Looking for a different Kick sound, any suggestions?

[Tim Brown]

Hi guys,

I'm looking for a different kind of Kick sound.

My set is a custom made kit with 16" x 28" Kicks. I built this set in 1998.
There's a .gif Attached.

I use a special playing technique which calls for me to have the heads extremely tight. It's essentially a modified form of "heel down".

here's a mp3 of me playing on this page. This is a file I'm writing to teach people about this style of playing.(This file was made with a pair overheads, and a D112 in front of each kick. The toms [15", 18", & 20" diameters] are just too big to close mic...they just don't sound good to me close mic'd-especially sense I tune the bottom head HIGHER in pitch than the top-which is contrary to "recording etiquitte".)

http://www.geocities.com/phinehas777.../heel-toe.html


Yes, it sucks, and it'd full of fuck ups. It's me just messing around without actually warming up.
I have sense tightenede up the kickheads alot tighter (actually, I raised the pitch of the entire kit) and my Kick speed has essentially doubled.

The problem is, that my kick sound is lagging really badly, and on top of that-It seems like my Cymbals are just as loud in my Kick mic's as my Kicks are.

Any suggestions?

I'm almost ready to do what I originally intended to do with this kit, and that's to completely fill the inside of the kicks with foam so that they make no noise, and to trigger ddrums from the kicks.

This is rediculous.
Right now, i've only got two Bath sized towels in each kick drum.
I know I need more muffling than that, but I'm still experimenting.

I hadn't really had time to really get into this until now.

Thanks,
Tim

[getuhgrip]

My suggestion is for you to buy my Mapex ProM 22" Kick. It comes cleverly and conveniently attatched to 12", 13", and 16" toms and a 14" snare!!

I'm throwing in the towel on trying to record acoustics in my small studio.

Last cool thing I tried was fixing a 2" thick peice of foam to the inside of the resonant head. It mirrored the shape of the entire head with sound hole cut out. With the head tightened to near breaking, it produces a sharp thump with no irritating over tone.

[BigKahuna]

I hear lots of whoosh ... but virtually no attack. Unless you really nail it, but by the description of your technique that's gotta be pretty tough to do that fast.
I'd try to get those D112s inside the drum pointing more directly at the beaters (6-8" away from the batter head). Either that or put some mics on the batter heads outside. You gotta get that attack out front in the mix ... otherwise double-kicking that fast sounds only like a rumble. I'm impressed with your ability, though.
You might want to play around with some compression settings to even out when you really dig in with when you back off to move your feet so fast. That should help, too.
The rest of the kit sounds great ... I really dig the toms.
PS ... i hear a 60 cycle hum that shouldn't be there
I'd avoid triggering if you can help it ... you got a unique kit that sounds awesome. I'd keep trying to capture it.

[Tim Brown]

Originally posted by BigKahuna
I hear lots of whoosh ... but virtually no attack. Unless you really nail it, but by the description of your technique that's gotta be pretty tough to do that fast.
I'd try to get those D112s inside the drum pointing more directly at the beaters (6-8" away from the batter head). Either that or put some mics on the batter heads outside. You gotta get that attack out front in the mix ... otherwise double-kicking that fast sounds only like a rumble. I'm impressed with your ability, though.
You might want to play around with some compression settings to even out when you really dig in with when you back off to move your feet so fast. That should help, too.
The rest of the kit sounds great ... I really dig the toms.
PS ... i hear a 60 cycle hum that shouldn't be there
I'd avoid triggering if you can help it ... you got a unique kit that sounds awesome. I'd keep trying to capture it.

Hey Big Kahuna,

Yeah man-that freaking hum is from me coming into this new PC.
I was having problems internet wise with my Good PC (read-"mixdown and CD burning PC") so I got another PC just for the Net.
So, it's when I lined in to the net PC, I got the hum-is that Nasty or what?! Hahaha

I get all that "Whomp" from the kicks, but your right, there's no "Punch".

The whole problem stems from the fact that using this Heel-toe technique, I get tons of speed, but the Mallet only moves about an inch or so away from the head-when I was playing Heel Up, shit man...that thing was going the whole throw.

I hate the thought of triggering...and I decided I'm not gonna do it.

I may wind up miking from the other side of the kick, just to see how it works....I did it years ago with 1 kick drum (I clipped a little condenser to the floor tom and aimed at the kick head- it worked fairly well.)

So, I think Tomorrow I'm gonna spend a little more time on the kicks.

Tim

[Tim Brown]

WOO HOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, since The first post, I:

1. I took the front heads off.
2. Removed the towles and put a HUGE fucking Pillow in each Kickdrum.
3. Using the Neary Drumtorque, I applied 25 CM/KG to each lugscrew on the "resonant" head, and 15 KG/CM per screw of the batter head.

IT FUCKING ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Bassplayer was freaking out last night...(I did it before bandpractice.
Of course, it feels like I'm playing on a brickwall, but I can deal with that!
I've got shitloads of "punch" now!


Tim