Rock Drummers play Hi-Hats Way too hard....

well if the hi hat are still to loud even without using the overhaed track maybe the placement of the snare mic or the tom is not well placed or not the right microphone.at least try another drumer;) or him to plthe drums in two different take with a click.that's extramaly difficult to record a good drum session,u need a gooboth,a good drumer with a a good drumeset,the right microphone well place,right preamp,right desk,right converter,and even when u got the all u can still have mistakes...good luck

Maybe notching out the hi-hats (5k-ish, narrow bandwidth) in the overheads? Probably make the cymbals sound a bit funny.

Better yet - can the drummer and use DFHS!

hehe

Well, that's rock'n' roll. Been going on like that forever.

Go listen to "She Loves You" by The Beatles, made in 1963, for instance.

Most of the time the hats are compressed so much you can't even hear individual hits, they become a wash in the mix, and that has been a popular and common sound in rock for decades.

I think engineers always need to adjust. When the musicans have to be told to play differently for you to record them, then you are no longer recording them, they are adjusting to you. If in this particular case the hats are just WAY out of line, you might try putting down a rough take and playing it back for the drummer. If he hears it himself, he'll likely adjust without the psychological impact of having the engineer tell him he's playing too loud. To him, remember, he's playing naturally. It's your job to capture that.

TH

A good drummer will play the kit balanced. Obviously, this wasn't the case for your drummer...

It's not uncommon to lose the hi-hat mic at mix time. A lot of hat makes it through the overheads, negating the need for a separate mic.

I would suggest try multiband compression. The one in the Apple plug-ins category is actually quite good (better than Logic's actually). Experiment with finding the frequencies that will tame the hats.

You can even go one step beyond that, and automate the multiband, so that when cymbal crashes hit, it eases up, but then clamps down again when the hats are bashing around.

Let this serve as one more reminder, if the sound isn't good at the source, i.e, the musician and his instrument, there's not a lot anyone can do past that point.

Good luck.

I am a drummer and there is no difference bettween playing in the club and playing in the studio, It is your job to capture the performance, I like my drums mixed as close as possable to the final mix, and it is your job to provide the drummer with a good monitor mix so he can hear himself, if the drummer is playing the hats to loud,turn them up in his mix,. that goes for anything you track,

Yeah, and a hi hat mic is about the silliest thing in the world in rock. Maybe if it's a light little intricate pattern or something but for a banging away thing, you just don't need it. You are adding to the problem;)

TH

you're right. every drummer has a different balance. a guy that's used to a 10,000 stadium is gonna play like that in a studio, and that studio should be huge.
a session drummer will play the notes (HH) in balance with the rest of the kit, for recording porpoises.
hihats - like ride cymbals, they act as "filler" in small ensembles. in bigger ones, their role can be reduced somewhat.
if the drummer can't change his/her style/balance, then change the drummer.

This won't help with the overheads so much but I used to put about a square foot of egg-carton foam around the mics a couple of inches away from the head of the mics. I know what you are thinking..."You'll lose the room ambience with that set up!" Surprisingly, not really. It does separate (mostly) the hi-hat and snare (in the snare mic) for instance and you can isolate toms that way too.

Don't knock it 'til you try it.

X

Two things:

1) Did you do a sound check and have the band members hear the way the recording was going? Did the drummer and and the band sign off on the amount of hihat that was going to be present?

2) Depending nn the overhead set up and room situation, it is sometimes possible to get an XY array 'behind' the drummers head which will take a few dB of direct sound out of the OH mix. However, in this case with Animal on the kit (I'm a percussionist so I'm allowed to say that...) you may have to set up differently IF the person paying you for the recording doesn't want that much hihat in the mix AND the drummer can't or won't stop playing like that. You may now not be able to get an OH sound that includes all the drums, etc since the drummer isn't playing what you want to hear. Point the OHs at the crash cymbals and away from the hi hat (or put a monster 20inch crash between the mic and the hi hat for a shield), roll off the low end (drums) and now you will have a 'just' cymbal mix. Of course the problem is that cymbals are FUNDAMENTALLY bass instruments and removing too much low end will make the cymbals sound a little odd and processed.

Final, summing thoughts - the overheads are a balance of the entire drumset. If the drummmer plays any of the instruments louder than others, the OHs should pick that up. That isn't your problem. It is your problems when your recording makes it sound like the kit/player is unbalanced when that isn't the case.

Paul