Recording a kick without dampening

[metanoiastudios]

Hey everyone. I'm recording a hardcore band this weekend, and obviously they want a very up-close, in-your-face sound. One issue: the kick drum doesn't have any dampening inside, so every time I put a mic inside I get a really weird sound, a nasty resonance. In order to get that modern kick sound I almost have to have an inside mic.

Any suggestions? I have an e602, md421 and sm7 at my disposal for this task.

[farview]

You don't need any dampening, you just need to put something in there that keeps the sound from reflecting off the shell. It doesn't have to touch the heads. I will use a little spare auralex.

If you put the SM7 in the vent hole in the reso head, you should be able to get a great sound without that basketball sounding thing with the mic on the inside.

What I will do is put a 421 inside the kick about 2 inches off of the batter head, about half way between the beater and the rim. Then another mic in front of the kick to pick up the reso head. Mix to taste.

[eeldip]

so what happens if you uh, dampen the kick drum to get the sound you want? does the band kill you?

[Nick Sevilla]

Hey everyone. I'm recording a hardcore band this weekend, and obviously they want a very up-close, in-your-face sound. One issue: the kick drum doesn't have any dampening inside, so every time I put a mic inside I get a really weird sound, a nasty resonance. In order to get that modern kick sound I almost have to have an inside mic.

Any suggestions? I have an e602, md421 and sm7 at my disposal for this task.

Uhm...

Without dampening, you will never get that metal kick sound...

Cheers

[metanoiastudios]

I was able to convince the drummer to let me put a small towel in there...that made a huge difference, phew. It was either that, or sound replacing, and I'm really trying hard to get away from that. I set up a kick tunnel, so I'll pick between the E602 and the MD421 right inside, and put another mic outside of the kick. Hopefully that gets me close...

They're not really after a super scooped "metal" kick...he doesn't actually want it very click-y at all, but it's going to be hard for that kick to cut through without emphasizing that attribute a lot.

[farview]

Uhm...

Without dampening, you will never get that metal kick sound...

Cheers

I do it all the time. It's a matter of head choice, beater choice and tuning.

[jnTracks]

+1 for a towel spread out on the bottom of the shell. i've done this before when all i need to kill is the high reflections.

[metanoiastudios]

+1 for a towel spread out on the bottom of the shell. i've done this before when all i need to kill is the high reflections.

Yep, this is what I've done in this particular case. I'd like to mess with positioning the towel so that it touches both heads if there's time, just to see what kind of effect it has on the tone of the drum.

If he thinks the towel is dampening the kick too much (though it doesn't seem like it is), I'll fold the towel in half and place it closer to the resonant head. It's crazy how even just a tiny bit of dampening will get rid of that basketball sound. The kick DOES sound great when you're listening to it in the room, but obviously the inside mic will hear things in a different way than my ears do when listening to the outside of the kick.

[Recycled_Brains]

Uhm...

Without dampening, you will never get that metal kick sound...

Cheers

I do it all the time. It's a matter of head choice, beater choice and TUNING.

THE most important thing. Nasty resonances come from badly tuned drums. The day I figured out how important it is to properly tune the kit, is the day my drum sounds got significantly better.

A little dampening can certainly help in a lot of instances, but that won't save you if the kick isn't tuned well. Also, a little goes a long way. I always laugh when drummers bring in their kit, and the kick has what looks like their living room set stuffed inside of it. First thing I do is make them take all that shit out.

I usually just throw a t-shirt or 2 inside, sometimes touching the heads, sometimes just resting on the shell. Probably because the studio shares space with a screen print shop. Usually does the trick though.

From the mics you have, I'd start with the e602 (love this mic), and maybe the 421 on the batter side. I used just a 602 on the kick for my band's demo recording (we play heavy), with said t-shirt resting on the shell of the drum. Fortunately for me, our drummer is a mad scientist about drum tuning. I found that some liberal compression alleviated the need for much eq'ing.

[metanoiastudios]

From the mics you have, I'd start with the e602 (love this mic), and maybe the 421 on the batter side. I used just a 602 on the kick for my band's demo recording (we play heavy), with said t-shirt resting on the shell of the drum. Fortunately for me, our drummer is a mad scientist about drum tuning. I found that some liberal compression alleviated the need for much eq'ing.

Good call about using a mic on the beater side...I actually have a Chameleon Labs TS-1 in omni mode looking at the beater, and hoping it'll catch a little bit of the snare wires...if it doesn't give me a "focused" sound I'll switch to cardioid. So it seems like I'll have 3 mics: a beater mic, an inside mic, and an outside mic. I'm sure I'll be able to mold these 3 signals into something close to what they're after.

I'll post clips as soon as I can. Thanks for all the input guys!

[drumsound]

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

[farview]

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.

[Snarl 12/8]

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)

I would have tried one already, except they insist you use a head with a pre-cut hole, reinforced around the edges, which I don't want to invest in on top of the kick port, when I've already got a perfectly good (self-cut) hole in my head.

I like going almost no dampening on my kick. I always have. Right now I've got two strips of felt across the batter and reso heads. I just put it under the head and have a little falling out the sides, aside from worrying about warping my hoops and drums, I'm digging it. I'm thinking of trying just one piece of felt each, now that my heads are more dead.

For the 15 years before that, I always just used a small towel rolled up as tightly as possible and duct-taped to the bottom of the batter head and shell. Maybe a piece of toilet paper, or just duct tape on the inside of the reso head.

I honestly don't know if I was getting a "modern" kick sound, since that was never my intention. I've always been more of a boom than a click man.

[Gregg Juke]

>>>>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

[trodden]

I find that a black american apparel t-shirt works the best.




heh..


really though, sometimes more or less is needed. depends on the drum.

but yeah, tuning is going to get your pretty damn far.