Earthworks Kickpad

Warhead

Warhead

Jai guru deva om
OK, you guys were asking for info on the Kickpad from Earthworks recently. I finally remembered to get one and have started to use it. The results thus far have been quite surprising, converting my CAD M179's sound to that of a kick mic! I had to engage the onboard pad on the M179 to keep its electronics from puking and away I went. The sound is heavily padded / eq'd and ready for kick use.

Tomorrow I plan on using an SM57 and others to do some real comparisons. I will post some clips when I get a chance. So far it's a neat little line plugger -inner.

War
 
Kool, thanks War... the new Earthworks are great. By the way, there's a "KickPad" article in TapeOp (issue #45, page 73) too. :)
 
Is there a new Tape-OP out? Thiking about it, its been a while since I got one. Something might be up. Not cool at all.
 
tubedude... Yeap, and you may need to renew your TapeOp subscription.

You're welcome War.
 
Warhead said:
OK, you guys were asking for info on the Kickpad from Earthworks recently. I finally remembered to get one and have started to use it. The results thus far have been quite surprising, converting my CAD M179's sound to that of a kick mic! I had to engage the onboard pad on the M179 to keep its electronics from puking and away I went. The sound is heavily padded / eq'd and ready for kick use.
Click to expand...

I am not sure if you want to use your condensers as a kick mic.
Once I thought that condensers are undestructable under such a heavy SPLs, however some Klaus' comments on the topic on his forum made me rethink it, even though there no scientific prove or clear mechanism of working was given.
According to Klaus, your CAD probably in a year or two would be gone. But on the other hand, its capsule is at least 1/20 of the cost of original brass CK12.
 
tubedude said:
Is there a new Tape-OP out? Thiking about it, its been a while since I got one. Something might be up. Not cool at all.
Click to expand...

I've seen the new Tape-Op floating around, but I haven't received mine yet either.
 
OK, I made some clips and ripped them to 320k .mp3. I hate mp3 but you can hear differences between these clips for sure.

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2079&alid=1222

The test was:

CAD M179 with and without Kickpad

Shure SM57 with and without Kickpad

and the chain was:

B.L.U.E. Cranberry XLR cable, Safe Sound Audio P1 preamp, Lucid AD9624 converter, RME Digiface, Nuendo 2.0, 44.1/24 mixed to 44.1/16 .wav, then ripped to 320k .mp3.

Don't listen to these on your laptop, throw 'em up on some monitors you know and can get down and bassy with.

I have not analyzed these etc. just recorded and converted and posted.

I was going to normalize them, but decided against it. You can do that if you like. It was tough properly gain staging this as it was just me in the studio watching the meters while I play! NOT scientific but tells some characteristics of the Kickpad.

War
 
DJL said:
Kool... thanks War, I'm at the pub on my laptop. I'll listen later... thanks again. Don :)
Click to expand...

"I'd rather have a bottle in front o' me than a frontal labotomy..."

Let me know what you think!

War
 
Well, how a kick should sound is subjective, and since I never record drums, my opinion is not too relevant. But, since no one else seems to have an opinion here (got to be a first for this place), this is what I think.

The 57 sucks, of course, but with the pad it's 1000 percent improved, and almost acceptable, with much better punch.

I like the 179 without the pad - with it, it loses too much high and the sound of the beater. The bass is a little too mushy and "ringy" through headphones with the pad, but better through my crappy monitors, which are lacking in the low end.

It's a little hard to compare due to volume differences between the clips of the 57 and the 179, but all in all it certainly adds lows (removes highs) to the sound - I don't know if you could do the same with just eq. I'd like to hear it with a flat mic - especially the ECM8000 to see how it handles the SPL's.
 
Warhead said:
"I'd rather have a bottle in front o' me than a frontal labotomy..."

Let me know what you think!

War
Click to expand...
I still haven't listened to the clips yet... but we got the Earthworks durmkit system last week or so and so far we love it. :)


paddyponchero said:
At the pub on yer laptop :cool:
Click to expand...
Yeah, here on the west coast (CA) we have many DSL wireless pubs, cafes, and etc. :cool:
 
Wow, I'd really like to hear how an SM7 sounds on kick with the pad...seems like it would sound a whole lot "rounder" than the 57 (which didn't sound too terrible with the pad).
 
DJL said:
By the way, there's a "KickPad" article in TapeOp (issue #45, page 73) too. :)
Click to expand...


DAMNIT!!! I forgot to renew my subscription, and now that I did I find out that I did it too late and I'm going to miss out on isssue #45. I really don't feel like going looking for the mag at some news stand. Is there any chance someone who got it could scan/post or just post the basics of that article? I'm really interested in it, but I don't want to have to find and pay for a whole issue just to read one article (I'm a broke college student). If anyone did it I would love them forever, or er....thank them...


-Peter
 
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