bass drum muffling problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Abbott
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Abbott

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i am now muffling my bass drum with two small blankets that are about as thick as towels lightly touching the head near the bottom of it, not where the beater hits. For some reason when I hit the drum with my beater, the beater kind of bounces when it hits. I know this has something to do with how I am muffling the bass drum, but it is really annoying. It is like the head isn't firm enough and the beater kind of bounces back rapidly. Understand??? Thanks..
 
Try using a couple of thin strips of material like courderoy. Take off the head and stretch them really tight across the inside of head as you are reasembling.
 
The rebound you're getting may be in large part to the head tension. Try loosening the lugs a little--this will also help give you a deep "thud" type sound.

Pedal tension may also cause a funky rebound feel. If you don't play a lot of rapid-double-progression, ghost note type things, loosen the spring tension, too.

As a final technique, install a beater pad on the head where the pedal beater makes contact with the head. This will help absorb some of the force from the pedal stroke and reduce rebounding.
 
make a tunnel out of a sheet of foam. put the mic in there. it creates a very focused bass drum sound sometimes.

i was doing a session the other day, and I was editing the drums in Nuendo (transfered from some Fostex HD recorders).

On the bass drum, i inserted a Waves C4 (i think, either that or C1+). it's a frequency selective compressor. anyway, there is a side chain eq section, if you make a big dip around 150hz and set the plug in to output the side chain signal, it created a really interesting and amazing kick drum sound! very clicky and a nice amount of LF energy.ill post it up here if i have some free time. i was really shocked!
 
take a sock put it over the beater. keep it attached with a rubber band on the beater shaft (damn, this sounds dirty). This does the trick for me. Also you can lower the beater on the pedal so that there is not as much torque.

LEH
 
no socks and cordoroy and other nonsense is nonsense. If you have problems with your beater bouncing back too fast, it's either your pedal or the tuning of your drum. Most factory kicks (the dreaded 16x22) should have the heads loose as hell to get the drum to resonate properly.
 
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