KIck drum doesn't have a hole??

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amala

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It's a drum without a hole so I can not put the mic against the batter head from the inside of the kick drum!

Where should I place it??



Thanks a lot!!
 
Take a 1lb coffie can and heat it up. thats how a hole is made.
 
Definately cut a hole in it...Another option is GC carries a cutout pattern just for this purpose...
 
The advantage of having a hole is that you can then move the mic inside the kick drum so that you can balance between the attack and the resonance. Without a hole, you are going to have to settle for either a lot of attack or a lot of resonance. You will not have a lot of luck getting both.

For attack, you can mic the beater striking the head on the batter side.

For resonance you can mic the resonant head.

You COULD try micing both. If you are recording on a digital recording medium, like tape, or a stand alone hard drive system, you can delay the batter side mic to match with the resonant head side mic. They will pick up the sound slightly out of time with each other. This may or may not pose any problems, but if the kick has a sort of "washy" sound to it, delay the batter side mic.

If you are recording into a DAW, you can just move the whole batter side mic to match the resonant head mic.

Depending upon the type of sound you are after, you may or may not want to put a hole in the resonant head. If your sound is "jazzy", or you require a sort of old school 50's rock sound, sort of like the Stray Cats, then you would want to keep the resonant head on and have no hole.

If you are looking for a sort of "large" kick sound and require the ability to accentuate the attack, a hole in the resonant head is the way to go.

One other option is to remove the resonant head. Some people like this (me for one..I like how well it tightens up the kick drum sound...) and some don't (they complain that they don't get a "thick" enough kick drum sound this way).

Those are your options.

Well, there is the option too of trying to capture the whole drum sound with a room mic too.

Ed
 
Seems to me like we're missing one bit of information: are you the drummer and you just didn't know how to cut a hole, or is it someone elses drum set?

If it's the first, all the above suggestiuons are fine. But I often work with drummers who INTENTIONALLY don't have holes (mostly jazz drummers) because that is the sound they prefer. In that case, you need to come up with alternative mic'ing schemes, like mic'ing the kick from a distance, building a tunnel, mic'ing the beater side, etc. Experiment until you find a sound THE DRUMMER is happy with. (Let's not forget the musician here!)
 
littledog said:
Seems to me like we're missing one bit of information: are you the drummer and you just didn't know how to cut a hole, or is it someone elses drum set?

If it's the first, all the above suggestiuons are fine. But I often work with drummers who INTENTIONALLY don't have holes (mostly jazz drummers) because that is the sound they prefer. In that case, you need to come up with alternative mic'ing schemes, like mic'ing the kick from a distance, building a tunnel, mic'ing the beater side, etc. Experiment until you find a sound THE DRUMMER is happy with. (Let's not forget the musician here!)


No,I'm just recording those guys and the drummer has such drum set.
He is basicaly a Jazz drummer but this is just demo recording cause they are sometimes playing on the weddings so they want some material that they can pressent to ther customers.

Can I use condenser such as AT3035 on the kick???



Thanks!
 
i have successfully recorded many bass drums without a hole and only one mic. you dont neccessarily need a hole to get a good bass drum sound. like lil'dog said, build some sort of a tunnel, or put a heavy blanket over the resonant head and BD mic. in general, the farther back you move the mic, the more attack you will get (and also bleed if you do not have a proper tunnel). the closer you get to the head, the more bass, and the more boomy it will be.

lynn
www.therecordinghouse.com
 
foreverain4 said:
i have successfully recorded many bass drums without a hole and only one mic. you dont neccessarily need a hole to get a good bass drum sound. like lil'dog said, build some sort of a tunnel, or put a heavy blanket over the resonant head and BD mic. in general, the farther back you move the mic, the more attack you will get (and also bleed if you do not have a proper tunnel). the closer you get to the head, the more bass, and the more boomy it will be.

lynn
www.therecordinghouse.com




But can I use Condenser (AT3035) and how far from the kick??

Hey you gotta realy nice studio over there!!!!!!!!
 
dude really there are no rules to this. i would start with it about 3in away from the head. then move it out 1/2in at a time till the big woofy boominess goes away. as for the at3035, i think that is more of a vocal and acoustic intrument mic. it is not designed to handle highly plosive instruments like a bass drum. what else do you have?



lynn
www.therecordinghouse.com
 
roll of tape and a utility blade

i had this problem before, the drummer didn't really want to take off the head but it had no hole. she had this huge marching band bass drum and part of their sound was that this drum rang out like a bass note that droned under thier music. she hit it very lighty so i felt that micing the outside would provide no attack so we just laid it flat on the ground set a small roll off tape off center and used a utillity knife to cut a very small hole in it. nothing fancy but it worked. but ultimately i presented the drummer with the options and possible outcomes, and she decided that we should cut. i don't know if this provides any insight, being that every situation is usually unique. so good luck.
 
Go ahead and use your 3035. You're not going to get a rush of "plosive" air because there's no hole, remember?
 
isn't it funny that a kick drum mic is "supposed" to be shoved up into it....like that is where we place our heads when we listen to a drummer?

how about a nice 20 x 40 'live' room, acoustically treated to the nines....with a stereo pair out about 10 or 15 feet...or so? ..and the tell the drummer to keep things balanced..:eek:
 
mixmkr said:

how about a nice 20 x 40 'live' room, acoustically treated to the nines....with a stereo pair out about 10 or 15 feet...or so?

Do they sell those at Guitar Center? If so, can I get on the waiting list?
 
foreverain4 said:
dude really there are no rules to this. i would start with it about 3in away from the head. then move it out 1/2in at a time till the big woofy boominess goes away. as for the at3035, i think that is more of a vocal and acoustic intrument mic. it is not designed to handle highly plosive instruments like a bass drum. what else do you have?



lynn
www.therecordinghouse.com



I have beta52,AKGd112,rode NT1,sm57(4),MXL603 .......

I finished recording this guy and everything came out pretty nice except for the kick.It's kind of jazzy,wich is good for the drum solo that he played but not very good for the rest of the songs.

I used AKG D112 for the kick but I got better kick sound from the room mic(NT1) than from the D112.It sounds to boomy when you put D112 close to drum.

Somebody recomended MXL 603 as cheap(good) overheads on this forum months ago and I just tested them.They sound preety damn good for that kind of money!!
 
"big boomy woofiness"! I have a new favorite phrase!

-kent
 
"I used AKG D112 for the kick but I got better kick sound from the room mic(NT1) than from the D112.It sounds to boomy when you put D112 close to drum."




move it back!!!!



generally, the closer the source to the mic, the more bass will come through. the farther away, the less bass. it is exactly the opposite when playing sound through speakers (which just happens to be doing the opposite of what a mic is). the closer you are to speakers, the less bass you will hear. if you move back, you will begin to hear the lower frequencies better.


lynn
www.therecordinghouse.com
 
I once recorded this girl called..........
excellent hole - and recording
superb combo
see?
wasn't far of the topic

Its like this famous conductor who died and arrived at the gates of heaven.

St.Peter: "Maistro! We've been waiting for you!"

"Oh yeah? ", the conductor said. "Why?"

"Well, we're doing this opera here in heaven, and we wanted you to conduct it."

"Thanks St. Peter, but I conducted operas all my life, and now I'm dead I was really looking forward to just some peace and quiet"

"But Maistro!" St. Peter spoke. "You don't understand this is going to be THE best production heaven has ever done. Jezus is the exec producer, Rembrand and Micheal Angelo are making the set, Caruso is the male lead, the whole cast is the best ever!"

His interest now at a higher level, the Maistro thought, and then asked; "Who is the Diva?"

St. Peter, looking slightly embarrassed; "Well, you know.... God knows this girl called Tracy........"
 
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