My new kick mic

[larraga]

I saw the annoucement of the Yamaha SubKick recently (http://www.barryrudolph.com/newtoys/...hasubkick.html) and I thought "5 hunerd dollers? I could make one a those fer next to free!" So I took a disemboweled 12" X 15" tom I've had laying around forever and a speaker from a bass cabinet that got a hole in it (nothing too severe) and had to be replaced, a guitar stand with a missing part, some plumbing hanger strap, coax & an XLR connector and assembled this in around an hour. I really wasn't expecting much, but I put it in front of a 16" X 24" birch kick drum, adjusted the gain on my mixer to where it would be for a "normal" dynamic mic and asked someone to hit the pedal. What came out of the monitors shook the walls with the deepest, biggest, roundest sound imaginable. It's pretty amazing. I stuck a D112 in the drum to capture the beater sound and mixed that in and I am loving it. Granted it probably won't work on the next jazz trio I record, but on this current modern rock project it truly rocks. My homebrew doesn't have the mesh front head like the SubKick, but I'm not sure it's necessary. The larger (for a tom) shell I think contributes to the deepness of the sound. The speaker isn't shock mounted in there at all and it doesn't seem to make any adverse noises, but I may go back in and add rubber bushings anyway.

[Henri Devill]

Very cool!


Don

[MemoGtr]

damn, that looks awesome dude

post some recordings with it, let us hear something

[DeadPoet]

I've seen a local live engineer do about the same thing this summer: attach an old speaker to a stand, solder an XLR on it and *tadaaa* instant bass/low/grumble/sub/sex vibes...

The explanation would be that since the 'diaphragm' is that large it is able to capture the lowest frequencies.. mix that with a regular kick mic ...

I wonder what it would do on my bass cabinet


Herwig

[Track Rat]

I'm impressed! I may have to try something like that. I saw the Yamaha unit and was wondering how long it would be before someone tried to clone one.

[larraga]

whoa - on a bass cabinet! gonna try it on there next... Thanks!

Larry

[DeadPoet]

Lemmeknow!

[zbert]

So Larry, could you expalin the hook up on this thing to me. I'm guessing you just face the front of the speaker toward the kick head. The leads of the speaker go to the XLR. What is the wireing of this? How is the sound transfer from the speaker to the mixer.(I mean other than the wire) Sorry to sound so dumb about this but it looks really cool.
Thanks
Tom

[larraga]

Tom,

Yup - just like in picture to the right; up against the front kick head, but not touching. Positive lead of the speaker to pin 2 of the XLR, neg to pin 3. I'm not sure what you're asking in "How is the sound transfer from the speaker to the mixer?" Do you mean how does it sound? Great! Or how is it working? Great, too! Sorry...

Larry

[tf5_bassist]

this is by far the greatest thing i've ever seen. What size speaker is that? I *really* think that's going to be my next project!

[larraga]

That's an 8" driver in there that came out of an SWR Henry the 8 X 8 bass cabinet. It's a custom spec'ed for SWR Celestion BG8-60.

Larry

[tf5_bassist]

Originally posted by larraga
That's an 8" driver in there that came out of an SWR Henry the 8 X 8 bass cabinet. It's a custom spec'ed for SWR Celestion BG8-60.

Larry

Oooh... sexy. What'd be the thoughts behind putting a 10" or even larger in there? Would that just completely destroy the clarity, or make it more sensative, or just give a weaker signal because the cone won't move as much?

Thoughts on a 15" or 18" in a large kickdrum shell? LMAO!

I definitely want to try this out on my own with a few different sizes and kinds of speakers and whatnot. I like this idea. I can't wait to hear any clips you post!

[Scinx]

Looks like you have a multimillion dollar future with Behringer..nice work

[larraga]

I *do* have a 12" speaker (nothing near as nice as the 8" Celestion) lying around and a 14" X 20" shell from a set of old-school marching tri-toms in the attic. Hmmm...

[tf5_bassist]

I wish I had some spare speakers and drumshells laying around. I may be able to find some, but i'm just incredibly curious on this whole concept from a tech. standpoint, mainly. I realize it won't sound as great as a d112 or a 421, duh, but still. i like the theory.

[knightfly]

Quite a few pro's have been doing this little "secret trick" for years, only not as elegant - Yamaha just made it cool looking and expensive.

Normally it's used just as Larraga's doing it, in combo with a real mic to catch the other half of the spectrum, where the beater slap lives.

Don't mean to burst your "inventor" bubble, it's happened to me before too - When I was just starting out in photography (about 38 years ago) I "invented" solarization, totally by accident. It really pissed me off when I found out about 6 months later that somebody beat me to it by a couple of decades or more... Steve

[tf5_bassist]

Originally posted by knightfly
Quite a few pro's have been doing this little "secret trick" for years, only not as elegant - Yamaha just made it cool looking and expensive.

Normally it's used just as Larraga's doing it, in combo with a real mic to catch the other half of the spectrum, where the beater slap lives.

Don't mean to burst your "inventor" bubble, it's happened to me before too - When I was just starting out in photography (about 38 years ago) I "invented" solarization, totally by accident. It really pissed me off when I found out about 6 months later that somebody beat me to it by a couple of decades or more... Steve

I don't doubt it's been being used for quite a while. Why else would Yamaha make one? lol... but I'd heard of a concept like this before, not relating to drum mic'ing before, i don't remember when. It's only been now that i've been paying attention enough to really like the idea.

That, and I wanna' build something, and I don't have the money to build a studio.

[Jblount]

I havnt gone to the engineering heights of larraga, but I do use a 12" speaker with no enclosure. I sounds great blended with my regular kick mic.

[theletterq]

I've used just an old 18" cab. Was downright sub-wooferish and only worked really really low in the mix.

[larraga]

Yeah, that's what leads me to believe that the 6.5" like the SubKick uses and my 8" is probably optimum. Maybe a 10" aluminum cone like the Hartke transducers. Anyway, I love what I get with it and the in-drum mic combo.

Larry

[donkeystyle]

thinner, cheaper speakers seem to sound better to me. I use a 10" speaker that i bought at a thrift shop. it seems like bass and pa speakers are too muddy. i tried an 18" pa speaker and it sucked. i've been told about friends using 10 inch bass speakers, but those also sucked, but maybe ur ssounds good because it's so small.

you might try putting another head on the tom and put the speaker at the otherside of the tom......... i (along with a lot of other people) have done that and it sounds real cool.

i did pretty much the same thing as you about a year ago, but i flipped it completely around........i put a single headed floor tom about 1 foot from the b-drum with the head facing the drum and the speaker facing the drum from the other end.........the same basic idea as using a 2 headed tom, but not quite as much resonance.

tried it on bass guitar........for rap it might be good........but for everything else you don't need that amount of low end. it will just get in the way of the bass drum.

[carlosguardia]

Looks very ingenious and cool. I'm sure there is no reason for that not to sound good.... I mean, huge diaphram... hmmm... makes me want to hear it though.

Great idea!!!

Carlos

[ad0lescnts]

yeahh i wanna hear!

T

[tf5_bassist]

Originally posted by donkeystyle
thinner, cheaper speakers seem to sound better to me.

I was thinking about this yesterday, wondering if a cheaper thinner speaker would be more responsive, or if a better quality speaker would give a stronger sound, etc etc... And Larraga mentioned that there was a hole in the speaker he used, and it still worked. how bad of a hole was there, and how would that affect the sound? I mean, how bad of a hole would it have to be to make an audible impact on it?

[larraga]

The hole in the cone is about 1/4" in diameter about an inch from the outer edge.

I want to get some samples posted for y'all but we're in the middle of overdubs now and getting time on the DAW and access to the files has been less than easy. Soon hopefully...

Larry