How to get that THICK, FAT kick drum?

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STUKSHUT

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Hi,
My question stems from an issue I am having with my kick drum sound. I can't seem to find that nice, thick, fat sound (i.e. like say NOFX).

Equipment: Mackie 1604 VLZ, Alesis 3630 and a Panasonic DAT. I am aware that this equipment is far from superior (Alesis compressor), but does anyone have any advice?

thanks
 
someone else who likes punk! yea, there are a lot of ways to get that sound. First I'll describe the hard way. Have Epitaph pay Ryan Greene to record through his SSL console onto 2" reel to reel... OR, the much more feasible way. DAT? does that mean you are recording eveything live? Well thats what i understand so here goes. Stick the 3630 into the channel insert on the kick drum channel and fiddle with the settings, with your DAT pretty much use it to limit the dB so it doesnt clip. But the main way to get that sound is not with compression. Its how you tune your drum. Im guessing you stick a big ol fat pillow or something in your drum. well, take it out. you don need that much deadening. second, try to get the kick drum boomy not ringy, but boomy. Once you got that stick a little bit of deadening into the drum, just to get rid of the leftover ring, and speed up the decay. now with a boomy kick i would go to the batter head and start loosening the lugs not too much at a time but systematically. and every so often and more so the looser the skin gets press the pedal like you would. there is no point in making it as loose as your granny's bra but you want to be able to hear a little *click* from a loose skin. you have to understand that when you look at the skin the light reflecting should come off still uniform, not all warped. Now press the pedal and hold it hard to the skin, this should push it in quite far. it should go directly back to being uniform and not warped after releasing. Placeny ment of mic, simple, in the drum about 6~8 inches from the batter skin in (from the drummer's viewpoint) the bottom left about 4~6 inches from the shell poing up diagonally away from the snare towards the point of contact. Now you have a Boomy kick that has the low end that moves you, but not the open jazz sound, and then the high end click, you will probably need to EQ high end in to a desired level to get the right amount of click. make sure there is still enough deadening in the bass drum that it doesnt ring. that was the longest thing ive ever written. hope it doesnt confuse you. =)
 
Get the DM-30 mic from Benson Audio Labs, runs you about 67 bucks. Lay a small blanket in the bass, put the mic about 3 inches inside from where the beater hits the head, aimed about 45 degrees. Run that line into one of your effects units to give reverb, small delay and lower the high eq, but increase the mid's a little and the lows a lot. Also, loosen the front head (better yet, take the mother off!) Then loosen the playing head and use Remo pin stripe heads. If they are old, the fluid in the middle won't do any good. Just look at them in sun light, if they look kinda cloudy, junk them.
Try it.
 
Hey Schmoe -

Where'd you find that DM-30 from BAL? I'm trying to find some info about em, and I cant find a retailer that sells em.
 
Well not an expert here by any means, but the key to getting the backbone of the music, drums and bass nice and fat.
I am a drummer and LIVE sound tech.
First off, get the kick sounding fat by itself, if the heads are good, if not replace them. I like Aquarian for the snare and Eveans EC2's on the rest of the kit, I love em. Loosen up the heads to flex, almost to the point that the heads rinkle, both batter head and front, then tighten just a half turn. Now you should have a pretty fat kick by it's self. That the way I do mine.
And all systems are different, but you should be able to get pretty close with these settings.
You should be able to get a nice fat kick with just about any decsent kick mic with the following.
Place the mic just inside the front port, or place inside at an angle facing the batter head from the bottom, on a small pillow. I feed my mixer first setting the gain, just below the clip, then back down a hair more. Then insert into an eq first, then through the compressor. I usually turn on the low cut filter on the mixer, drop the top and bottom freq a notch or two. On the eq itself, start with settings flat, CUT on the EQ limit boost with an eq, most times it will only inject more noise.
With someone hitting the kick drum for you, hard, about one kick every two seconds is good. Listen, and drop off the top end down to about 10k to 8k, there is nothing up there you need. Then going down the graph.
Drop below 8k or 10k, most of the mids you can cut some, you may need some in the middle for thighness, drop off the 25k 30k at the bottom. You may need to boost your input gain at this point. Boost slightly in the 8-10k range to get your attack, boost again I stress (slightly)100-300hz to get bump. Watch your rumble frequencies, around 500hz. Start there, then using your compressor tweak it with some compression, adding gain when the level drops to low, and sometimes a gate is nessasary, to cut out the ring or sustain. Now with all that bump make sure your not slamming your mixer channel. But that should give you a good start point.
I run the bass guitare channel similar, only cutting the top end and leaving the mids about flat, watching when a song using a slap, or finger pluck, I boost the upper mids a little. As stated, I am a novice, but this works for me.. and most times the listeners really like the fat back lines. And of coarse, this is for music that needs a thick back line. Jazz or bluegrass would never need these settings, and a totaly different story.
 
NOFX's kick drum is not thick. It has a lot of attack and is thinned out to make it clicky and present. This is one of the paradoxes of mixing. For instance, sometimes you have to turn DOWN the bass frequencies in a bass guitar to make the bass stand out. This is because when you turn the bass [frequencies] down, you are essentially exposing the lower midrange and this is where the meat of the sound is located. This is sometimes essential to make the record reproduce correctly on a system with limited bandwidth. In the case of a kick drum, the same sort of principles apply and generally in punk rock and other fast styles like metal, the drums are actually quite thin sounding in comparison to other rock styles. The amount of low end is appropriately mixed in (the art of it) in order for there to be a proper balance of low-end vs. attack and clarity. Low frequencies tend to bottom out a compressor a lot easier too, which is why it may be filtered out quite considerably to make the compressor work with the music.

Cheers :)
 
Throw an ldc in front of the kick, pad it, gate it with a quick release, comp down with short attack and release, cut 200-400HZ. Party Hardy
 
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