Need Tips on Bass Drum Sound for Recording

M

Metal Marc

Pretend Action Guy (PAG)
I have just started recording live drums (as opposed to using a drum machine for recordings). I like the sound of my bass drum: it's loud and boomy. However, when I record it it sounds like corned beef ass. I use compression but even without the compression is sounds terrible.

Recording particulars:
- 24" Ludwig bass drum
- Gibraltar Double Bass Drum pedal (felt beaters)
- CAD Bass Drum mic
- Behringer Autocom Compressor
- Behringer Mixer
- PC with Cakewalk 9.0 Home Studio

Any tips on getting a friendlier bass drum sound for recording?
 
Ty to place it in different places. inside, outside, close to beater. Also try a wood beater, or you could try to move it up or down.
Do you get a good sound trough your overheads, is your solo'd kick sucky or the kick in the whole drum mix. Check for fase problems. And check your cables ! I've been messing around making my kick sound better for 2weeks and after all i found that my snake fuckt it up somehow when i turned on the phantom power...
greetz
 
Kick is tough. Make sure you are reversing the phase on your kick mic or it will be out of phase with the overheads.

One trick that works well is to build a bass tunnel in front of the kick drum. You can use another kick drum with no heads or some couch cushions or anything that will help funnel the bass sound out a few more feet. Put a mic at the end of the tunnel and you can get more beef.
 
Make sure the drum is well tuned first, I have the best luck double micing the drum, I used two 57's at first, one inside the drum aimed at the beater about a foot away, the other outside the drum aimed slightly off center about a foot or so away running into two seperate channels in the mixer allowing for individual eq-ing. This combo gave me an awesome recorded sound even without compression, thick and powerful with nice attack. Ive since switched the inside mic to a Beta 52, for me, this combo is by far superior and Im stickin with it!
 
First of all, forget about compression! Be sure the bass drum is tuned good and that you don't have 9 pillows in there(unless that's what you're after)! Also, what beater are you using and what PART of the beater? What's the head condition like? What type of head is it? Is there a front head? Does the front head have an access hole?Then the mic position comes into play. Move it around until you get a decent position. Then, record it and listen to HOW the drummer is playing it. If the drummer is playing all over, then you might want to think about compression, or of course if you want to avoid peaks.

Good Luck!
RF
 
I find that when my kick mic (Beta 52) is pointing to the right of the beater, I get a better sound. Experiment with different positions and flip the phase on the kick track like Tex said.
 
Oh you guys suck. I've been fighting with getting a bass drum sound for months now. I've tried tuning and mic position for days on end. I changed beaters, heads, and the way I played.

I then read this thread. Hit the phase switch. BAM! There it is! Oh, you guys suck so much:D


Thanks!

(BTW- I couldn't really try this earlier because I didn't have a preamp with a phase switch until recently)
 
Tangent question-

if you are recording into a PC, can't the phase be reversed/adjusted (even something other than 180) on a track after tracking?

So has anyone here had success adjusting phase of a wave form after tracking to correct for phase cancellation when added to other tracks (e.g. kick + overheads)?

My assumptions-

You won't always be an even phase angle per freqency for *all* frequencies anyway, right? And really it's most noticable for lower frequencies canceling, so phase shifting would be done to optimize for bass, but you'll inevitably cancel somewhat in another range when you phase shift- no? So if this is true, wouldn't you ideally want to adjust in smaller increments then 180?
 
coloradojay said:
Tangent question-

if you are recording into a PC, can't the phase be reversed/adjusted (even something other than 180) on a track after tracking?

So has anyone here had success adjusting phase of a wave form after tracking to correct for phase cancellation when added to other tracks (e.g. kick + overheads)?

My assumptions-

You won't always be an even phase angle per freqency for *all* frequencies anyway, right? And really it's most noticable for lower frequencies canceling, so phase shifting would be done to optimize for bass, but you'll inevitably cancel somewhat in another range when you phase shift- no? So if this is true, wouldn't you ideally want to adjust in smaller increments then 180?
Click to expand...

In most DAW's you can INVERT the track to flip the phase. The problem with doing it after the fact is that you can't properly adjust the mic positions for the best overall kit sound while tracking.

As for your assumptions that's probably true but not a big deal. The kick mic doesn't pick up all that much snare and cymbal for it to be an issue.
 
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