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[Magnus Högkvist]

Thanks for the note re. the Crown CM-311.  For some reason I had this mic and the Countryman confused in my head. The Countryman I was considering is the Isomax MHHP6HH05B.   I wonder how hard it will be to convince the drummer to try one...

Perhaps try to find a used Crown CM-310A if the drummer doesn't want a headset mic?

[Stephen Kirby]

4:1 compression will bring up ambient sounds.  Hi-hats get into everything.  Live I rarely bother with a discrete hi-hat mic.  It's all over the overhead and usually in the snare and frontline vocal mics.  One of the biggest challenges I face recording is getting a discrete snare track without gating the snot out of it.  You could try a bit of gating on the vocal mic but I suspect setting the threshold will be hard.  Most drummers really bash the hi-hat.  One reason it's so loud.  I have a DVD by Steve Jordan and one of the things I noticed is that he chokes up on the stick a lot with his right hand so that hats and rides are much less than the backbeat from his left hand.  I also have darker hats so that they aren't as prominent either.  K Dark over a NewBeat bottom.  I also have a pair of Dream Bliss hats that are really quiet but they're so thin I'd never let a rock drummer at them.

[Tim McCulloch]

4:1 compression will bring up ambient sounds.  Hi-hats get into everything.  Live I rarely bother with a discrete hi-hat mic.  It's all over the overhead and usually in the snare and frontline vocal mics.  One of the biggest challenges I face recording is getting a discrete snare track without gating the snot out of it.  You could try a bit of gating on the vocal mic but I suspect setting the threshold will be hard.  Most drummers really bash the hi-hat.  One reason it's so loud.  I have a DVD by Steve Jordan and one of the things I noticed is that he chokes up on the stick a lot with his right hand so that hats and rides are much less than the backbeat from his left hand.  I also have darker hats so that they aren't as prominent either.  K Dark over a NewBeat bottom.  I also have a pair of Dream Bliss hats that are really quiet but they're so thin I'd never let a rock drummer at them.

Hats with a "crunch" when they close, and more 'ring' than 'ping'?

[Trevor Jalla]

Give him an IEM send with his hats louder than kick / snare. Only half joking.

Or a SM57 with an aggressive HPF to keep.the plosives down - but if he eats the mic S/N ratio will improve.

[Art Welter]

There's probably about 4:1 on that track.  I have it recorded from the head amp so I can try with no compression tonight and see what happens.  I wonder if I should try side-chain triggering the compressor on his vocal channel with "self", centered around 600Hz or so. 

Wes,

The ratio of the compressor indicates how many dB of attenuation occur for every dB above the threshold level. The dB level of attenuation is generally the equivalent of the "make up" gain you have applied to the channel, in other words, if you see a -10 dB reduction on vocal peaks, you have made the background noise +10 dB louder, twice as loud sounding.

With the high hat next to a wall, it can be getting as much as  a 6dB (peaky) gain boost.

Art

[Douglas R. Allen]

I used an EV PL35 screwed onto a mic stand for the first time last weekend. Very good rejection and a low cost microphone. Small, easy to angle and sounds fine. I'll post a board mix. In this song its the person on the Right.
 A low level harmony but you can get the idea.  It was a small tinny room so the mix sounds dull and only added what I needed to for the mix. I'm still getting used to my M32r but you can get the idea. Very little bleed from the microphone.  A usb of the L/R and mono out. When I get my X-Live card I can check the single track out better but so far it seems to be the best microphone I've tried on a drummer in some time.

Douglas R. Allen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OGXctqePKg

[brian maddox]

A stagehand friend of mine was the Drum Tech for Dream Theater.  He mentioned it to me during a load-in once years ago before i knew who that band was.  I was like "dream Who?"

Anyway, i watched one of their concert videos a couple years later and there he was in the background of the drum shot.  Seems his only gig during the show was to swing the boom mic out for Mike Portnoy when he sang and then quickly swing it back.

Perhaps your band needs to invest in a drum tech... 

[Stephen Kirby]

Hats with a "crunch" when they close, and more 'ring' than 'ping'?

Traded some CiE Constantinoples to a friend (too harsh and loud for anything I was doing) for the K Darks.  The set was too mushy but the top together with a '70s New Beat I have worked.  The Heavier bottom actually makes more "chick" than the matched set did but has that darker trashier sound (which doesn't overwhelm the beat) when struck.
Many folks get cymbals far too thick and large because that's what they see their heroes playing in arenas.  Get into a bar with a window behind you and they're louder in the vocal mics than the singers.  A buddy who plays with a large corporate band has a fairly dark and quiet Bosphorus ride.  He says the soundman can always turn up the overhead on that side, but he wants the snare and backbeat to not get swamped, and for his background vocals to come through clearly.  He also plays open handed on the hats and puts them further from the snare.

[Wes Garland]

So, the observation that the drummer's high hats are at roughly 80 degrees to his mic are interesting.  I've looked at photos from a number of shows, as well as how he left his kit after rehearsal, and this seems pretty consistent.

I never gave this much thought before, but now I've been studying the polar patterns at 1kHz / 80 degrees of every mic in my bag.   The 58s and Beta 58s have about 5dB of attenuation at 80 degrees, but the Audix i5 has 9dB - even though it's cardioid, it's tighter around the sides.   I've never used this mic on vocals, but I'm going to give it a shot on Wednesday night.  I'm eliminating anything bigger than a 58 (eg 421) right off the hop since I think it would interfere with his playing.

I see the appeal of the Beta 56 in this position as well - not only for the size, it's pickup pattern is tighter than the Beta 58.  I wish I had one to try. Will have to add it to the shopping list.  The problem with the Beta 58 here seems to be that it has a good pattern all the way out to 90 degrees.  The back-spill at 180 degrees isn't really a problem....the high hat signal in the vocal mic is much louder than the toms and cymbals.

I'll also see how much my compression is affecting this.  My goal was to have his normal vocals just barely tickling the gain reduction meter.  Every now and then he comes out with a syllable that is way louder than his normal content. I assume this is due to the physical nature of drumming.  I should dig out an uncompressed track. The amount of high hat compared to everything else is really startling, and the bigger problem is that it is omnipresent.

[Adrian Horn]

Optogate’s,these things are great.
I recently got 4,wouldn’t be without them now.
No false audio triggers,they open when someone is in front of the mic.

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