How to get these stereo (hihats) drums?

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In this song, you can hear the hihats are stereo, they're not just panned. It gives the drums a width that would otherwise be lacking because both the kick and snare are straight down the centre. How is it done?? It almost sounds like the hihat was stereo miced. any ideas?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUzEYcR2VtM
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Comments

  • stickyfiddlestickyfiddle Frets: 26751
    Could well be 2 mics. Or a second hihat sound either triggered based on the primary recording? Or 2 separate triggered hihat sounds for that matter..

    It's a nice sound
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    It is programmed- it isn't a real kit.
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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    octatonic said:
    It is programmed- it isn't a real kit.
    I agree with this. But that still doesn't explain the stereo sound. Unless he's mainly using the overhead mics?

    Could well be 2 mics. Or a second hihat sound either triggered based on the primary recording? Or 2 separate triggered hihat sounds for that matter..

    It's a nice sound
    I don't think it sounds like two separate sounds. It sounds like one sound to me..

    On my interface, I can enable mid-side processing which sends the mid channel to the left speaker and the side channels to the right speaker. The kick and snare are only in the mid, whereas the hi-hat is equally prevalent in both mid and side and has a very similar character, indicating it is a a wide stereo recording of a single hi-hat? Could it be a stereo reverb that widens it? hmmm..
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    edited April 2020
    Branshen said:
    octatonic said:
    It is programmed- it isn't a real kit.
    I agree with this. But that still doesn't explain the stereo sound. Unless he's mainly using the overhead mics?

    You could create that in a variety of ways- feed it into a short stereo reverb on a bus and mute the centre signal.
    Or use a stereoizer plugin.
    Or use ADT or a H3000.
    Or just use a drum plugin with OH's.
    It might just be a sample from a stereo sample pack- if I was a betting man that is what I would guess.
    A lot of the time it is less about programming and more about choosing the source materials.

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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    octatonic said:
    Branshen said:
    octatonic said:
    It is programmed- it isn't a real kit.
    I agree with this. But that still doesn't explain the stereo sound. Unless he's mainly using the overhead mics?

    You could create that in a variety of ways- feed it into a short stereo reverb on a bus and mute the centre signal.
    Or use a stereoizer plugin.
    Or use ADT or a H3000.
    Or just use a drum plugin with OH's.
    It might just be a sample from a stereo sample pack- if I was a betting man that is what I would guess.
    A lot of the time it is less about programming and more about choosing the source materials.

    Thanks for the insight. I will be returning to reference this thread when producing.
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    I don't think there is any mystery here, he's just put the kick and snare mics straight down the middle, and panned the HH mic a bit to one side -- it's probably also to one side in the overheads, which would be normal. Ideally when you set up overheads on a kit you try to get the kick and snare centred, the toms and ride on one side and the hats on the other.

    But yes these are not live drums in any case.

    There is some interesting stereo movement going on but that's not coming from the hats.
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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    Stuckfast said:
    I don't think there is any mystery here, he's just put the kick and snare mics straight down the middle, and panned the HH mic a bit to one side -- it's probably also to one side in the overheads, which would be normal. Ideally when you set up overheads on a kit you try to get the kick and snare centred, the toms and ride on one side and the hats on the other.

    But yes these are not live drums in any case.

    There is some interesting stereo movement going on but that's not coming from the hats.
    Thanks for chiming in. Now that you mention it, it does sound like it's simply panned slightly right. And you're probably right about the OHs giving it a stereo image. 
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  • GrangousierGrangousier Frets: 2621
    If you did want to do it, put a simple delay on an aux track, no feedback, so just one delay; very short delay time (20 ms-ish?) send the mono hi hat to it. Pan the original one way, the delay the other. Change the delay time for different widths. 
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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    If you did want to do it, put a simple delay on an aux track, no feedback, so just one delay; very short delay time (20 ms-ish?) send the mono hi hat to it. Pan the original one way, the delay the other. Change the delay time for different widths. 
    This is cool. Would you pan hard left and right for this? 
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    Yes, be careful how it sounds in mono though.

    The classic trick here is to use a small amount of pitch-shift as well as a short delay. SoundToys make a plug-in called Microshift that recreates this effect.

    Another approach is to pan the dry sound hard right and send it to a mono reverb panned hard left.
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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    Stuckfast said:
    Yes, be careful how it sounds in mono though.

    The classic trick here is to use a small amount of pitch-shift as well as a short delay. SoundToys make a plug-in called Microshift that recreates this effect.

    Another approach is to pan the dry sound hard right and send it to a mono reverb panned hard left.
    I've got the little microshift which I use for some adding width and some chorusing. Thanks for the replies. Lotsa cool tricks to try out. 
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  • thegummythegummy Frets: 4389
    Stuckfast said:
    I don't think there is any mystery here, he's just put the kick and snare mics straight down the middle, and panned the HH mic a bit to one side -- it's probably also to one side in the overheads, which would be normal. Ideally when you set up overheads on a kit you try to get the kick and snare centred, the toms and ride on one side and the hats on the other.

    But yes these are not live drums in any case.

    There is some interesting stereo movement going on but that's not coming from the hats.
    When I saw this thread on my phone I was intrigued to hear the song to hear what was being referred to but have to admit I thought the same as this ^ just sounds like normal where the hi hat is panned a bit.

    It's more common for a hat to be stereo miced than not - its common to use a separate mono mic on the had in addition to the stereo overheads and also common to just use the overheads with no direct mic on the hi hat but I've rarely heard of a kit being micced with just a mono mic picking up the hihat and no overheads.

    Definitely worth noting the warning about how things sound in mono - some of these stereo tricks leave the track incompatible with mono playback.
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