OVERcompressed Drum Overheads - TOO much Hi Hat (how to fix it in the mix?)

[Sarcastic Sound]

Was pondering today while listening to my iPod. When songs get out to the world and have been smashed by mastering it's a fairly common thing to hear the Hi Hat become "stereo" from over compression/limiting.

I find it happens alot when I get other peoples tracks to mix, I listen to the drum overheads and it's a crazy mess of hi hat and snare. It has everything to do with placement of the overhead mics and a drummer that maintains a good balance while playing. People try to level out an inconsistent drummer by compressing while tracking and you end up with overcompressed overheads and a bigger mess than what you started with.

I've used all sorts of stuff creatively to try to remedy this problem with decent success... multiband compressors/frequency based compressors/de-essers, automating level, eq, automaiting eq, so on and so forth. But I don't feel like I've every truly "fixed" the problem. Just made it less apparent.

Anyone have any tricks to share on how to control the out of control hi hat in the mix?

cheers 

 

[Rybow]

I have always held to the idea that overheads should not be compressed until the mix stage, and then only to just control the peaks a little bit if needed. Compression is crazy these days isn't it? Totally unnecessary on the way in with today's 24 bit headroom. I am of the opinion that an inconsistent drummer should be leveled in the mix to avoid this problem. Especially if there are a minimum number of direct mics. OK, rant over.  :-X

The only thing I can think of that isn't on your list is to use something like superior drummer to basically redo the drums completely. It would be difficult to get the overheads going using something like drumagog or trigger, so some MIDI programming might be needed. This way you could rebuild the drums with more dynamics, and single out that hi hat for greater control.

 

[Biasrocks]

Have your tried a phase reversed copy of the overhead track with the hat isolated out using high/low pass filters? Or how about the close miced hat track itself?

It may give you enough leeway to tame it.

Mark

 

[riggler]

If you have an isolated hi-hat track, you could maybe feed that as a key to a multiband compressor that is on the overheads. With that you'd have a fair amount of control to what happens when the hi-hat gets loud, and maybe not destroy too much when it's not playing...

 

[abechap024]

Some M/S processing coupled with the above tricks might also be useful sometimes.

I know the exact problem you talking about! Sometimes the only thing that seems to help is turning the overheads down

 

[zebra50]

Have you tried a de-esser with a variable frequency on the overheads? It can help.

I find I rarely use the high hat mic at all in the mix - many drummers seam to beat the living crap out of the hats, and I don't care much for the direct sound.

I've been using ribbons on snare a lot recently - figure 8 is good for rejecting the hats.

 

[strangeandbouncy]

Hi,


  last time I had any such trouble, I just mixed the kit in mono. Probably just used one OH mic. One way to stop that image a-wandering. I think I might have triggered some tom samples, which were panned appropriately, instead of the tom mics. just to give a bit of stereo. They were horribly clipped and compressed and eqd to buggery too, iirc. and some wierd phase relationships gwannin . .


    just how do you go about telling a recording engineer that his drum recording sucks . . . .

 

[s2udio]

just how do you go about telling a recording engineer that his drum recording sucks . . . .

Thats the wife in my case......
And i'me the f"!?in drummer as well..........
Deaf you know.................pardon dear ?

 

[mushy]

+1 for clever de-essing...

 

[Rybow]

So, it is true, I always go for the overcomplicated solution.. :'(

Lots of great ideas here for me to steal. Hahaha!

 

[MikoKensington]

    just how do you go about telling a recording engineer that his drum recording sucks . . . .

Man, I've come across some real shite tracking by guys that get a lot of work.  I just don't understand why we people track so compression?  You only serve to paint yourself into a corner when it's time to mix.  You're left with one sound to work with... ass.

 

[desol]

Totally agreed. When i first started tracking i did a bunch of experimenting with compression. You have to know what and what not to use it on, and which compressors. I almost never track with compression anymore except for vocals, some percussive bits/explosive ambience...or subtle, tasteful things.

 

[meverylame]

Not to rain on the parade, but my dollar is on bad drummer more than bad engineer. All the problems I run in to in this arena are usually linked to a drummers inability to balance his kit coupled with using new, undampened cymbals. So the way I generally deal with this when I'm mixing exclusively and have no control at that point is this. 1.) Ruthlessly eq them. Find the offensive frequencies and get rid of them. 2.) compress them with a relatively clean compressor. Try to get every ounce of DRUM sound out them. Even if they're poorly compressed. 3.) Turn them up loud and automate them as needed. It sounds like you're trying to cover up a mistake if they're quiet. Even if they hurt. Cymbals make your mix sound bright. Use that to your advantage.

 

[Randyman...]

Totally agreed. When i first started tracking i did a bunch of experimenting with compression. You have to know what and what not to use it on, and which compressors. I almost never track with compression anymore except for vocals, some percussive bits/explosive ambience...or subtle, tasteful things.

This is why you take a mult off the preamp and record the un-compressed input to its own track   It basically lets you get the analog parallel compression happening in a fully digital "ITB" mix (the parallel compression was created 100% in the analog domain off the 1st generation input signal).  Yes it eats up inputs (bought another 24 ADC Inputs just for this use!), but when the comrpession is useable, it makes for a better monitor mix for the talent IMO - and the sound is huge and 100% aligned to the "dry" input (no micro-sample offsets caused by oversampling that can be possible with DA/AD insert loops "in the mix" even when you "ping" the DA/AD loop with your DAW).

Compression is fun - and it's the most fun while tracking IMNSHO (just C.Y.A.)...

8)

 

[MikoKensington]

This is why you take a mult off the preamp and record the un-compressed input to its own track

There you go.  Full Normal your bay and have both with the option to "un-experiment" later. 

 

[abechap024]

This is why you take a mult off the preamp and record the un-compressed input to its own track

There you go.  Full Normal your bay and have both with the option to "un-experiment" later. 

ya seriously
a great idea...I love compressing on the way in..people seem to preform better when their cans have this "cool sound" in them...
but if I had a penny for as many times as I compressed maybe too much.... :/
....how many hi-hatts I made stereo... 

 

[Randyman...]

And this is the cool thing about recording the "dry" to a seperate track - you can BLEND the dry with a little of the "overcompressed" track to get literal analog parallel compression (NY style or whatever you want to call it), but in the DAW "ITB".  Since both inputs are being recorded off the same 1st generation analog chain (with zero latency/delay up to the AD inputs), both channels when summed digitally are as close as you can possibly get to true analog parallel compression "ITB".  Both tracks have the same common jitter fingerprint and everything for a coherent sum of both dry and squashed.  And yes - it makes for extremely gratifying headphone mixes for the talent, too!

I'd much prefer to do it that way than to make a DA/AD insert with the pre-recorded "dry" track in the DAW - or to forego the fun of compression during tracking  ;D  (I built all of my DIY compressors specificaly for tracking!)  I like getting the preamp and compressor jiving together in the analog domain (Iron out to Iron in, not Iron to AD, then DA back to Iron) - not to add (insert) the compressor after the fact (and after AD conversion)

And I don't even have a legit patchbay!  I use simple XLR splitters for the "mult"...

8)

 

[tony dB]

    just how do you go about telling a recording engineer that his drum recording sucks . . . .

Man, I've come across some real sh*te tracking by guys that get a lot of work.  I just don't understand why we people track so compression?  You only serve to paint yourself into a corner when it's time to mix.  You're left with one sound to work with... ass.

One of the reasons is that "we", the cheaper working well respected collegues that get a lot of work, spent more time on the internet looking for people to tell us how to do things (based on their many years of experience!), than time "we" spend on developping our art.
By trial AND error... and by cleaning up for our own mistakes, so that it really hurts when we paint ourselves in that corner again... 
No dog wants to been beaten twice for old misbehaving, does he?

get of the internet now, do some recording and actually try to mix it yourself guys... 

 

[peterc]

What I have done before is to go through the track & find every HH impact & automate  the level ( pull it back in this case ) until happy.

Yes I know, it takes forever, but it works

Peter