Kick Drum Tunnel.

[Tim Brown]

Does anybody here use a Kickdrum Tunnel?

If so, how did you make it, and how effective is it?
What size is it?
How thick is it?

The first time I had ever heard of this, was when Joe Jackson was recording a live record, and they made a 3' long tunnel out of Chicken Wire, and packing foam. I can't remember what magazine ran the article back in the 80's, but I've been intrigued ever since.

I consistently havea problem keeping other sounds outof the kick drum mic (Cymbals especially) I have even given serious thought to going back, and overdubbing my kick part so that I can just have a perfectly clean Kickdrum track.
I'm not recording on a PC....so I can't just make a sample and cut and paste it...so for me, it it's easier just to re-record the kicks by themselves...

Has anyone had any luck with using a tunnel?

Thanks,
Tim

 

[KingstonRock]

The kick drum tunnel is one of the best sounding "tricks" out there IMHO. When I use it I get a huge fat but still punchy sound. I suppose its almost like what a 6 foot long bass drum would sound like.

When I built mine I put the wooden ring at the end of the tunnel and some old speakers where the side would be, then draped some comforters and blankets over it, pretty makeshit. There was a lot of bleed that way, but the overall balance sounded fine, espiecially since i didnt have to eq the bass drum any more than a small cut at about 180hz. Bleed would only be a problem if you boosted a lot of 2-6khz to add click, any cymbals bleeding through would sound like shit.

What I would have liked to do would be to put a second bass drum shell kind of continuing the bass drum an extra 21 inches or so, then covering that with blankets and stuff.

Good Luck,
Eric

 

[Axis]

to get rid of cymbals and other stuff in the kick mic cut everything above and around 5khz

 

[F_cksia]

for that, you can use a sleeping bag too.
no kiddin

 

[dr.colossus]

What I would have liked to do would be to put a second bass drum shell kind of continuing the bass drum an extra 21 inches or so, then covering that with blankets and stuff.

Good Luck,
Eric

this is a very cool idea

 

[agentpenguin185]

The next time my band records I'm going to use this technique.
I'm gonna take off the front head and hoop of my 20" kick. Then I'll take off the batter head of my 22" CB Crapola Kick and overlap the 22" over the 20" filling the gap in between with the foam part of a Remo Muff'l. I am excited to hear what it sounds like. I'm gonna love recording at home, we'll have so much more freedom to expirament. This forum is so cool. Woohoo!

 

[detuned6]

The next time my band records I'm going to use this technique.
I'm gonna take off the front head and hoop of my 20" kick. Then I'll take off the batter head of my 22" CB Crapola Kick and overlap the 22" over the 20"



i did this today, i draped some thick sheets over the 2 kick drums and put a pillow on each side against the outside of the drum to hold it in place. gets rid of the cymb's.

 

[mikeh]

Over the years I've recorded in various studios that used everything from cardboard boxes to plastic garbage cans to create tunnels and I've seen every type of moving blanket and foam configuration known to man.

However, the best result I heard was using an old bass guitar speaker cabinet (I think it was an Ampeg - but I could be wrong) that appeared to have housed two 15" speakers.

The engineer had designed a tube connection (to "connect" the cabinet to the kick drum) useing what appaered to be plastic "snow fence" material with studio foam to control bleed..

We took the resonant head off the drum and close mic'd the batter head with a second mic (which appeaqred to be mounted within the bass cabinet) for resonance micing. I never saw what mic's were used.

I can only speculate that the bass cabinet provided good low end resonance and islolation while capturing the attack of the batter head.

 

[ashram godok]

to get rid of cymbals and other stuff in the kick mic cut everything above and around 5khz

you can get rid of cymbals in the kick mic that way, but you might loose the "kick" in the kick, which i find usually around 10khz...