drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

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drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by permanent hearing damage » Mon Jun 04, 2018 8:08 am

As a drummer, I empathize with not wanting to chop a hole in your $50 kick head. Obviously I have a few kicks folks are welcome to use (with sound holes), but that can often hamper their playing if they're used to a different feel.

So if a drummer wants some snap/click but is opposed to removing or cutting up their resonant kick head, how do you all normally deal with it? I got lucky this past weekend - the tom mounting hardware had been removed so I just dangled an SM98 down there. I know I can always use a sample, but I like to not rely on those more than I have to. I've tried micing the batter head near the beater, but snare bleed is always nuts and it never works quite how I hope.

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Mon Jun 04, 2018 8:16 am

I’ll sometimes put a 57 on the beater side a few inches away from the spot where the beater hits. Closer if you want isolation, farther back if you want some under snare action too. If the kick is crazy boomy and I don’t need that much in the mix I just move the main kick mic over to the beater side and don’t put anything on the reso head. You’ll get it in the room mics and oh anyways.
Other times a crotch mic will give you lots of attack on top of all the other good stuff is does.

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Jun 04, 2018 8:27 am

crotch mic is usually good for some attack.

and i recall albini tends to put a mic on the batter head and gates it, i forget the specifics but i know there's videos where he talks about this.

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by permanent hearing damage » Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:24 am

yeah, albini does often. i've seen him use SM98s for just this application and that's why/how i started experimenting with it. I believe he had it setup to duck via sidechain insert from the top snare mic. makes sense, but still a bit noisy for my taste, so gave up on that method.

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by losthighway » Mon Jun 04, 2018 11:04 am

Less popular answer: Pull the whole head off.

Obviously this is creating a drastically different sound. I've never forced a drummer to do it, but listed it as an option and auditioned the first couple ways of handling it, they've actually gone for the "no front head" sound in a shootout. Which I guess makes sense if you're going for tons of attack, which begs the questions: why didn't you cut the thing if that's what you're into?

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by Magnetic Services » Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:00 pm

Just thought of something but never tried it: shotgun mic under the drum throne pointed at the beater. Gonna try this on my next session.

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by drumsound » Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:13 pm

I've tried all manner of things. What I like best is using a somewhat aggressive compression scheme to control the envelope of the bass drum, miced from the front head. If there is a hole from mounting hardware that isn't used, I get a mic in there and fish the cable out that way.

One of the best BD sounds I ever got was a 26" with no hole. We took off the front head to add a pillow and an M88 just lying on it. Cable out the mounting hole, front head back on the drum. I'm sure some sort of compression was used, but I can't recall what.

Here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hA-g6yqUh4

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by losthighway » Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:45 pm

drumsound wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:13 pm
Cable out the mounting hole, front head back on the drum. I'm sure some sort of compression was used, but I can't recall what.

Here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hA-g6yqUh4
Nice. Good overdriven vocal sound too. Did you put those through a guitar amp?

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by joninc » Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:51 pm

A.David.MacKinnon wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 8:16 am
I’ll sometimes put a 57 on the beater side a few inches away from the spot where the beater hits. Closer if you want isolation, farther back if you want some under snare action too. If the kick is crazy boomy and I don’t need that much in the mix I just move the main kick mic over to the beater side and don’t put anything on the reso head. You’ll get it in the room mics and oh anyways.
Other times a crotch mic will give you lots of attack on top of all the other good stuff is does.
I often mic the beater side like this with an ATM25 and very close. It can often sound very good as the main/only kick mic in a scenario like this and at the very least will add some snap that you might want at mix time. (Watch for bottom snare bleed though)
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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:07 pm

The ATM25 is the best. A place I work out of has 3. I need to go get one of my own .

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by Gregg Juke » Tue Jun 05, 2018 6:27 am

A.David.MacKinnon wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:07 pm
The ATM25 is the best. A place I work out of has 3. I need to go get one of my own .
I second that emotion. ATM 25 outside the front head, EQ to taste.

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by drumsound » Tue Jun 05, 2018 8:44 am

losthighway wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:45 pm
drumsound wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:13 pm
Cable out the mounting hole, front head back on the drum. I'm sure some sort of compression was used, but I can't recall what.

Here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hA-g6yqUh4
Nice. Good overdriven vocal sound too. Did you put those through a guitar amp?
No, I still had an Aurora GTQ2 at that time. On the first take he was singing pretty loud, louder than I expected, and it was driving the preamp. We both liked the sound for the song so we kept it that way.

Thanks!

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Re: drummers without sound holes on their kicks!

Post by darjama » Wed Jun 06, 2018 2:18 pm

I've used a condenser in figure 8 to pick up the under snare and beater, then copied and used gates to assign to snare and kick busses. Works fine until there's a song that has snare and kick hitting together.

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