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Comment by Bennett Shapiro on March 21, 2013 at 7:40pm

I've never found there's one right answer, here. I have had varying degrees of success with at4051a's, akg535's, pvm480's, sm81's, scx-1's, and sm57's as well as many others over the years. Every hat, player, and room are different. Sometimes down 90 degrees works, sometimes 45. Sometimes aiming at the edge works, sometimes the bell. There are no rules. You have to be willing to experiment and adapt, or you will be left flailing in failed hi-hat hell (sic.)

Comment by Brad Madix on March 11, 2013 at 10:40am

I'm often limited by what will fit between the toms surrounding the hat. We've been using an A/T 450, which is a side-firing pencil condenser. It fits. Oh, and it sounds pretty good as well.

Comment by Jazmanaut on February 27, 2013 at 2:48am

My main music genre that i mix is nowdays mainly Reggae, and Hi Hat is no:1 percussive instrument on that genre.

So i had done my research on that.

My 3 favourites are:

SM57. It sounds great even high volumes. Has great middlefreqs and it´s not too hi-fi. Especially great on rock!

Sennheiser 441. So smooth, but articulative sound. Leaking sound remains stable and nice.

And my main hihat mic nowdays is Röde NT1. This is the original gray model. Just amazing middlefrequencies, nice highs, and allmost none of lo-end. A bit bulkyin use, but cheap and sounds just amazing on hihats!

Comment by Greg Cameron on February 6, 2013 at 11:39am

My go-to mic for a while now has been the Audix ADX-50 and ADX-51. It's a great sounding mic for a variety of things including HH and OH. Since I only really want HF/VHF from the hat, it doesn't take a lot to cut through the mix. A decent condenser is ideal. 

Comment by jazzhole on February 6, 2013 at 2:57am

Oh,yes- microphone choices: I´ ve probably used most of them at some point, B&K´s/ 451´s / Schoeps / 441´s... cheap chinese... Nowadays my favourite is Sennheiser MKH 8040. Fantastically transparent mic that´s easy to position due to it´s shorter body. I wish I had a briefcase full of MKH´ s, but the price, the price...

Comment by jazzhole on February 6, 2013 at 1:38am

I suppose the most preferred type of a mic would be a pencil-type condenser. Since these are fairly sensitive mics, and bleed can mess up your mix, more often than not, I aim the mic body away from rest of the kit, across the hat, pointing towards the area where the hat is hit. This may require some creative placement solutions, especially if the drummer uses percussion items/cymbals between the first tom and hh. One solution is to use a gooseneck clamped to the cymbal stand closest to the hh. Using a cardioid pattern you get pretty good isolation.

Comment by John Shotwell on February 5, 2013 at 7:56pm

I don't mic the hat that often, as I like to get the whole sound of the kit with stereo overheads. But a few of years ago I was working on a musical, presented in a jazz club in town. The band was set up on stage, with the performers down stage. The music was heavy, funky kind of stuff, the type where some intricate rhythms are played on the high hat. I tried a Sennheiser 609 on the hat, about 3/4 on an inch above the top cymbal when it was open. It was perfect ! It gave me a warm fat sound, very little bleed from the snare, and not so high-endy that it was out of control.

Comment by Greg Cameron on February 5, 2013 at 1:47pm

I tend to mic just inside the edge of the hat about 10" from the top hat with a steep 15 degree angle towards the inside - just enough inside the edge to prevent the "whoosh" when they're slammed shut but not too much inside to get too much bell sound. My EQ is pretty drastic, especially in smaller venues. I'll high pass as much as I can (500Hz on the Avid Venue at 24db/octave) and then use the EQ to chop off up past the vocal range. My goal is to add mostly just sizzle since the room and snare mic will pick up all the hat "body" I would ever want. Drastic high pass and EQing out most of the upper mids also gets most of the snare out of the hat mic which is all the better in my opinion. I basically do the same with overheads.