kick drum: replacement, or eq?

[captions87]

Just finished recording for my band's new EP and upon first listening of the tracks, I've noticed that the kick drum has a bit of a boomy tone to it. Not necessarily a bad thing, it kind of sounded like it could be headed in the direction of the kick drum sounds on "Swimming" by the French Kicks, if anyone here is familiar with them. My dilemma is that some of the tracks call for a punchier tone with more emphasis on attack and less ringing out. So would the best way to go about this be to perhaps blend in a kick sample behind the original track and bring the thump out of that, or would manipulating some frequencies be better? I'm just trying to avoid it ending up with an unnatural sound that doesn't gel with the other drum pieces, so I don't think I want to replace the original kick completely.

 

[guitaristic]

So you haven't eq'd it at all yet, it's just a raw sound? You should be able to give it a bit more punch (or at least take away the boominess) by eq'ing.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Best or easiest? Or both? I like to take the time to get a good tone from a mic'd kit, but I typically resort to using Steven Slate Trigger to get it right. I really find it a waste of time trying to make someones less than adequate kick drum sound like anything other than it is-crap. I started with SS Trigger EX and quickly upgraded to Platinum. Some may give me shit for being lazy, but it just does not make sense to me to spend time trying to find perfection in a kick drum in my space when I can easily use a replacement that just works off the bat.

 

[Greg_L]

Best or easiest? Or both? I like to take the time to get a good tone from a mic'd kit, but I typically resort to using Steven Slate Trigger to get it right. I really find it a waste of time trying to make someones less than adequate kick drum sound like anything other than it is-crap. I started with SS Trigger EX and quickly upgraded to Platinum. Some may give me shit for being lazy, but it just does not make sense to me to spend time trying to find perfection in a kick drum in my space when I can easily use a replacement that just works off the bat.

offcenter will love you for that.

 

[JimmyS1969]

offcenter will love you for that.

Yup. A tool for a tool. I have no problem getting a great sound from 'my' kit. Problem is with the guys that come in wanting to use their own kit. I understand wanting to be comfortable with your own gear, but man, it amazes me how few drummers in my limited experiences, have had such poorly tuned, crappy shit. I kinda gave up trying to fix these guys. You have it good G. I don't blame you for not recording others. Some days I wonder why I do it myself. Fishing is much more rewarding.........

 

[witzendoz]

You will probably find that scooping out the eq around 250hz will clean it up heaps. Then have a listen to what is happening eq wise around 125hz and 500hz and tinker with slight cuts there. If you want it to have more attack try a bit of boost around 4khz.

It's true that you should have got it right in the tuning the drum stage / mic placement stage / recording stage, but now you have to work with what you have, you will be surprised how good you can get it with a bit of work.

Alan.

 

[Greg_L]

Yup. A tool for a tool. I have no problem getting a great sound from 'my' kit. Problem is with the guys that come in wanting to use their own kit. I understand wanting to be comfortable with your own gear, but man, it amazes me how few drummers in my limited experiences, have had such poorly tuned, crappy shit. I kinda gave up trying to fix these guys. You have it good G. I don't blame you for not recording others. Some days I wonder why I do it myself. Fishing is much more rewarding.........

Haha, yeah. If I had to record others I'd probably immediately run to samples too. It's not just your experience. Many drummers have no idea about good drum tone or how to use the right head for the job. Many of them play very well, but have no clue when it comes to sounding good. I play live a lot and check out everyone's kits. I see guys gigging with 5 year old heads and loops of tape all over them. I know right away he's gonna sound like shit and get lost in the stage mix, and if it sounds bad live, it's gonna really sound bad recorded.

 

[ben123]

When i recorded our band, the raw bass drum track sounded horrible. Once i eq'd it and put and put limiter/compresser, it sounded good. You would be surprised what simple editing can do to the sound. It can completely change the entire sound.

 

[TheChikenMaster]

Its a popular thing to cut around the 200hz area for the kick. Gets rid of the boxy boomienes...

 

[Br3n]

i always try to eq and comp and edit the original kit sounds before i run to replacements. i am a strong believer of capturing the sound of a kit and the performance of the drummer that a replacement program will not do for you. But saying that if it sounds shit it sounds shit and replacements are the only way forward then so be it.

 

[groovezilla]

There is some basic processing that can be done to a kick to punch it up.

gate -> filter(EQ) -> compression

Many of the compression presets will get you 85% the way there. However the filter needs to have three parts...

- high pass around 80Hz
- mid scoop that is centered around 4k with a wide/low Q
- low pass around 10k

Adjust the the EQ until you get a punchy boom and still hear the mid tick sound. The mid tick needs to be there for listen back on smaller speakers.

Play with the gate until it releases without a pop or click and it re-engages such that it naturally eliminates the trailing boom.

You can get much more extreme filtering by duplicating the kick track and configuring like this...

Klow => high pass around 80 Hz + low pass around 200 Hz (both Q's set to max)
Khigh => high pass around 3kHz + low pass around 8kHz (both Qs set to max)

Then bus these to the same aux like this...

Klow ---|
Khigh------> Kaux => gate -> compression

Make sure to set the Klow and Khigh channels to get the right mix and then hide or lock these channels before setting the gate. If you have to readjust the Klow/Khigh mix, remember to adjust the gate setting on the Kaux channel.

I hope this helps. I can set up a template in Logic or Pro Tools. You can reach me on GrooveZoo.

Good Luck,

groovezilla

 

[Bisson820]

What i typically do is 3 kick tracks at once with 3 compressors and 6 equalizers.. .sent to a bus and having the bus go through 2 more eq's and a compressor...

at the surface it looks like a LOOOOT of editing.. but its really not... lemme break it down (you'll see its the same process for each track) and this is just the way i do it, im not sayin this is the best way or a good way or THE way to do it... just something to try.

i typically double mic a kick... have one close mic'd and one miced as if it were a life show (either directly in the sound hole... or if there it is backless i tend to put it 2-4 inches away {remember this is the second mic]).

i do the same process to both mic channels AFTER the song is recorded... the plug in chain will look like this

Equalizer
- Solely to cut out the bad frequencies... NO boosting at all.
* Shelf off anything under 40-50hz depending..
* Tweak down anything between 200-350hz... or wherever the BOX sound is coming from
* shelf off anything above 6-7khz *optional*

Compressor
- a fair amount of compression but watch out for over compressing

Equalizer (again)
- THIS one is for boosting for the tone that you desire... a more click sound? boost around 3-4khz ... want a boomier sound? go for the low end, a more puncy sound? go for the mid/low end... for this you really need to expirement and do some trial and error

once i am fully satisfied with the way that sounds.. i take it to another level and use a drum duplicator ( a cool program in logic) that analyzes the transients and creates a midi track of the kick hits... much like a trigger.. and there is a sound back of different kick sounds that you can choose from... find the one that your looking for and add it...

i do the same process to the midi track that i did to mic'd tracks...

once i get that to a good level... i then mix all 3 tracks untill i get a good blend of what each microphone compliments untill i get the final unified single kick sound that i want...

each track will have its own sound that will compliment the final sound i want... so if my "deeper" track is too high for my liking... and i want a smaller sound.. i will slide that fader down and vice versa.. and that applies to all of them..

once i get that blend i am looking for i send them all to a bus or aux channel... and i do that same process yet again untill i perfect the sound im looking for.

i do the same idea for the snare aswell...

but in end i have 5 busses for the drums alone.... 1 bus for the kicks... 1 for the snares... 1 for all the toms... and one for the overhead/rooms... and i send allllll of those busses to a master drum bus in which i will add some reverb and slight EQ to make it sound like your in the room WITH the kit instead of just a bunch of randomly mic'd drums.

...

now some people might think this is a dumb idea... but i LOVE the drum sounds i have been getting using this method.

i know i went into a bit more than just a kick sound... but i could write about triple of what i did for more drum stuff

lemme know if i did a poor job explaining and i'll try to clear it up? or maybe it will just be discarded all together haha.

- Tyler

 

[Greg_L]

lol @ how much stuff yall do to a kick track. Insane.

 

[Bisson820]

double micing eq and compression isnt unusual by any means... the double EQ trick and the midi support isnt a far reach to "perfection" either.. .and bussing your drums is fairly common.

whats your technique?

 

[Greg_L]

I mic the kick with one mic on the inside and then use one EQ and one compressor. No combining, parallel compression, gates, etc. I bus all my drum tracks to a group track. I think, just my opinion, that some of you A) don't know how to tune or mic a kick to sound good on it's own, and B) do all this extraneous processing, bussing, and grouping simply because your DAW lets you.

Do whatever makes you happy, but I think you're just entertaining yourselves.

 

[Br3n]

I mic the kick with one mic on the inside and then use one EQ and one compressor. No combining, parallel compression, gates, etc. I bus all my drum tracks to a group track. I think, just my opinion, that some of you A) don't know how to tune or mic a kick to sound good on it's own, and B) do all this extraneous processing, bussing, and grouping simply because your DAW lets you.

Do whatever makes you happy, but I think you're just entertaining yourselves.

i totally agree with this. good sounds start at the source no amount of processing with make a crap sound good. if you have good sounds to start with then it really doesn't need a lot.

 

[Bisson820]

I mic the kick with one mic on the inside and then use one EQ and one compressor. No combining, parallel compression, gates, etc. I bus all my drum tracks to a group track. I think, just my opinion, that some of you A) don't know how to tune or mic a kick to sound good on it's own, and B) do all this extraneous processing, bussing, and grouping simply because your DAW lets you.

Do whatever makes you happy, but I think you're just entertaining yourselves.

Well as im sure you know the beauty of recording is trial and error. trying to either A) insult the know how of a differing engineer or B) contradict yourself within a paragraph, is rather foolish.

you state that you bus and then you tell me that i bus and group simply because my DAW lets me.

your technique, though possible and can be fine, to me is far too simplistic to compete with the people that use technology to their advantage.

and your method works for certain types of music... sure.. but you need to approach your technique different depending on the style of music that you are going for... a lot of styles... and the majority of genre's... actually WANT an over compressed sound

and by no means am i saying that my technique gives an over compressed sound.

2 mics on the kick is fantastic, it actually allows for less processing because your getting more out of it... much like a snare drum.. and it gives it a very REAL presence and sound.

i think you may be being a touch arrogant.

in the end its all about what sounds good, and i'd be anxious to hear your practice

 

[Greg_L]

Well as im sure you know the beauty of recording is trial and error. trying to either A) insult the know how of a differing engineer or B) contradict yourself within a paragraph, is rather foolish.

you state that you bus and then you tell me that i bus and group simply because my DAW lets me.

I didn't intend to insult or single you out. If you took offense, that's something you need to look at within yourself. Something I said must have rang true for you to get offended. I also didn't contradict myself. I bus all of my tracks to one drum bus. You, and others, have busses going to busses going to other busses. That's the kind of silliness I was commenting on.

your technique, though possible and can be fine, to me is far too simplistic to compete with the people that use technology to their advantage.

There's a difference between using technology and abusing technology. My technique, the technique that has been used successfully for decades, might indeed seem to be too simple for someone that likes to turn virtual knobs and explore the capabilities of his DAW. Whatever floats your boat dude. I'm not competing with anyone.

and your method works for certain types of music... sure.. but you need to approach your technique different depending on the style of music that you are going for... a lot of styles... and the majority of genre's... actually WANT an over compressed sound
and by no means am i saying that my technique gives an over compressed sound.

It doesn't take 5 drum busses and three kick tracks to make an over compressed/highly processed sound. As far as different styles and genres...I tend to think that a kick drum doesn't give a shit what kind of music it's playing. A kick drum doesn't know if it's playing jazz or metal. It's up to the drummer and/or engineer to have the kick drum set up for the music being played. Instead of using 15 kick tracks and 17 EQs and 16 compressors to get the sound right after-the-fact, I think maybe you should do that before you press record. But hey, then you won't be able to play with your DAW, so maybe getting it right at first isn't the best option for you.

2 mics on the kick is fantastic, it actually allows for less processing because your getting more out of it... much like a snare drum.. and it gives it a very REAL presence and sound.

2 mics on a kick is fine, but if you still need to do all that bussing and EQ'ing and compressing, maybe it's not actually allowing for less processing, or maybe you just recorded double the bad sound.

i think you may be being a touch arrogant.

Of course. It's always my fault that people get offended too easily.

in the end its all about what sounds good, and i'd be anxious to hear your practice

Don't bother. You'll hate it.

 

[Bisson820]

I didn't intend to insult or single you out. If you took offense, that's something you need to look at within yourself. Something I said must have rang true for you to get offended. I also didn't contradict myself. I bus all of my tracks to one drum bus. You, and others, have busses going to busses going to other busses. That's the kind of silliness I was commenting on.

Im not insulted nor did i take offense, just calling it out that as an engineer, you should understand there are many methods to getting a sound yourlooking for... and i have several different kick voices from the same take blending to make the sound i want... once i get that mix i bus to get a single fader of the mix of those 3 voices that i want with each voice being processed as needed (for w/e reason you think im over processing, but im talking minor changes). im taking an extra step from your method and bus those 3 voices into 1 fader.. .that 1 fader is esentially my "kick mic" with which i bus to a master drum bus as you do.

There's a difference between using technology and abusing technology. My technique, the technique that has been used successfully for decades, might indeed seem to be too simple for someone that likes to turn virtual knobs and explore the capabilities of his DAW. Whatever floats your boat dude. I'm not competing with anyone.

your technique and mine arent very different, instead of using 1 mic i use 2, and will sometimes reinforce the sound with midi.... like MANY people do and have done since the option was available.. if your method was flawless... then there would be no need for such technology to be invented in the first place... and you were competing the second you tried to knock someone elses method.. and i enjoy your condescending "turn virtual knobs" comment.

It doesn't take 5 drum busses and three kick tracks to make an over compressed/highly processed sound. As far as different styles and genres...I tend to think that a kick drum doesn't give a shit what kind of music it's playing. A kick drum doesn't know if it's playing jazz or metal. It's up to the drummer and/or engineer to have the kick drum set up for the music being played. Instead of using 15 kick tracks and 17 EQs and 16 compressors to get the sound right after-the-fact, I think maybe you should do that before you press record. But hey, then you won't be able to play with your DAW, so maybe getting it right at first isn't the best option for you.

as i stated before, im not saying my method is used to make an overly compressed sound.. in fact my method does far from that becuase thats always up to how much compression you add.. .not how many tracks or busses your using (busing isnt processing.. its just routing, get it right) and i dont even know where you got your "counterpoint" talking about a kick drum knowing the type of genre... all i said is methods will change from genre to genre... but, i guess you missed it? and not once did i ever say to not try to get it right with tracking... im not substituting your method with mine... im just making yours better.

2 mics on a kick is fine, but if you still need to do all that bussing and EQ'ing and compressing, maybe it's not actually allowing for less processing, or maybe you just recorded double the bad sound.

this is where your arrogance comes into play, it has nothing to do with someone taking offense, but simply your lack of ability to see it in another light. if you listen to me and yourself (for that matter) you understand that bussing is nothing but routing, correct? so we can rule that out of your "play with your DAW and over process" theory... and how can you say that EQ and compression isnt used... your going to tell me you never use that on your kick?... ever? and again... when did i say sacrafice mic placement for editing? i thought you and i were on a level of understanding that mic placement comes first without question.

Of course. It's always my fault that people get offended too easily.

and again, no offense was taken, and im not calling you arrogant, i just think your being arrogant about this particular discussion because your naturally assuming that im just over processing... which im really not and you dont really have the ability to judge that... you dont even know the amount of which i compress or EQ... so is your big beef that im bussing (routing) more than you do?

Don't bother. You'll hate it.

Get over yourself.

edit -... well i messed that up but you get it.

 

[Greg_L]

Now who's being arrogant?

For the record, I didn't say you, or anyone else, is wrong for doing what you do. Do whatever you want. I just don't want n00bs stumbling on to crazy ideas and thinking that's how it's supposed to be. I'm merely providing a viewpoint that focuses more on recording fundamentals instead of relying on heavy-handed processing and DAW trickery.