Question about Tricks for Drums in A live Setting?

[soundguy_99]

Hey guys,
Besides different micing techniques, is there any of getting better separation between the snare and HiHat, especially in a live environment.
I have a Bar Gig in which the room is very lively especially the stage. I currently use a drum shield, for the bleed into the front end, and gates on the drums to cut down on the bleed between the mics.
It depends on the drums, but I occasionally get a snare that has more metal snare to it, and with open hi hats, they tend to get blended together, not to mention some of the ambient noise I get off of the stage.
I was wondering beside the obvious, and micing techniques, is there any other tricks to help get more body out of the two instruments and therefore more separation in the mix.
I was wondering about maybe compression tricks, I could try, EQing tricks, maybe even phase ect. , so that I can get more body out of the two instruments, and then punch them more P.A over top of the noise coming from stage. Even if someone has some drum tricks, that I might be able to ask the drummer to do, to help improve the tone of the drums.
Some bands are great and have a tight snare and hihat so, its easy to put in them in the P.A and get that separation, but I was hoping to find some tricks for those times, where I don`t always get the best tuned drums.
Any thoughts, is greatly appreciated,
Thanks,
soundguy_99

[sabianq]

i use to do a lot of drum miking, but over the years, i have learned that "I" only need to use two microphones on the set (assuming the space is small like 100 feet x 100 feet). i use the SM57 and just place it inside of the kick drum and just lay it on the pillow, then i set the gain to peak (not clip) when the drummer really hits it. the rest of the drum set is actually as loud as the rest of the band so there is no need for reinforcement for the snare, floor toms or crash cymbals. the Hi Hat and ride cymbals need to be reinforced to accentuate the audio to mix well with the rest of the band.

i like to set up another sm57 on a boom stand and nestle it under the ride cymbal and over the hi-hat then set the gain to peak (but not clip) at nominal levels, this gives me very nice control over the general mix of the set.

other than that, i don't use gates or EQ's at all, I think the sound sounds best when run flat and dry.

for vocals, i like to press up the high end a little to compensate for the mixers sensitivity to lower and mid range frequencies.

[87PRS]

snare and hi-hat seperation is a common problem, even in the studio environment...of course mic placement plays a big part, but there is a little trick...take a sm57 and tape a small diaphram cond to it, and use the two mics on hi-hat, if you can put the sdc in a paper tube it helps, an empty tp tube works....this sounds weird, but the mic seperation will give you control over the hi-hat and better seperation... we'll it works for me.

[soundguy_99]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the suggestions.
I tend to get allot of "loose" sounding snares, you know the type, where the metal snare on the bottom is set too lose, or and/or the actual skin is set too loose, and all you get is that raspy sound,and no tone, especially if the drummer hits light. Add to the fact that its a live room, drum shield and open hi-hats, which adds to the top end, its very tough to get any tone out of the snare or the hi hats. Beside asking the drummer to either change the way hes playing or adjust the snare, is there any tricks of getting a more consistant and righter snare sound with more tone, so that it can cut through that garbage thats coming from stage. Kick is usually pretty consistant, its tough to listen to a drumset especialy with a drummer playing rock, and not be able to hear a nice solid tone from the snare. You can`t even really through any effects on it, cause a plate or verb I find just adds to that loose sound.
Is there any compression ot phasing tricks that you can do from the console to get a more consistant tone, especially when the tone aint there in the first place.
Thanks again,
soundguy_99

[GZsound]

It seems to me that the problem is with the sound of the snare drum, not with the mic technique. If you have a crummy sounding snare drum, I don't know how much processing will help.

I am a member of the "less is more" live drum micing camp. I use a kick mic, a snare mic and an overhead. That gives pretty good control over the snare and the overhead picks up the hi hats just fine.

But trying to process a crappy sounding snare drum by isolating it seems to be pretty difficult to me.

[87PRS]

I agree, if it sounds crappy it will sound crappy, man...drummers are trying to get a "fat" sound by having loose snare strainers and low tuned heads, it just doesn't get it in a live performance OR tuning or recording...if drummers come into the venue with snares like this just ask them to "tighten up" a little bit...all compression will do is make a bad sound stand out more in your mix, and jmho if you can't put some verb on a snare its way outta wack....less is more, its a way of life! 87'

[TimmyP1955]

If you are talking live rock:

I always need kick, floor tom, and rack tom mics.

I need a hat mic about 1/2 of the time.

I need a snare mic about 1/4 of the time, it's ok 1/4 of the time, and I wish I could turn it down below off 1/2 of the time.

I never need cymbal mics. Usually I have more cymbals than I want, even with OM7s on the vocals.

[87PRS]

I think who ever is sitting behind the kit has more control off stage sound than the guy who is trying to mix it...technique.

[GZsound]

I think who ever is sitting behind the kit has more control off stage sound than the guy who is trying to mix it...technique.

Bingo.....

[TimmyP1955]

I think who ever is sitting behind the kit has more control off stage sound than the guy who is trying to mix it...technique.

In theory this is true. However IME mixing around 200 drummers, there were very few that - without the reinforcement I described - did not have overly loud snare & cymbals, and nearly inaudible toms.

[130dB]

My experience in <200 occupancy size venues was that a large number of drummers really have no clue as to the nature of live sound and play with extremely poor dynamics... eg. loud and even louder. (Not to pick on the drummers, because lots of guitar players have this problem too.)
Good live drum sounds start with the drummer's technique and the tuning of his heads. If those two factors aren't in place, no amount of tweaking at the console is going to save him.

One of my most enjoyable nights behind the console was with a band that had an electronic drum kit and everyone had good control of their stage volume. For once I could relax and get creative with the mix.

[gruzina]

my tip for you for getting better separation between the snare and HiHat is:
take a regular mic stand connect to the stand a par of squashed wood (or other acustic metirial ) and locat it betwine the hihit and the snare
and you will be able to find it very helping to gate the hihit/snare reflactions...
one of my favorite ....
have fun

[Drawmer]

I've tried experimenting with gates and physical separation between the snare and hats, but didn't get anything really useful out of it.
Working in an arts center, I've yet to see engineers with top touring acts apply physical separation between snares and hats.

For myself, I usually have the hats rolled of all the way up till 8Khz using AT4051, so only the sizzle from the hats cut through the mix. This way I get better control when the drummer starts to wail on the open hat parts.
Even when peaking @ 0db, the perceived loudness doesn't over whelm the mix.

As for the snare, I don't gate them, because, like many will agree with me, it's hard to get it to work like how we want it to work, specially the ghost notes.

I mic the snares with a Beta57 for tops, and an AT4051 bottom, usually with the 4051 phased reversed depending on the type of snare or sound I'm trying to achieve. Most times I'm trying to achieve a FAT snare, changing the phase helps me get this, of course if it's a piccolo nothing can get it to sound FAT.
Usually I don't have any kind of EQ on the top and bottom.

I feel that I can get both good body and attack from this set up of the snare.

With this set up between the snare and hats, the way the Hat mic is EQed, the spill from the snare isn't really perceived.

I base my mix approach to the "Equal Loudness Curve", and preserve as much of the dynamics of the mix as I can, so compression for transient instruments is arbitrary to me. I don't want to make them louder, just cut through the mix, hence condensers for attack, and dynamic mics for body.