Recording kick drum

G

groove2u

New member
So I am relatively new to the acoustic drum recording game. Everything I have recorded up until now has been loop and sample based for a myriad of obvious reasons (micing is time consuming, finding a good drummer, etc) well you get the picture.

Anyways, I believe I have seen the light and upon recording an acoustic kit the other night with a hot drummer, I fell in love witht the richness of tones and confess that for me, sample based drum recording may be a thing of the past.

The only thing I would like to continue to use sample wise is the kick. I was very unhappy with the sound I was getting with a d112 inside the kik. It was really midrange tubby and the bleed from the other drums and cymbals was terrible. In fact I was happier with the overhead sounds I was getting for the kick than that from the kick mic itself. Go figure.
I have a vast assortment of kicks in my sample library and I feel that keeping the rest of the kit acoustic and live will give me a more honest and organic feel.

I know this issue has been brought up a thousand times, but my question is this, can I achieve the same organic sound with an acoustic kit and sampled kik as I can with a completely acoustic live kit.

Any thoughts or recording samples would be greatly appreciated.

Peace
 
Maybe you miss-typed in your question because I am a little confused about what you are asking, but I will do my best. It seems that the reason sampled drums don't sound great is because every single hit sounds the same. This is not how it is with a regular drum set (unless maybe you have a spectacluar drummer). With a bass drum however you are going to hear the same tone everytime because of the use of a beater. The one thing is that there might be different dynamics with the kick drum, but if you take some time you can change the volume levels of different hits to make it sound even more real. I hope this answers you question. You should also know that I don't have very much experience so take what I say with a grain of salt.
 
groove2u said:
Anyways, I believe I have seen the light and upon recording an acoustic kit the other night with a hot drummer, I fell in love witht the richness of tones and confess that for me, sample based drum recording may be a thing of the past.
Click to expand...

Let's hope THAT's a trend that continues...


groove2u said:
The only thing I would like to continue to use sample wise is the kick. I was very unhappy with the sound I was getting with a d112 inside the kik. It was really midrange tubby and the bleed from the other drums and cymbals was terrible. In fact I was happier with the overhead sounds I was getting for the kick than that from the kick mic itself. Go figure.
I have a vast assortment of kicks in my sample library and I feel that keeping the rest of the kit acoustic and live will give me a more honest and organic feel.

I know this issue has been brought up a thousand times, but my question is this, can I achieve the same organic sound with an acoustic kit and sampled kik as I can with a completely acoustic live kit.

Any thoughts or recording samples would be greatly appreciated.

Peace
Click to expand...

I have friends that do this with great results. They put a ddrum trigger on the bass drum batter head, and trigger a roland sound module. They muffle the kick pretty good and then lay packing blankets over it to keep the overheads from picking it up. I'll ask them more about it.

I think I would still try to get an acoustic bass drum sound. Are you using a single head or double? I cut an 8" hole off center and mount the mic about 2" inside the hole, pointed at the beater. If your drum sounds tubby, roll off alot of the 800 to 1k, add some 150k for lows and 4k for attack and compress it. You can also use the packing blankets to isolate the bleed from the other drums.
 
Try different positioning. Sometimes having the mic about 2 or 3 inches outside the kick sounds better. It all depends on the drum, the room, the player, etc. There is no one cut-and-dried micing technique, especially for drums.
 
groove2u said:
So I am relatively new to the acoustic drum recording game. Everything I have recorded up until now has been loop and sample based for a myriad of obvious reasons (micing is time consuming, finding a good drummer, etc) well you get the picture.

Anyways, I believe I have seen the light and upon recording an acoustic kit the other night with a hot drummer, I fell in love witht the richness of tones and confess that for me, sample based drum recording may be a thing of the past.

The only thing I would like to continue to use sample wise is the kick. I was very unhappy with the sound I was getting with a d112 inside the kik. It was really midrange tubby and the bleed from the other drums and cymbals was terrible. In fact I was happier with the overhead sounds I was getting for the kick than that from the kick mic itself. Go figure.
I have a vast assortment of kicks in my sample library and I feel that keeping the rest of the kit acoustic and live will give me a more honest and organic feel.

I know this issue has been brought up a thousand times, but my question is this, can I achieve the same organic sound with an acoustic kit and sampled kik as I can with a completely acoustic live kit.

Any thoughts or recording samples would be greatly appreciated.

Peace
Click to expand...


Sorry I record with a D112 but with some E.Q.....
Well, it's ok to me.
Why dont you spend more money on a kick drum mic like an E/V?
 
Kick drum sound

First off thanks for the replies.
Secondly, I guess I want to keep the kick drum sample based because:
a) I have a large sample library of individual kick hits
b) getting a really good kick sound seems to be the hardest sound to capture in the studio (outside of electric bass)
c) Most drummers have told me that the cymbals and snare are the hardest to capture through samples because of the overtones, room sound etc.

Therefore, it seems to me that an acoustic kit with a sampled kick would solve a lot of my problems and make the recording process more efficient.
But, I realize that I'm new to the game and have much to learn...
 
All of this depends on the sound you are looking for. if you want more attack, put the mic inside the kick about an inch away from the beater. You can replace the kick sound with a program called drumagog.
 
To Groove2u,the problem which I could see you have is with the conditioning of the drum-kick for recording,and a problem sometimes overlook for the sound engineer,(the proper setting of the equalization for the specific track),that would keep unwanted frequencies from giving you trouble with bleeding, also with the right software to process the sound, a lot of stuff could be cleared.Gerry Zaragemca
 
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