wat it takes for kick.. mic or treatment.

[lbcstudios]

i have been having some trouble gettin a nice kick sound... i record local highschool bands.. so its not a particular kick drum im focusing on.. i have a nady dm 80 kick mic... probably not a good one... i run it to my focurite pre on the digi 002 r... one time i took about an hr.. and got a OK sound... but im hoping i can get a better kick sound on a more conistent basis... i could 2 things... get a AKG D 112 ( seems like its a very standard kick mic in this forum) or i was thinkin about gettin one maybe two of the Minitraps that Ethan winers company has... hopefually making my room sound better by giving it a more solid low end? any sugestions?

[Nik D]

I think it could be a couple of things. First the kick. Does it sound aweseome in the room? If it dosen't that's step one. Second you're probably right about getting a better mic. You also might want to check out an Audix D6. I hear very good things about this mic, and I'm planning on picking one up for myself in the near future. Experiment with mic placement and technique, try more than one mic. One inside and one outside, makiing a tunnel out of blankets or cushions and sticking a mic at the end of it, stuff like that. It shouldn't take you an hour to get a good kick sound. Since you're doing HS bands, most likely the drum sucks to begin with. Very few highschool drummers have nice kits, let alone good heads, or tuning knowledge.

[lbcstudios]

ok thx for the advice.. actually u would be surprised with the sets most of these kids have for being in high school.. some are actually nice... but ur right.. some are cheap... MOST of the time.. the kick sounds good live... ill try some things... now that u said that.. im thinkin of maybe the mic i have now ( nady) on kick.. and maybe a sm 57 near the pedal for the impact or somethin.. ill experiement.. thx

[geet73]

Talk about talking down high school drummers.. heh.

A lot of young drummer's parents run out and buy them niiiice sets. I do not have those parents.. I own a Yamaha Stage Custom set. In fusion configuartion.. it sounds good, when tuned right. I also used to play a Groove Percussion, also known as shit, it sounded than my friend's new Pacific maple kit.

High school kids know more than you may think.

Back to the original question, if the kick sounds good in the first place, why would it sound bad recorded? I used that DM80 mic for a few years.. it sounded fine for me. I'm not sure where your problem is.

[Fall From Grace]

Holy Crap Geet... my second drum kit was a Yamaha Stage Custom in green. I got mine before they were offering the matching lacquered wood snare. Before that I had a 62 Slingerland kit. I had that Yams for damn near 10 years until I finally got out on my own and bought my first decent kit (7-piece DW in fusion sizes).

As for the mic, check out the AT Ultimate Kick mic with the two mics in it (condensor and dynamic). My girlfriend picked it up for me for my b-day and I must say, you can't polish a turd, but you can certainly make it sound good.

[Wireneck]

Aren't those AT kick mics retailing for about 500 dollars? I think I would rather spend the money on a Akg D112 or a Shure Beta 52 plus a good comp/gate for the kick.
I have not tried one out yet but can it really be worth double the cost of the most standard kick mics?
Most of the time I get very usable results off a shure beta 52.

[zekthedeadcow]

Now don't crap on me for saying this but for those of us in small rooms and typically crappy drums ... triggers help _alot_

Also make use of compression ducking...as that makes the kick stand out alot too. ... basically the kick triggers a compressor that compresses the music instead of the kick...so for an instant the volume of the music is lowered, the kick cuts though, and the music is back before you notice.

SONAR comes with a audio to midi function called "extract timing" but I don't know what you are recording with.

...oh and yes a lot of parents buy their kids nice sets... but for the working kid whose smart... those same parent also sell those kits for next to nothing a few years later...

[lbcstudios]

hmm... i use protools LE 6.1 .. how would i do such a trigger?

[Drummer706]

u know what mics r awesome. the audix D4 and D6. my friend has 2 D6 for his double bass drum set and he says he wouldnt trade it 4 any other mic in the world!

[fritzmusic]

I use a Nady DM 80 mic to record with too. For the price, it's an awesome mic and it covers the same 20Hz-20Khz as any AKG mic but with a slight boost in the 80hz frequency right where you need it! When it comes down to nuts and bolts, the microphone isn't going to make or break the mix unless you're recording with $10.00 radio shak mics so you're barking up the wrong tree there, but if you have the money to burn, sure go ahead and get a D112.

First, let's discuss the room. Is it padded down? Most "drumrooms" I've been in and gotten the best recorded sound in were usually wood-backed walls 10'x10' but no bigger than 25'x25' but had plenty of "good" reflection in there as opposed to a gymnasium that has what I call "bad reflection". The walls and corners were not padded down anywhere in the room and the walls were lined with smooth surfaces like linolium and a sliding glass door to get in. Just watch out for certain concrete walled rooms....they can have the bad reverb in them that bounces around the walls for too long. Any room you can find where a clap or your voice sounds like it does in a good reverberant bathroom where your voice sounds awesome is a preferrable room to record in. The more reflection in the smaller rooms, the better for drums I've found. Take the bass drum around to different available recording rooms and actually listen to it in there. If the bass drum sounds good in a room by itself, the rest of the kit will too. As for those who worry about sound reflections in the room messing with the mix, for the most part, it's a non-issue 99.9% of the time when you bring the mic levels down under clipping and you're using limited close mics.

Ok, it depends on the size of the room the bass drum is in, how padded down it is and if it's a double headed bass drum with a mic hole in the front head. The best configuration in my opinion to record with is a double-headed bass drum with a mic hole and NO PADDING after recording drums over 10 years and much experimentation. You can get many versatile sounds out of the kick that way for a wide range of styles. Also the beaters on the bass drum pedal will determine whether you're going to get a muffled sound or a tight attck on the bass drum batter head. Most modern recordings call for a tight attack on the bass drum, so be sure that the beaters on the pedal are wood or some other solid material instead of felt.

For a tight bass drum sound with a full bottom in any room and head configuration, I wouldn't pad down the bass drum with towels or pillows...you're only rubbing salt into the wound. When drum manufacturers start shipping studio drums with padding already in them for optimal recording sound, I *may* consider it. It deadens the front and/or back heads too much already espescially in a dead room. What I'll do is take a split or broken snare drum head (remo ambassador heads work best), loop duct tape into 4 individual 6" stickyside out loops, attatch them symetrically to the batter side of the snare drumhead and stick it to the batter side of the bass drum so that the beaters hit the stuck on drumhead dead center. You choose to either place the mic outside or inside. Experiment if you must but inside is usually preferrable for good separation and defined attack of the batter head. I've tried just cutting out a "patch" of drumhead, duct-taped it dead center of the beater(s) but it just isn't the same cool sound it gets as opposed to using the full drum head.

For double headed bass drums in dead rooms, if you can, again place the mic INSIDE the bass drum. If there is padding, then pull it out and tune both the front and batter heads of the bass drum where it sounds good in the room by itself. Tuning is everything and one-headed bass drums give only half the sound that is possible. You can actually tune most drums to compliment the room you're in if the room isn't too dead or reverbs too much for more than 1-2 seconds.


On your compressor, if you have a "softknee" setting, then by all means, use it. If you can see the amount of noise reduction it is applying, then set it so that it's just "kissing" the noise reduction. Any compressor or limiter should just be kissing reduction or else you'll squash the sound too much.

Now for EQ settings:
Bring down the bass frequency. Most "noobs" think you should have it booming in the lower frequencies but you can end up hurting the mix in the long run because it'll take up the same space of the bass guitar. You shouldn't have to boost any low frequencies at all if you have your EQ dial on your mixer set straight up at 12 o'clock. If anything, you should play with bringing down your lows and boosting the mids and/or highs. Most overlooked frequencies in recording bass drums are the highs and mids in the 1 to 6Khz range so be sure to boost your high frequency for more definition and attack. If you can, also rolloff your low frequencies below 60Hz because it's just uncontrollable rumble from there on down.

Record a "test" track of just the bass drum alone then send it to a wave editor where you can zoom in and inspect the waveform of each bass drum hit. If you're getting a huge spike but little body to the waveform, you'll want to bring down the high frequencies and maybe add them later in the mixdown process through a harmonic exciter. Just be sure to get a good solid waveform to start off. That's all I can tell you now with what information you gave, so good luck and hope this helps.

[lbcstudios]

hey dude, thx for the post. I did order get the D 112 a week or so ago.. and i used... and was very happy with the results.. i tried your Eq suggestions and they did help the kick punch thru the mix more. I also LOVED the akg d 112 on bass amp!

[Sonixx]

Originally posted by fritzmusic
... What I'll do is take a split or broken snare drum head (remo ambassador heads work best), loop duct tape into 4 individual 6" stickyside out loops, attatch them symetrically to the batter side of the snare drumhead and stick it to the batter side of the bass drum so that the beaters hit the stuck on drumhead dead center. You choose to either place the mic outside or inside. Experiment if you must but inside is usually preferrable for good separation and defined attack of the batter head. I've tried just cutting out a "patch" of drumhead, duct-taped it dead center of the beater(s) but it just isn't the same cool sound it gets as opposed to using the full drum head...

What a great trick... Thanks.