 

[Ermz]

+1 on the sidechain compressor. It's the most transparent way aside from filtering the OHs very heavily. You could probably use the new C6 Multiband SC to only duck the mids when the snare hits.

Beyond that I'm not really sure why people are obsessed with taking the snare out of the OHs. A lot of my snare tone comes from there... a ton of the lows certainly do (I rarely HP the OHs beyond 120)

 

[aramism]

usually i find the part of the snare that cuts out through samples and OH is concentrated in 2 or 3 very tight frequencies... if you just do an extreme narrow Q boost in the mids to upper mids and find the pop, skin, and the howl of the snare, you could just do very narrow cuts even ranging anywhere from 400-3.5k and it should clean up the snare from the OH tracks. it also depends on how hard you compress the OH.

you might have to back off the comp and just automate the hits more if you really wanna have the best results. and as said before sidechaining would def be sick. i'm gonna get the c6 soon i'm very excited i've been trying to sidechain multi band comp for the longest time. it essentially would be your best bet because you wouldn't take out some frequencies from the OH that might be good for the cymbals but yo ucan duck the bad frequencies of the snare and have less of an apparent dynamic effect on the OH everytime the snare hits. then again with all this talk if you use the samples right and just eq out the snare and don't overcompress the OH track you shouldn't have much bleed unless you are dealing with like jazz or something lol it's virtually impossible to hear a tucked snare in a hard rock or metal mix unless that's now what we are talking about in which case you need to get your multi band comp and eq tight and use the right samples to mask everything and def do a lot of automation on the OH. putting a limiter would only make it worse i would think.

 

[NSGUITAR]

+1 on the sidechain compressor. It's the most transparent way aside from filtering the OHs very heavily. You could probably use the new C6 Multiband SC to only duck the mids when the snare hits.

Beyond that I'm not really sure why people are obsessed with taking the snare out of the OHs. A lot of my snare tone comes from there... a ton of the lows certainly do (I rarely HP the OHs beyond 120)

I'll try the sidechain tomorrow and post a clip of just my ohs.

I don't really want to ELIMINATE the snare outta the OHs, I just want to level it out a bit.. It sounds really pingy in my overhead tracks, not nice and full.

 

[Trevoire520]

I'm not really sure why people are obsessed with taking the snare out of the OHs. A lot of my snare tone comes from there... a ton of the lows certainly do (I rarely HP the OHs beyond 120)

+1 As long as the snare sounds good there's lots of good stuff to get from the overheads.

 

[Fragle]

main reason for me filtering the OHs pretty drastically: bad drumming. i've had my share of sub-par drummers trying to play 16th notes double kick at 220bpm and more and failing miserably. chopping up the whole kit in this pace just doesn't sound right, so i'll edit the top of the kit alone and fix the kicks seperately, resulting in flams from OHs and rooms (if there are any). hence the filtering.

i agree though that less dramatic filtering often sounds better, but you can only really pull it off with a good drummer it seems....

anyways, as for the question: sidechain comp ftw. be careful though.
besides, you most likely don't want to be the snare completely inaudible, and it won't be possible anyways. don't listen to the OHs solo'ed but to the full mix and try to find the right balance between close mic and overheads to get the desired snare sound.

 

[theRev]

So, can you guys recap the "usual" amount of processing a good OH track have? As you said, hi pass just a little bit, not too much, use sidechain compression to tame the snare, maybe some Eq to tame harsh frenquencies.. and? Do you guys compress overhead? How much? fast attack, slow release?

 

[Ermz]

Fast to medium attack, fast release compression. Going slow attack will bring more snare out of the overheads. I normally pump a ton of lows into them around 90 to 100hz, and subdue the 2 to 4khz area to make room for the vocal. Well-tracked overheads normally need little, if any treatment there, but most of the ones I don't track myself don't give me that luxury. Also a bump around 8 to 10kHz with a shelf to give them a bit more sparkle. I prefer to do this with outboard on the way in when tracking - something like an NS-EQ or Massive Passive. In the mix I'll usually use Nebula for it, because good high-end is critical on OHs and Vocals, IMO.

 

[Trevoire520]

main reason for me filtering the OHs pretty drastically: bad drumming. i've had my share of sub-par drummers trying to play 16th notes double kick at 220bpm and more and failing miserably. chopping up the whole kit in this pace just doesn't sound right, so i'll edit the top of the kit alone and fix the kicks seperately, resulting in flams from OHs and rooms (if there are any). hence the filtering.

i agree though that less dramatic filtering often sounds better, but you can only really pull it off with a good drummer it seems....

anyways, as for the question: sidechain comp ftw. be careful though.
besides, you most likely don't want to be the snare completely inaudible, and it won't be possible anyways. don't listen to the OHs solo'ed but to the full mix and try to find the right balance between close mic and overheads to get the desired snare sound.

Yeah that's true. Think I'm going to pick up a electronic kick pad with a mesh head and a drum module for drummers like that. Take samples of the kick at the start of the session and then get them to play with the module and get a trigger on the kick pad. Zero kick in your mic's and a nice clean track to trigger from.

 

[crillemannen]

Beyond that I'm not really sure why people are obsessed with taking the snare out of the OHs. A lot of my snare tone comes from there... a ton of the lows certainly do (I rarely HP the OHs beyond 120)

Is that the CLA method you're using there?? Boosting the lowend in the overheads? What about stereo spread on the snare, don't you feel you lose some focus on the snare?

 

[crillemannen]

I'll try the sidechain tomorrow and post a clip of just my ohs.

I don't really want to ELIMINATE the snare outta the OHs, I just want to level it out a bit.. It sounds really pingy in my overhead tracks, not nice and full.

I also compress the overhead, fast attack, medium release and about 4-8db of GR, to kill the snare transient and glue the overheads together.

 

[nwright]

I've used expansion before to pull the cymbals out a bit more rather than try to bury the transient with compression, and then I finish it up with a limiter to even out the peaks.

 

[aramism]

i always liked some sort of saturation or saturation modeling for OH its def a taste thing. i like crunchy cymbals that sound like they have been tracked to tape. sometimes i'll track with the fatso it gives it that "saturation" or i'll use it in a mix on them or sometimes with time constraints using CLA compressors or psp vintage warmer or something gives them tape saturation. if you are careful and set the comp right i really like what a healthy dose of compression or tape sim/saturation (esp on the fatso hardware unit) does to them.