← Six Walls Support  ·  sixwalls.net

Operating Manual

The Overhead(s)™

Overheads Bleed Suppressor

Six Walls v1.1 VST3 · AU · AAX

What it does

The Overhead(s) reduces kick, snare, and tom bleed in a drum overheads track, giving you more control over the shells in your mix while keeping the cymbals' brightness. It is the mirror image of a de-bleed plugin like BlackSalt Silencer, which strips overhead spill from the close mics — The Overhead(s) turns the close-mic content down in 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

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. If Pro Tools is installed, the installer also offers an AAX version for Pro Tools — tick Also install the AAX version for Pro Tools; it goes to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins\. Pro Tools picks new plug-ins up at its next launch.

macOS: open The-Overheads-<version>-macOS.pkg. It installs the VST3 and the Audio Unit (for Logic and GarageBand) for all users; a Pro Tools (AAX) checkbox (off by default) adds the AAX to /Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins/. It is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens with no Gatekeeper warning.

Then restart your DAW or rescan plug-ins.

Prefer to place the bundles yourself? The portable download holds The Overheads.vst3 plus this manual on Windows, or The Overheads.vst3 and The Overheads.component on macOS — copy them into the folders for your system:

Where the plug-ins go
SystemFolder
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/ and /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/
Copy The Overheads.vst3 into VST3 and The Overheads.component into Components (authenticates as admin). This is where the .pkg installs them.
macOS — current user ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ and ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/
The same two bundles, for your user only. No admin needed. The ~/Library folder is hidden — in Finder press ⌘⇧G and paste the path.
Windows and macOS Windows: 64-bit VST3. macOS: universal (Apple silicon and Intel), VST3 and Audio Unit. The Audio Unit is macOS-only; Windows DAWs use the VST3.

Quick start

  1. Insert The Overhead(s) on the stereo overheads track.
  2. Turn on an engine with the ON/OFF switch in its panel header. Blind needs nothing else. Reference needs your close mics routed to the sidechains (next section). Turn both on to run them in series.
  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 both engines 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. What it learns is saved with your session, so a reopened session or an offline render starts fully engaged instead of learning again.

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.

Pro Tools (AAX). Pro Tools gives a plug-in exactly one mono key input, so the Pro Tools version shows a single Key slot instead of Kick / Snare / Toms. Send the kick and the snare (and toms, if you like) pre-fader to one mono bus — call it OH - SC — and pick that bus in the plug-in’s key-input selector at the top of the window, then arm Key.

What that costs, and what doesn’t matter:

If you run the VST3 through a wrapper in Pro Tools instead, only the Kick slot usually receives anything — use the native AAX.

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
EngineSet by the ON/OFF switches in the Blind and Reference panel headers: Off / Blind / Reference / Reference + Blind. One automatable parameter.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 analyzer:

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 switching both engines off are latency-compensated, so switching them stays aligned with the rest of the mix.

Troubleshooting

No audible difference with the sidechains connected
The Reference engine's switch must be ON — the sidechains do nothing when only Blind is on. Confirm the sidechain LEDs light during playback and give the filter a few seconds to converge the first time; after that it remembers what it learned, including across saving and reopening the session.
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 (Windows, macOS) · Audio Unit (macOS)
PlatformsWindows 64-bit · macOS universal (Apple silicon and Intel)
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