Sarcastic Sound
Well-known member
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
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