Crappy kick sounds

[black mariah]

Not in someone else's recordings, I'm talking about the ones in my living room. I've recording some friends again today and the bass drum sounds like total ass. It's very flat and... I can't think of a word. Cardboard resonates more than this. It's like the sound you get when you thump a mic with your finger. Too much pop, not enough thump. I've tried everything I can do to get this thing to not sound like total crap. He's using a Yamaha set, I think the kick is 22x18. Aquarian beater head, standard front head. Tuning it doesn't help, and I'm the kick drum MASTER (no, really ). Using another kick is out of the question, this dude's a PITA to work with and I don't want to do anything as insane as ask him to use a different kick. Any ideas on something to try?

[soundguy]

that pretty much describes the sound I generally get with aquarian heads. Can you try a different beater head? something old school like an ambassador?

dave

[@?,*???&?]

Usually when I do something boneheaded like that (which is very, very rare) I go with blending a sample in with the original. Pro Tools makes it easy to do that. Soundreplacer is the invaluable tool.

Sometimes, I've ended up with 3 different drums layered as one. That style first became popular with Mutt Lange and Mike Shipley on that now infamous Def Leppard 'Pyromania' record. All these years later, it's still the sound of rock. If you don't have any cool samples, try the Alesis D4. It's got some good very objective sounds in it and it triggers fairly quick.

[d franko]

Or, you can generate a sine wave somewhere between 60-90 Hz, then put a gate on that channel using the bass drum as the key.

[bobbydj]

Have you tried slackening all the lugs right off? So they're barely finger tight? Is this obvious? Probably - but sometimes works amazingly - esp with a LDC 2 feet in front. The good thing is too that it's the kind of idea that you'll know if it works right away. The only variable is the mic position - just reel it in to 1 foot. If it's still shite, well fair enough. But it should be a quickish thing to try and hopefully won't befuddle the drummer too much.

[eeldip]

i am with bobby dj on this one.

try that scenario.


what is your micing technique on this?

does the bass drum boom in the room?
what kind of room?

[marqueemoon]

Change the heads. Change the beater. Adjust the muffling (if there is any). Retune. Repeat until you go nuts.

[Eric Rottmayer]

if you can, try taking off the front head altogether. i don't know your mic setup,
but i was having the same problem one day and this helped enormously.
is there anything inside the drum? if not, try putting something in. if there is something,
try taking it out.

also, try micing the beater side of the drum, pointed at an angle across the beater.
don't try this with your most delicate, expensive mic though.

eric

[AstroDan]

Another option is aiming the mic far away from the beater. Like even 45 degrees or more, aimed at the shell. That is if it's a D12-ish, set EQ type mic that's inside the kick.

[wenzel.hellgren]

Last nite I was getting the same crappy kick sound as you. It sounded about like flicking the mic with a fingernail as you mentioned, if not worse. I tried a Sure PG52 and PG56 kick drum mic pointed at the beater head through the hole in the rear (or is that the font?) head. No amount of positioning changed the sound much.

I ended up using an Oktava 219 with the 10db pad enabled, about 1 - 2 feet away from the drum pointed at the hole. It gave a really nice airy, boomy, resonating kick sound. I then mixed in a bit of the crappy sure mic for "snap".

After recording, it sounded even better with compression. Haven't even reached for the EQ yet.

[wenzel.hellgren]

Last nite I was getting the same crappy kick sound as you. It sounded about like flicking the mic with a fingernail as you mentioned, if not worse. I tried a Sure PG52 and PG56 kick drum mic pointed at the beater head through the hole in the rear (or is that the font?) head. No amount of positioning changed the sound much.

I ended up using an Oktava 219 with the 10db pad enabled, about 1 - 2 feet away from the drum pointed at the hole. It gave a really nice airy, boomy, resonating kick sound. I then mixed in a bit of the crappy sure mic for "snap".

After recording, it sounded even better with compression. Haven't even reached for the EQ yet.

[cassembler]

If you've got a decent expander, you can set it to expand with a slow attack... Everything above the threshold (the tick) will trigger the expander and raise the volume until the release time (should be set to allow a good thump). Might be worth trying.

EDIT: the expander would have to have an upward expansion mode.

[black mariah]

Thanks for all the tips. Unfortunately, I'm extremely limited on gear options. I don't have any gates or compressors to mess with (I'd use a compressor on the vocals, that's for damn sure). I'm beginning to think that his kick is just a POS. I tried tuning it all different ways I could think of. Loose front, loose back, I didn't go as far as pulling off the front head, but I don't think that would have helped either.

Right now I'm micing the whole kit with one mic. All the other drums sound great, but the kick is total ass. In the room it's ass, on tape it's ass. This is the third or fourth time I've had to fight with this thing and every time I've ended up just letting it go. *CRINGE* I don't think there's any hope for it at all. Thanks again. I'll have to write all this down somewhere.

[Al]

If your getting tired of crappy kick sounds,you could always "kick the crap" out of the drummer!!

[eeldip]

black mariah where are you?

if you are in the bay area, i could lend you a mic... or an rnc... or something like that.

otherwise where are you sticking the mic...

have you tried walking around the room, till you find a spot with some boom, and micing it there (this really only works well with an omni though)?

have you tried shoulder height 5 feet out front?