best sounding kick drum

[carlosguardia]

So, I'm helping out recording this rock band... the producer is amazing and the first engineer knows all the tricks known to man!! We start to mic up a brand new Sonor drum kit... great sounding kit by the way. The idea is to make it sound really dry (the drums) but with room... ok, to the point... kick drum.

I've recorded a few things and have always used either the 112 or the 52 really close to where the hammer hits in the "inner" head... and in this adventure we decide to do this:
"Neumann U47, on axis, 24 inches from the spot, MD 441 2 or 3 inches away off axis at 45 degrees" another option was this with a 57 on the side of the pedal a couple inches from the spot but before we could try anything else we noticed some problems with the toms (421's) and phase stuff so we ended up doing just the U47 at 2 inches from the bass drum head from the inside without the back head of the kick drum on.... and it kicked ass!
the point is that IMHO a u47 inside on axis and at 2 inches from the spot where the head is hit gets a killer drum sound!!!!
Question: What other ways have any of you gotten good kick drum sounds... other than with 52 and D112.
Cheers,
C

 

[thebigcheese]

I know this is sort of against the trend or whatever, but I kinda like just pointing a mic at the pedal pad from outside the drum (drummer side). Then again, I don't have a hole in the head to put a mic in and my kick is the loudest, bassiest kick I have ever heard, so... might not work for everyone. I used to put it on the other side, but I couldn't get any click that way, so I moved it.