Kick drums

[roscoenyc]

For me it's more about the drum itself.

Personally, I like 20", 24" and 26"s. Not a big fan of the 22"
I really like the Remo Powerstroke heads on the beater side.

Here's where I go off the standard setup.
Years ago I recorded at the big studios with the awesome rooms and the floated floors that really helped the kick resonance. Nowadays it's rare that we get to record a drumkit in such an awesome space.

I found that I liked the sound of the kick drum with the front head on and no hole. Lots of action with the kick pedal and a really great sound in the room. (even a small room)

Not to be nuts about the no hole thing I have installed mics inside both of my studio kick drums so I can get the more traditional close mic sound if I want it.

This set up works for me most of the time. It's especially good for the Glyn Johns plus setup (the 3 then the close mics also)

The only time it doesn't work is with a drummer who may not have the foot technique to be able to handle the bounce from the no hole kick. I have a couple front heads with holes in them for those occasions.

I really love the sound of the resonance of that front head (usually an Emperor)

[MoreSpaceEcho]

btw, at what point do you guys consider eq as "dramatic"? like ...more than 8db? more than 12?

i dunno, for me 6db is a lot, but i know people routinely do way more than that. fwiw, i maintain that, contrary to conventional internet wisdom, you DON'T need to default to crazy eq on kick drums to make them work in a mix.

i've put plenty of kicks on records with no eq at all. even with a wall of guitars to contend with.

pick the right heads, tune them well, put the mic in a good spot and hit the thing correctly and you'll end up with a very useful kick sound that works fine with no eq. really, you will.

that said, it doesn't always work out that way. or maybe you're mixing something tracked elsewhere....if it sounds fucked, forget the tweezers and get out the hammer.

also i agree with permanent hearing damage on the sub thing.
well maybe not on entirely the frequency range
rarely you will find the low end sufficient with a one-mike kick setup without lots (5-8db i'd say) of eq in "modern" rock music

i don't want to start a fight, but i disagree with all this. i raised an eyebrow at the 30-40hz thing. that's really really low. i don't think there's many monitors that go that low, so unless you have a sub, you're not even hearing that stuff.

60-80hz i would buy, but even then, i'd probably argue that you'd do better to just turn the kick up a bunch and then cut out some midrange.

although maybe you guys are talking about a mic that's in the drum. i can see where that might be lacking in low end. i never have a mic there though.

anyway, be careful when boosting low end on kicks....really boomy, out of proportion low end is one thing i deal with pretty often in mastering.

i also kind of disagree with our esteemed moderator....i usually find that if the drum sounds good in the room it sounds good recorded. although sometimes if i'm going for a single-head kick sound (which isn't often), that will sound not terribly exciting when i'm playing, but it comes out good on tape.

i DO agree with roscoe about both the powerstroke on the batter and a solid front head, so you know, i'm not totally disagreeable.

[boid]

haha don't worry, I don't think we don't disagree THAT much

I'm not saying you can't get a good kick sound without eq

the last set of songs I did with my drummer were very distorted guitar oriented
and noisy but the kick cuts through although I haven't even touched a fader yet

however that doesn't seem to be the norm for me and I guess not for most people either
I'm not experienced enough and often don't get the time to set up mics for half a day, or simply just can't really imagine what the mix is gonna sound like while tracking (sometimes we "write in the studio", so you don't know what's going to happen to a song after the basic tracks)


and like I said I don't agree with 30-40 Hz either
(I always get into arguments with my drummer when he mixes things and has +8dB at 45Hz which sounds crazy to me)

however, I rarely NOT boost a little at somewhere from 85 to 115 Hz
and esp. in case of a single mic setup like a MD421 inside, it has sometimes been as much as 6 db or something.
the md421 seems to take that much eq quite well without sounding too unnatural for some reason, so I used it for that when I didn't have enough recording inputs or no condensers

now I'm trying to get the sound with multiple mics and their placement if needed
and I'm getting better at getting sounds
but I still boost a dB or two...dunno
maybe I'm doing it wrong

I often read about scooping a bit of midrange but never really found a "good spot" to cut in the past...hm.. will try that again
thanks

[/b]

[permanent hearing damage]

I probably should have noted a few things: that boost is with a very wide Q. And I'm easily talking 6-8to dB in a lot of cases. And this also almost always is in conjunction with a pretty steep cut in the low mids with a considerable interactive/overlapping frequency.

I've tried pushing the same way in the 60-80 Hz range and it just doesn't give me the same oomf that I'm after.

If I took out a spectrum analyzer, I may very well be doing something entirely different than I think, but this has been working for me.

[terryb]

I've been happy lately with either an e602 or m88 about 2 feet in front of the reso head.
The e602 gives me a lot of punchy low end this way

I've also used an omni as heart mic and it gives me a sense of the woodiness of the shell. Cool sound to my ears.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

that boost is with a very wide Q.

that makes more sense, it's acting more like a shelf. hey if it sounds good, it's good!

[drumsound]

I find that the sound of the BD in the room is directly inverse to how good it sounds recorded. IE Love the tone on tape, in the room it sounds meh, whereas awesome in the room is often problematic on tape.

Or just use the e602 because it's awesome.

Do I need to recalibrate my internet sarcasm detector (incredibly unreliable) or are you making fun of me? That "inverse to how it sounds in the room" flies in the face of most drum recording advice you hear. (Not that I doubt your experience, if you're being serious.) I wasn't saying the e602 was an automatic turd polisher, just head and shoulders better than any other mic I've tried on kick, which, admittedly, isn't a whole shit ton. YMMV and all that.

I seriously wasn't joking. It's a weird thing. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it has happened often.

I also love the sound and feel of a full front head, though that sound doesn't always work. I really should mount a mic in a BD like Roscoe mentioned.

[T-rex]

I use an e602 inside the kick and a Mouse about an inch or two off the front head. Mix to taste. Before the mouse I used an old kenwood 12 inch home speaker cabinet with just the woofer connected.

The 602 is awesome and cheap but any combination will work if you have one mic to capture the attack and o e for the really low end. Obviously you need to move the mics so they are I phase.

[GooberNumber9]

I'm not a fan of mics designed to be kick mics, but the last recording I made I only really had an Audix D6, which I knew was going to sound too scooped, so I put the D6 in the usual place: partly in the hole pointing at the beater, and then I added a 57 on the resonant side just pointing at a spot on the resonator head that sounded good in the cans.

I liked it because I can balance the flavor and rich midrange from the 57 with the cut and thump from the D6. Still, my favorite sound was when I had an RE20 that I borrowed from a friend that sounded great just pointing at the drum. MD-421 sounds nice also.

[T-rex]

I didn't see all the other posts. I totally agree on the powerstroke and emperor combo and I love my Ludwig 24" kick dearly. My little catalina bass drum came with solid powerstroke type heads on both sides and tuned low wow, that sounds amazing. So I may try a solid powerstroke on front of my 22" kick with no muffling in between and see how that sounds.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

should also mention that i'm a big fan of the fiberskyn heads with the powerstroke ring for kick batter. total 808 boom. really fun to play.

[Marc Alan Goodman]

For me it's more about the drum itself.

As always that's the bottom line. But if we're talking about mics, it really depends on the sound the drummer is going for. With a heavier rock kick I usually go for a e602 inside and a (dare I say it) fet47 outside, but I've had really good luck recently using an Avenson omin just inside the kick, or in one case on top of it catching the shell on a drum that had a full outside head. I've also been using our Sony C55p out in front of the kit quite a bit (our fet47 was in the shop) and really liking it.

[Leopold]

Sennheiser e602 inside bass drum -> Earthworks KickPad (or not) -> API preamp = never not happy

I was using a similar set up, e602 into an API, then I started trying a separate beater mic, and one in front of the kick, a sub etc.....

I'm back to the e602 barely inside the front hole or just outside it, into an API. It just sounds good, I have a nice sounding room so if we want more boom I add some of that. Good drummer, good mic, good pre.

Eddie

[T-rex]

Sennheiser e602 inside bass drum -> Earthworks KickPad (or not) -> API preamp = never not happy

I was using a similar set up, e602 into an API, then I started trying a separate beater mic, and one in front of the kick, a sub etc.....

I'm back to the e602 barely inside the front hole or just outside it, into an API. It just sounds good, I have a nice sounding room so if we want more boom I add some of that. Good drummer, good mic, good pre.

Eddie

I have found that just about every bass drum and bass drum mic I have tried usually soundedsounded best / most balanced just inside the hole. I pretty much always use two now, but back when I was using one mic that is where it ended up 9 times out of 10.