Recording a kick without dampening

[metanoiastudios]

Has anyone from the TOMB (IE, opinion we can trust) tried one of those Kick Port thingies? I'm very interested in those. The last blurb I saw (was it an ad) said "allows you to get a great kick sound with almost no dampening". (Paraphrasing)

Not that I have the credits to be of trustable opinion, but I have a BD with a KickPort and 2 felt strips in the middle of it. I don't really FEEL it, meaning that I don't hear it excite the room in a way that wasn't happening without it, but then again, my room is small, and I think you'd be more prone to hearing a drastic change in a large room.

My E602 does seem to pick up a little bit more in the sub frequencies, but it seems like I still could benefit from some dampening (still picks up weird resonances). I do have it tuned pretty loose, so I could be at fault here. In any event, I'm not hearing a massive change, so I'll probably take it off (it's a little hard to maneuver bulky mics like the E602 through the KickPort)

By the way, here's a link to one of the tracks we did today. What do you guys think of the kick so far? there's no processing of any kind on this whatsoever, so keep that in mind.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ifd4w5dt3 ... 20Flag.mp3

[drumsound]

You don't want to line the whole thing because you will dampen the shell. The basketball thing should go if you just lay something on the bottom. You don't have to kill all the reflections, just some of them.

Just like adjusting a pillow the amount of felt could be adjusted.

>>>>I've wanted to try lining the inside of a BD shell with a medium felt to get rid of the basketball sound, but not have the pillow sound...<<<<

This is like the antithesis of the John Bonham thing, which was tin-foil and anything they could find to make the inside of the bass drum sound _more reflective_. But then again, he was usually playing with an intact front head, right?

Drum tuning is still aggravating to me, and I've been working on it for more than half of my life now...

GJ

I love the Bonham thing, and went for years without a hole. That isn't always the most appropriate sound though.

Drum tuning is fun for me, but the lower the pitch and bigger the drum, the more work seems to be done to get it right.

[thethingwiththestuff]

i never heard anything about bonham using tin foil, which would make a ton of noise, i imagine. i always heard he liked cut up strips of newspaper.

[audioboffin]

I spent a night last week experimenting with a kick port. After lots of tuning and dampening trials I ended up with a towel and a lightweight woolen blanket (aircraft style, very thin). The effect of the kick port is best heard a a bit of a distance. I ended up with the "outside" mic about 18" away from the resonant head. I then built a tunnel using a frame of 5 chairs, with a king size 2" reticulated foam mattress overlay and a removalist's blanket over the top of that, keeping spill out of the outer mic so it was pretty much dedicated to the low end of the bass drum.

The drum (only 14" deep) ended up sounding deeper than a 17" deep custom order Tama bass drum (both kicks are 24" in diameter).

if you rely totally on a single internal mic, then the kick port seems to somehow rob low end inside the drum. The effect was a positive one in the outside mic, but didn't sound good with a large diaphragm condenser close to the port, even with various pop filters. It is only at a distance that I found the kickport to be a useful sound.

[evan]

If nobody's mentioned this already, drum heads make a huge difference too. Try 2-ply, predampened, or hydraulic heads on the batter and/or resonant side if it's too bouncy-sounding.

I found a fairly reliable method for tuning bass drums is the 'lowest possible note' approach. Loosen all the lugs, and place some weight in the center of the drumhead with your palm. Tune up each lug just enough so that the ripples in the head disappear. I also find myself re-reading the drum tuning bible every now and then for pointers.

As far as muting goes, I like a sweater/blanket/pillow lightly touching the head, or a small piece of fabric or rolled-up sock taped loosely to the head so it bounces and dampens the resonant tail of the stroke.

I've also been into using SDCs on bass drums, sometimes on the batter side or even slightly above the shell. The TS-1 I have actually does a great job picking up the bass drum, even in an overhead position!