How does Sir wear his Hi-Hat ?

PaulBrewer

On the subject of hi-hat panning I'm a purveyor of the 'logical' right placement ... I'm in front of the right handed drummer, not behind him..... However America, as a rule, disagrees with me.

What do the Brothers think ?

trackmixstudio

I always pan the overheads drummer's POV then place the hats close mic wherever the hats lie in the stereo image of the overheads then usually mute it come mix
I hate audience POV when listening to music.

goatboy1000

Same, I hate audience perspective drums, to such a degree that if I'm listening on headphones I'll often switch them around, which can mess with the rest of the mix, but at least a drum fill goes the right way..
I usually pan the hats about 15-20 left in Pro Tools, or whatever seems to match up with the overheads.
Maybe it comes from being able to play a bit of everything, so I always imagine playing what I'm listening to, so I have to pan drums that way.

krd

PaulBrewer wrote: »

On the subject of hi-hat panning I'm a purveyor of the 'logical' right placement ... I'm in front of the right handed drummer, not behind him..... However America, as a rule, disagrees with me.

What do the Brothers think ?

To tell you the truth. No music fan is going to gasp "the f'cker... he's panned the hi-hat to the left - that is not where the drummer's hand is.... Unless the drummer is left handed and has set the kit up as such..... I will google to see which handed the drummer is - if he's right handed, I will be so pissed"

It depends - hard panning sounds really weird with headphones on. Hard panning percussion can sound clever when your doing it - but sounds really stupid a few months later when you're listening back to it.

goatboy1000

krd wrote: »

To tell you the truth. No music fan is going to gasp "the f'cker... he's panned the hi-hat to the left - that is not where the drummer's hand is.... Unless the drummer is left handed and has set the kit up as such..... I will google to see which handed the drummer is - if he's right handed, I will be so pissed"

It depends - hard panning sounds really weird with headphones on. Hard panning percussion can sound clever when your doing it - but sounds really stupid a few months later when you're listening back to it.

I dunno man, the panning of a kit ALWAYS bothered me, long before I started mixing stuff, and still does now. Sure there are left handed drummers, everyone can think of a few but almost all stuff I have is by right handed drummers and as a result I suppose I've come to expect that when listening to a song. Not saying that's a good thing, that's just the way it is.
As for hard panning, I always figured if you have a stereo field to work with you should use it. Fair enough not every song every time, and not everything needs to go to extremes either side but it's rare I come across a kit I don't think sounds better with a decent amount of panning.

studiorat

Whole kit as I'm sitting behind it. Drummers Perspective.

I like to play along...

Left handed drummers get the mono treatment, it gets too confusing !!

I seem to remember though there is something going on with left and right ear hearing and frequency and some relationship. Meaning we can perceive detail in HF better on one side. I might have made that up, but I seem to remember something about it.

I'll have to have a little look around.

DamagedTrax

drummers POV, anything else is just the work of the devil... although ive noticed my kits getting narrower and narrower as the years go on.

mono kits FTW!:D

splitrmx

I aurally place myself in front of the 808, not behind it.

madtheory

I'm amazed that someone could hate hi hat panning! You learn something new every day.

For me 85% of the time there's enough of it in the overhead, so it doesn't sound "panned". If I'm programming something I'll pan it just a little bit right.

If I'm short on inputs when tracking, the hats are the first to go. To me close miked hats usually sound like a drum machine or a seventies disco record.

I guess if you're going for drummer's perspective the panning should be more extreme and the mix of close mikes less diffuse too?

ZV Yoda

The drummer's perspective is the only perspective

krd

ZV Yoda wrote: »

The drummer's perspective is the only perspective

Which drummer?

The left handed drummer ---- or the right handed drummer?

And do you really think it's wise to listen to the drummer?

petermaher

ZV Yoda wrote: »

The drummer's perspective is the only perspective

The majority of people out there experience the kit from the outside, whether musicians(other band members)or not.........right handed drummer from the punters point of view. Hats to the right, and if mixing orchestral stuff flutes to the left.

madtheory

Good point Peter. I think recording/mixing orchestral is a good example of how fuzzy this is. In real life the sound is quite diffuse and it surrounds you in the concert hall. So stereo repro kind of sucks. it's only if you're in the front few rows that you get dramatic panning, like the pizz bass echo coming from the left giving the effect of the sound bouncing across. I don't think anyone would appreciate that effect on a recording though!

Also in real life the brass is highly directional and can easily cut the head off ya, but on a stereo system it sounds a lot softer because it gets diffused by the speakers and room, so it sounds a bit like strings (to me anyway). Actually even the best composers sometimes had trouble preventing the brass from overpowering the strings in the orchestration. Also some orchestras don't have enough string players. Or the conductor is a brass player .

I think that's why I like a Decca Tree, it gives the best compromise between the direct and reflected sound. But stereo would never fool a regular concert going sound engineer. But there are not many of those around...

Most of the orchestral stuff we're exposed to is in film music, and that's totally unrealistic. Everything is close miked (or all samples) so you can have pp strings louder that fff brass.