Micing a kick drum with no port?

[pipelineaudio]

Point a cardioid mic at the head from the beater side, with the null spot aimed at the snare trap

 

[genesisariana]

..near the drum leg.. where the lows cancle -all shell tone/QUOTE]
I am still laughing picturing my kick drum with cankles.

 

[ecktronic]

the best way to get a clean hole

get a foldgers coffee can, set it on the stove until it gets hot, then just take it off and press it on the head.

boom, perfect clean circle.

get a large coffee can.
heat on stove burner
melt perfect hole in head.
done.

Is this raelly a good idea? wouldnt this melt the edges of the hole?

Eck

 

[giraffe]

yea,
perfectly in fact.

 

[Thunder33]

My drummer recently picked up a new bass drum and has a resonant head on it with no port. When you mic a kick without a port, what mic and placement do you use?

I know that this is a couple of weeks old, but I have been away for a couple of years so I am just catching up on some things. I guess I want to answer this with a question.


Why are you asking? I have been looking over the forums a bit and there are a lot of questions of, "has anyone ever......." or "what do you suggest?" then I read the thread only to find out that the person has not really tried anything. When it comes to miking up anything, you cannot go by what worked for someone else. They are in a different room with a different set of issues. What you do is this......throw a mic on there and see what it sounds like. If it sounds bad, move it. Repeat that until it sounds good. If you cannot achieve it, then have your drummer put his old head back on or drop $25 on another head with a hole in it. Still not getting a good sound? Try a different mic. Still no good sound? Sell the whole thing and buy a Wii.

 

[Ironklad Audio]

i've only bothered mic'ing a non-ported kick once...the drummer had a brand new, fairly nice yamaha kit, with brand new heads, and insisted that the kick would have enough punch...i told him that the kick would lack the high-end to cut through the mix, but he didn't listen to me.

anyways, i ended up finding the spot on the outside of the head that gave the most "thwack" and stuck my D6 in front of it, off-axis. it got a nice low end thump, but almost no beater attack. then i went ahead after the fact and blended a really clicky sample under his kick, rolling off everything below 2k or so.

voila, perfect kick sound. of course he ended up thinking he was right about the head, but i knew better...musicians' egos tend to be much more fragile than their instruments, so i didn't tell him about the sample.

 

[giraffe]

well played sir!!

 

[gasandmatches]

like someone said before it all depends on what style of music you're recording. for a pretty big balanced sound. try a kick mic on the batter side for the punch and a large diaphragm condenser about 1-2 feet from the front of the kick for the resonance. you'll probably get bleed from the condenser but bleed isn't always bad. at least in my opinion.