Operating Manual

The Overhead(s)

Overheads Bleed Suppressor

Six Walls v0.8 VST3

What it does

The Overhead(s) takes kick, snare and tom out of a drum overheads track and leaves the cymbals. It is the mirror image of a de-bleed plugin like BlackSalt Silencer, which strips overhead spill from the close mics — The Overhead(s) strips the close-mic content from the overheads.

The thing you want to keep (cymbals) is also broadband and transient, so this is a real separation problem, not an EQ move. Expect it to reduce the kit in the overheads rather than erase it: overhead spill usually sits 15–25 dB below the direct cymbal sound, so even a clean removal is a modest change to the sound of the track — where it pays off is phase coherence with your close mics and headroom when you push the overhead fader.

Installing

On Windows, run The-Overheads-<version>-Windows-Setup.exe. Click Yes on the one security prompt and it installs the VST3 to the system folder below. Restart your DAW or rescan plug-ins.

Prefer to place the bundle yourself (or on macOS)? The portable package is just The Overheads.vst3 plus this manual — copy the bundle into the VST3 folder for your system:

Where the .vst3 goes
SystemVST3 folder
Windows C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\
Copy the whole The Overheads.vst3 folder here. Needs an administrator prompt; a per-user alternative is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Common\VST3\.
macOS — all users /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/
Copy The Overheads.vst3 here (authenticates as admin).
macOS — current user ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/
No admin needed. The ~/Library folder is hidden — in Finder press ⌘⇧G and paste the path.
This build is Windows 64-bit The download contains a Windows VST3 only. The macOS paths above are here for reference — a Mac build isn't part of this release.

Quick start

  1. Insert The Overhead(s) on the stereo overheads track.
  2. Pick an Engine. Blind needs nothing else. Reference needs your close mics routed to the sidechains (next section).
  3. Turn on Delta and play. You should hear the kit being pulled out — kick and snare, little cymbal. Turn Delta off.
  4. Set Strength to taste. In Reference mode, watch each drum's pulling −x dB readout climb as the filter learns (a few seconds of playback).
  5. A/B by switching Engine to Off — it stays latency-aligned, so it's a clean comparison. The DAW's own bypass works too.

The engines

Two independent processors. Pick one, or run both in series.

Off clean bypass

Latency-compensated passthrough. Use it to A/B — it stays time-aligned with the rest of the mix, no flam.

Blind no sidechain

Overheads only. A linear-phase analysis detects the sharp low / low-mid energy of a shell hit and ducks it, tapering back to untouched above Cymbal Protect. Fast, always available, never surgical — it reduces the thump and ring, it doesn't isolate.

Reference sidechain

Route the kick / snare / tom close mics into the sidechain inputs. An adaptive filter per source learns that drum's spill path into the overheads (level, tone, room) and subtracts it. Surgical. Give it a few seconds of the drum playing to converge; it re-learns quickly after a fill or a section change.

An optional Residual Cleanup stage then chases what a single filter can't — the drum's ring changing through a hit, comb filtering from the shell radiating differently than the close mic hears it.

Reference + Blind series

Reference does the precise removal; Blind mops up whatever spill is left. The usual choice once your sidechains are wired.

Routing the sidechains

The Overhead(s) exposes three sidechain inputs: Kick, Snare, Toms. Feed them from the corresponding close-mic tracks or buses, with pre-fader sends so muting or riding the source faders doesn't change what The Overhead(s) sees. Sum multiple tom mics to one bus and send that to Toms.

Most DAWs expose only one VST3 sidechain per plugin — there, run one instance per drum, chained on the overheads, each keyed off that drum. DAWs with flexible bus routing (Reaper, and Studio One via the plugin's Sidechain menu) can feed all three into a single instance.

Freeze / offline bounce Some hosts — Studio One's Freeze and Transform among them — render a track in isolation and do not deliver sidechain audio during that pass. The result renders as if the references were silent. Print The Overhead(s) with a real-time capture, or an Export Mixdown with all tracks playing, instead.

Controls

Front-panel reference
ControlWhat it doesRange
Global
EngineOff / Blind / Reference / Reference + Blind.4-way
StrengthMaster intensity for whichever engine(s) are running. Your main dial.0–100 %
Cymbal ProtectEverything above this frequency is left alone. Lower it if cymbals dull; raise it if snare crack bleeds through.1–12 kHz
MixDry / wet blend of the processed overheads.0–100 %
DeltaMonitor only what's being removed. Your setup and troubleshooting tool.on / off
Output TrimMake-up gain on the plugin output.−24…+24 dB
Blind engine
Blind AmountDepth of the duck applied to detected shell hits.0–100 %
SensitivityHow eager the onset detector is. Too high grabs the hi-hat; too low misses ghost notes.0–100 %
Blind ReleaseHow fast the duck recovers between hits — sets how much cymbal wash returns.20–500 ms
Reference engine
Reference AmountMaster over the three per-drum amounts — how much of the learned spill estimate is subtracted.0–100 %
Bleed PathHow much of the room tail the adaptive filter models. Short = fast, clean, less overfit; long = catches ambient spill on a live kit.10–80 ms
Subtraction FloorSafety limit on how deep any one frequency is cut — guards against over-subtraction warble.−60…0 dB
Residual CleanupSpectral pass after the adaptive subtraction that tightens the drum's ring/tail. Back off if you hear gating.0–100 %
Shell sources
Kick / Snare / Toms — ArmEnable that reference. The LED strip shows the sidechain input level (−18 / −6 / OL); when the engine is working it also reads pulling −x dB.on / off
… AmountPer-drum trim under Reference Amount. Pull one down if it's nibbling cymbal transients that land on that beat.0–100 %
Presets & Reset PRESET loads a starting point (Reference — Kick + Snare, Blind — Gentle, De-bleed + Polish, …). Each preset first restores defaults, so switching between them is always clean. RESET returns every control to its factory value.

Reading the display

The meter row shows the Left and Right overhead output level with a Delta button between them. Along the bottom is a log-frequency analyser:

0 -12 -48 100 500 2k 10k
Output spectrum Reduction
The blue fill is the overheads coming out of The Overhead(s). The red line is the reduction curve — flat near the top when nothing is being removed, dipping wherever an engine is carving (here, the kick fundamental and the snare body). It moves with Strength and the per-drum amounts.

Dialing it in

Blind

Delta on. Set Blind Amount for depth and Sensitivity so it catches the hits you want without grabbing the hi-hat. If the cymbals sound dulled, raise Cymbal Protect. If the ring between hits feels choked, shorten Blind Release.

Reference

Wire the sidechains, arm the drums, and let it play. The pulling −x dB readout tells you it's working: −6 to −12 dB means a lot is coming out; −25 dB or lower means there isn't much spill there (or it needs more playback). Push Strength and Reference Amount to 100 to hear the full effect, then bring Residual Cleanup up slowly — stop when you hear warble or gating on sustained content.

If it feels like nothing's happening Check the Engine isn't on Off, and that the sidechain LEDs are actually lit during playback. Then remember the removal is real but small relative to the whole overhead — Delta plays it in isolation, which sounds far louder than the same content missing from the full track.

Latency

The Overhead(s) introduces a fixed ~85 ms (4096 samples at 48 kHz) of latency for its linear-phase processing, reported to your DAW for delay compensation. It does not change with the engine mode. Both the DAW's bypass and Engine = Off are latency-compensated, so switching them stays aligned with the rest of the mix.

Troubleshooting

No audible difference with the sidechains connected
The Engine must be on Reference or Reference + Blind — the sidechains do nothing in Blind or Off. Confirm the sidechain LEDs light during playback and give the filter a few seconds to converge.
A frozen / bounced track renders with no processing (or Delta renders silent)
The host isn't feeding the sidechains during offline render. Use a real-time capture or a full Export Mixdown with every track playing.
Short muffled or doubled sound when playback starts
Normal. The reference filter fades its correction in over about half a second while it learns; it settles on its own.
Warble or "underwater" artefacts
Ease Residual Cleanup down, and raise Subtraction Floor toward −18 dB. Over-aggressive settings punch holes the reconstruction can't hide.
The overheads sound thin or phasey with the effect in
Lower Strength or the per-drum Amount. Full removal of a spill path that's partly correlated with the cymbals will take some life with it.

At a glance

FormatsVST3
Audio I/OStereo in / out (mono supported) + 3 optional sidechain inputs
Latency4096 samples, reported (PDC)
EnginesBlind (reference-free) & Reference (adaptive de-bleed), series-chainable
MakerSix Walls