good kick sound

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gitrokr

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i finally got my toms in order and they sound fine....not too open and bright but not dead sounding either....but im stil having problems with my kick....right now...i have a pinstripe on it...its a 22", and its has a pillow inside with the resonant head off because i didnt have enough money to upgrade when i got the pintstripe batter head.........

right now it sounds dead....can you guys please give me help on making it sound good ....like what will tightening it and loosening it and all that stuff make it sound....kuz i experiment but i get a bunch of different wacky results
 
the "click-BOOM" sound for you

check this out. I don't know what kind of sound you want, but I just discovered a "Kick" ass kick-drum setup for recording and performing.

HEAD: EVANS EMAD 1-ply
BEATER: wood + DANMAR METAL impact disc!!!!


be amazed by the "CLiCK-BOOM" you get. It almost sounds like what a trigger wishes it could sound like!!

AND take that PILLOW crap out of your drum.
 
What kind of sound are you after?

If you want a thick "slap", the kick drum sound that would be on an Yngwie Malmsteen CD, leave the kickhead slack and wrinkled! Yes, I'm serious...I know, it sounds crazy, but if you will mic that with a kick mic, it will sound thick as hell....you don't even need muffling in the drum...after all, it's not going to RING at all.

You just tighten
the screws evenly, and make sure that the metal barely "jingles", then slightly tighten the screws. Then, depending upon how thick you want it, move your pillow in and out of the drum...


Tim
 
gitrokr said:
i have a pinstripe on it...its a 22", and its has a pillow inside with the resonant head off......right now it sounds dead
Click to expand...

If you take a look at what you said there, there is no mystery at all as to why it sounds "dead".

First go here.

If you don't want to read through all of that (direct link to the kick section), you really need to get a resonant head on the kick and preferably remove the pillow. This depends on how much "tone" you want as opposed to "thump". Not having a resonant head on a kick will make it pretty dead without a pillow. If you can scrape together $20 for a resonant head, do it. A resonant head contributes to a kick's overall tone way more than people tend to realize. You also have a ton of control over the amount of resonance with just this head. There are other methods besides pillows to use for muffling as well. Often times a little rolled up towel lightly touching the batter head will provide just the right amount of muffling. Experiment with the tuning yes, but on a kick that is only the beginning of the other possible variables that affect the sound.

A Pinstripe isn't my first choice as a kick head. I prefer single-ply heads ala Remo Powerstroke 3 but will have to try an EMAD next as I find it hard to ignore all the hype.

As has been mentioned, it all depends on what kind of sound you are shooting for. What sounds "good" to me may not to you, etc. There is absolutely no substitute for experimentation. Take the pillow out and tune it really high. Is that the sound you're going for? No? Then put the pillow back in. Try the rolled up towel. There yet? Nope? Tune it back down and so on. Experiment, experiment, experiment.
 
I agree completely with what letterq says.

Incidentally, you'll rarely get a group of musicians to agree on what is the ideal "good" kick drum sound. A lot of sound engineers do agree though, and that's where the arguments begin.They are usually looking for a clicky thud like what you'd hear in a drum machine. I personally prefer a more resonant thud and I don't usually go all that heavy on the kick (I play a lot of jazz). If I were to be playing all "heavy metal" or "heavy rock" then I also would want a powerful "clicky thud" that would loosen all your fillings.
What letterq said about the 1 ply is important to remember. It just records better. It gives you more attack and resonance to the head and you really do want a resonator head (I know some sound engineers don't like them, but they don't know everything, they just think that they do) Your kick drum is a drum, not an electronic model. It has subtlties to it and when you play like I do, there are a lot of grace notes that are played on the kick that are almost inaudible, but they are there to give more foundation to the music. You want a more responsive head for that.
Dampening is usually necessary, but keep it to a minimum. I pulled the pillow out of my kick when I went to the Evans EMAD 1 ply heads and I'm really pleased with the sound. I used to tape on a piece of foam to the outer edge of the kick batter as well as the batter badge to achieve the correct tone and inside the drum I had a pillow. By the time you're done, you have to really jump up and down on your pedal to get any kind of tone.
I cut a small sound hole in the resonator head at about 4:30 or 5:00 as you face it. It is normally between 4"-5" in diameter (smaller than the "holes" trim that you can buy) but enough of an opening to please the sound engineers and I have enough resonator head left to get some of the benefits from it.
Try lots of things until you get your optimum kick sound, and it will be all yours, and you'll have a whole group of people that will like it and another whole group tht will say it sucks. Go figger. :)
 
I also agree with everything Rimshot added.

I forgot to mention the hole. I also have about a 4 inch hole in the resonant head. Much more than that and you quickly start losing the benefits of even having one. I am thinking about rigging up a homeade internal mic mouting system like the ones made by May so I can go back to using a full resonant head. Even a small hole causes a drastic difference in the depth that can be achieved with a full head. It takes most drummers awhile to adjust to the "feel" of a full head (and some don't like it at all) as it makes the kick a little "bouncier" (if that makes any sense). You must immediately release the beater from the head after striking it which is how you should be playing anyway. ;) Burying the beater into the head will always result in a lot more muffled sound as well. You don't leave the stick on the head after you hit your snare do you?

Good luck with this!

:)
 
Leaving the beater and taking it off the head are two different techniques and it can't be considered "better or worse" just as you can't call heel up or down better or worse. And many people do keep the stick down on the snare when they hit it -- it can give a drier sound for parts of songs as opposed to muffling it and not having flexibility in that way.
 
Dexter,
I agree, however if you are complaining that your kick is too "dead" and you're burying the beater, it is something you need to examine. Also, I was merely pointing out that with 2 full heads on the kick, burying the beater feels very odd and unnatural. As always, this is just my opinion!

:)
 
:) Ah I see. One way to counter-act the difficulty of keeping the beater against the head is by slightly untuning it, this way, it lets you keep the tone but allows for the familiar "buried feeling" (but, then again, what do I know? I keep the beater in the head BUT play heel down :)).

My strategy for getting a good kick sound (which, at least, works well for me) is to tighten the beater head to comfort, I don't do it for tone (I really don't even tap lugs on that side); if I can keep the beater against the head when I want to without the feeling of it rebounding too much (which can cause a non-wanted double bass :)). Then, I put a big pillow inside (thick) and have it touching both heads. Then, after putting the front head on, I first make sure all the wrinkles are out and then just start tuning up by quarter turns all around, checking the tone after each round.

I ended up finding the "In Bloom" bass drum sound that I always loved from Nirvana after only 5 minutes.

Good luck,
 
okay guys- ive determined that i would like a warmer bass tone and would like my kick drum to contrast that so they compete as much....so i guess im looking for more of NOT SO dead sounding thump like in fuel by metallica, sober by tool, thanks for the help guys im trying your techniques and am narrowing it down
 
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