Guitars hide the kick?

[chamelious]

Whenever i try recording drums i always have this problem, i usually have to stick my sm58 in the bass drum seeing as i haven't gotten round to making the money for nice mic's yet but im sure i should be able to get a kick sound that doesn't dissapear once guitars go over it?? Im doing lots of things wrong, but i mostly dont have a choice, using a behringer mixer, guitars are tuned to C#, etc. Any advice?

[Wireneck]

With guitars tuned that low your going to have alot of low end shit happening that has alot of potential to mask a kick drum. I can't really say without actually hearing what your talking about but im willing to bet some surgical Eq could clean things up.

-Start by hi passing the guitars around 75 hz.

-58 isn't ideal for a kick so it may require some dramatic Eq depending on your style. A good start would be to sweep the mids and find the area with a good click. Boost that freq to give you some click that cuts through. If the kick still isn't bright enough you may boost some highs as well.

If all else fails turn the kick up louder. Also pan your guitars out to the sides to open up some room in the middle for the kick.

Like I said, these are some general ideas to try. What the heck are your guitarist tuning to C for anyways?

[HangDawg]

If the guitars are masking the kick drum, you have serious issues my friend. First thing is quit tuning to C#. If that's not possible, you should put a high-pass filter on the guitars and get rid of everything below 100hz (maybe higher)

[mishagolin]

i can understand the drop c# tuning. it can add a lot on the low end for metal and post-punk/hardcore. just please tell me you're not gonna compress the heck out of it like all the nu-metal bands (blechh).

58? you should really try to find another mic for the kick.

the high-pass solution should work but you would have to do it at around 65Hz or you'll lose your open c#.

[Bdrum]

I love my D112.I know that an E/V is better but @ $100
more.... What kind of porting are you using? I just went from a large old school port to a smaller Aquarian.I have lots of boom now

[Sloan]

How about tuning the guitars standard and getting a bass player?

In this situation, I would experiment with the EQ on the guitars and the kick to make sure they aren't all up in each other's grille. ya dig?

[Farview]

I do a lot of this detuned and 7-string stuff. All the low end on the CD's that you hear is from the bass. You can high pass the guitars quite drasticly before it comes into line. Start at about 120hz and knock it back about 6 db. Add about 3 db somewhere in the 400hz to 700hz range (depending on what sounds best) to give it meat.
Find the click of the kick (try around 3k, if you are using a Danmar pad, try 5k or 6k) and add as much as you need. Suck out 400hz and add some 75hz.
Try that.

[chamelious]

Interesting how many people say *dont tune to C#*! Its not THAT much lower than standard tuning, a tone and a half isnt that far in thr world of pitch really. If metal isnt your thing, but how many metal bands do you know that play in standard? There arnt very many.

Thanks to everyone who posted advice though i will have a go ^_^

[Ronan]

C# tuning is bad ass. It opens up a whole range of tones and performance techniques that are not available in standard tuning. I usually keep one of my guitars in Robert Fripps "New Standard Tuning" which has a low C.

Anyway back to the questions. If you are doing heavy stuff you have a lot of murk and mud going on in the low end. First thing you gotta do is make sure the kick sound is tight because what you need is articulation. Stuff a bunch of pillows and blankets in the kick and stick the mic inside pretty close to the beater.

After you have recorded try cutting around 500 Hz and boosting around 4k (use your ears and not my numbers!!!!!!!!!) If you are really doing heavy music like black metal or the like you also want to try boosting a bunch around 10 or 11k. Its not my favorite kick sound, but its the sound of the genre at the moment.

[Farview]

If you are doing Black Metal, you will need to trigger the kick. There is no way for your drummer to play that fast AND with enough power to make the kick sound like anything. The albums you are listening to are all triggered, mostly with a DDrum unit.

[fritzmusic]

You might also try rolling off the guitars and bass guitar frequencies somewhere around 60-150hz (for guitar) and 50-20Hz (for bass guitar) with your EQ. SOMETIMES it makes all the difference. Sometimes it doesn't. You're definitely gonna need a better mic for the bass drum and I've found the MXL 990 to be both very cheap ($69.00@ M.F.) and able to reproduce my personal "dream bass drum" sound with little effort and instantly made my SM57/58's sound like toys. You can always use a better mic but that's just a suggestion if you're really tight on cash. I think all the difference is in the larger diaphragm condensor for reproducing all the frequencies accurately. The mic you use makes all the difference.

This is also where certain tuning of the bass drum heads and proper dampening can make or break your sound. If you have the head tightened up and padded down too much, you're not gonna get much of a good sound on any style of music, so play with tuning and dampening to get a good sound going in to the mic FIRST and then hit record. The key is to experiment, experiment, experiment until you get a reproduceable and workable sound every time.

If getting a different mic and re-recording is not an option, you *might* bring out the bass drum with a harmonic exciter and aural exciter in combination with the EQ roll-offs on the other instruments as outlined above. Also, light compressors/limiters help to tame the fickle volume spikes to a manageable point where you can bring the overall track level up a little more.

Sometimes when I run into this predicament, it depends on what order you're mixing the instruments. If you're mixing around the guitars first, then good luck getting your drums to fit in there somewhere. Guitars can quickly dominate all the available frequencies if you focus your mix on them first, so "mix-up" the order in which you mix everything by bringing down all faders and try mixing around different instruments first (e.g- drums then guitar, then bass etc..). Somewhere within all the suggestions here and within the replies to your post, you should be able to find a better sound.

It just doesn't matter how the guitarists tune their guitars. NEVER change the tuning to satisfy the recording process. That's like telling a Nascar driver to "slow it down" to save on gas consumption....

If you had a clip, it'd be alot easier to judge what needs to happen. Post a link to your clip up here and I'm sure you'll get plenty of further help.

[Bulls Hit]

And let's not forget that all time metal classic Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is played in C#.

Although I never much cared for Bill Ward's drums sound in that. His snare sounds like ass

[chamelious]

Kk man well if you go to http://www.purevolume.com/thenightmareplan in a day or so once my account's been approved and listen to "Yesterdays dream" you'll hear an attempt i made at recording a band i played bass for a while ago. Pretty nasty on the whole, guitars clip, drum sound was bad, etc. But you'll see where im at maybe. I should point out the drums were recording with an sm58, a pg58 and an unknown cheap ass dynamic.

[cobradenim]

Most bands nowdays tune their guitars so low because their singers can't fucking sing! These guys have no ranges whatsoever and won't even try to hit the necessary notes. I Remember when singers could actually sing, and their guitarists and bassists didn't have to tune so goddamn low.
To your bass drum problem: get a bigger bass drum...at least a 24" and a better mic.

[Steal Sessions]

Originally Posted by cobradenim

Most bands nowdays tune their guitars so low because their singers can't fucking sing!

C# is low? The bands I've played in lately (one I've recently tried to record myself) are tuned at B.. How about that.. No basdrum audiable in the first mixing atempts whatsoever.. I used a D112 mic close to the baterhead but I didn't record enough 'click' somehow. Pitty. From the overhead mics some click is coming in, but I've to turn up the cymbals too loud to hear it in the mix.. So basically now I have the same problems.. Learning stuff is a bitch sometimes.. I hope these tips help a bit.. but basically the basdrum is around 70-80 Hz and I guess the guitars/bass will also reach that low easily with that 'B' tuning... lets see what I can make of it..

[tsl92802]

Use an exciter to boost up the click instead of just EQing the hell out of it. Noise gates can sometimes click when they open/close (or sometimes cut the sound so drastically it sounds clicky in a mix).