Poor man kick drum micing

[Dioxide]

I'm putting to gether a small demo for my band using 3 beta green 1.1 mics and 1 omnidirectional room mic. Using my PA as a pre Amp and recording into my computer. I need a suggestion on micing the kick drum without it sounding poppy and more power sort of like Tool's bass drum? Any help would be apreciated.

 

[Tonewoods]

A great poor-man's kick drum mic is an EV 664, the "Buchannan Hammer". These things are all over ebay, and are one of the most common mics in existence, it seems. Find one that's trashed, but works, for 20 bucks or so, but make sure it has the connector--they're hard to come by if you don't have one.

I use an EV 666 in the kick, and these things can sound very similar--a sleeper!

 

[Mbest]

Really Cheap!

I used a $99 Audio Technica with tons of compression, and it sounds good on the kick!

 

[Dioxide]

Well thats not really what I was asking but I'll look into it. What I meant was what are some tips using one of my Beta Green mics. Iknow I wont get a bad ass sound i was wondering if there were any tricks to making it sound a bit better. I'm using cool edit pro to record into and mix.

Dioxide

 

[Tim Brown]

Well thats not really what I was asking but I'll look into it. What I meant was what are some tips using one of my Beta Green mics. Iknow I wont get a bad ass sound i was wondering if there were any tricks to making it sound a bit better. I'm using cool edit pro to record into and mix.

Dioxide

Are you the drummer?
How do you tune the kick?
What kind and how much muffling?
What kind of mallet?
Do you use a front head?

These factors definitely play into this.

Tim

 

[Dioxide]

Are you the drummer? No

How do you tune the kick? He tunes semi-tight

What kind and how much muffling? Just a towel

What kind of mallet? DW rubber head mallet

Do you use a front head? Yes

He also uses a click plate Like Pantera. But when mic'd for live shows you cant'' hear it and it sounds awesome yet when recorded it sounds poppy. Should i take the plate off.
And yet still how would i get a punch being that it's not a kick drum mic?

 

[Spray]

Its all about how you place the mike in the bass.
I made my first recordings with an "AIWA" Mic in the kick.
Dont know even where it came from. I think it came for free with my tape deck or something. So this was a real cheap mic.
What I did was placing the mic right below the middle of the bass pointing to the lower right "corner"(i know a bass drum is round . To get more click into the sound you will need to vary the distance of the mic to the beater.
That gave me the best possible sound. But what I recorded still sounded like a "shoe-box". So I had to crank up my EQ's. If you are recording seperate tracks into a computer you are on the lucky side. Just load your bass drum track into your sound editor and try to get a good sound by using EQ, Gate and Compressor. If you dont have that possibility you will need to use your mixers EQ.(I also had to)
Another great help would be a gate.
Just try this.
And of course every bass drum sounds different, so try to find the place where yours sounds best.

 

[John Sayers]

let's face it guys - in reality most of the good recordings you hear today have a sampled kick (and snare) layed in later. I know Alan Jackson does and many many more.

 

[Spray]

I heard the new "Steely Dan" album and they had a killer drum sound. I know they didnt use samples on that.
And if you are using samples there has to be at least one guy who records them. Maybe we will all end up using our "Bob-Clearmountain-Sample-Cd" and never see a real kit in our studio. (Would save me a lot of mics)
I saw your website and I think its pretty informative.
When will you put the rest of it online?

 

[Bruce Bartlett]

You can do a lot with EQ to make a cheap dynamic mic sound good in the kick drum. Try cutting around 400 Hz and boosting around 4K-8K. Maybe boost the deep lows around 80 Hz.

A hard beater provides more attack or "click." Tuning the drum low helps, as does damping the head with a pillow or blanket to shorten the decay portion of the envelope.

Good luck!

 

[Emeric]

Bruce,

Are you the same guy that wrote the book "Recording Demo Tapes at Home"?

If so, I have a few of your books that I've bought over the years. Good stuff.

 

[Emeric]

Geez, I could of just looked at your profile.

Welcome to the BBS!

 

[Bruce Bartlett]

Thanks for the kind words, Emeric. I wrote "Recording Demo Tapes at Home," "Practical Recording Techniques 2nd Ed.," "Stereo Microphone Techniques" and "On-Location Recording Techniques."

I have a kick-drum miking question for the group:

Suppose you're doing sound at a festival, or you're recording the festival. The drummer has a kick drum with both heads on, and no access hole. There's no time to take off the front head. Does anyone have effective techniques for getting a rock-type "tight" kick-drum sound in this situation?

 

[Spray]

Ok you got me.
Use your mikes as trigger for your sampled bass drums.
Another possibility would be to try it the other way round.
Place the mike in front of the beater head but on the drummers side. I once had to do this, cause I had no sampler at hand. It sounded not so bad at all, and hey - we're talking about a LIVE situation here.
I have also seen some guys who did this in the studio in addition to their normal mic inside teh bass drum.

 

[Emeric]

I'd whip out a pocket knife, slash the front head... put the mic in and run like hell...

 

[Spray]

-LOL
Live Technician stabbed by drumsticks!

 

[Recording Engineer]

I Like Emeric's Solution To Bruce's Question

But if quickly slashing a hole is not legal, then I say try miking the beater-side; especially for rock. If it were jazz, I'd say the front-side.

 

[Recording Engineer]

Also

It looks like Bruce Bartlett is hooked... Now only if Stephen Paul had more time on his hands...

 

[Tim Brown]

I have a kick-drum miking question for the group:

Suppose you're doing sound at a festival, or you're recording the festival. The drummer has a kick drum with both heads on, and no access hole. There's no time to take off the front head. Does anyone have effective techniques for getting a rock-type "tight" kick-drum sound in this situation?

Invest in a Pair of ddrum Kick Triggers; they clamp on the hoop of the Kickdrum.
$69 bucks each.
The Kick can be ringing like hell, and this thing will still work.
Carry a DM5. I hate the thing, but it's saved my butt on several occaisions.

Personally, I use a pair of 28" Kicks with full front heads (can we say John Bonham fan?! Hahaha), but I have D112's mounted inside with the MAYea system.

I don't know WHY small Kicks became the rage-I used to play 24"'s-and the switch to 28" was Major!!
It seems like I dropped at least an Octave in Pitch-We're talking Major Chest Pounding here!

No Trigger's?
I've used both a Shure SM98 and an AKG C418 on the batter side clipped onto the bottom of a Floor Tom, aimed at the Kick-worked just fine.
You could also Gate The Kick, and use the trigger in the Keys of the Gates! (I do this one myself live)

Tim

 

[Dioxide]

Ok ive got it recorded down and everything seems to sound ok . Being that I cant individually trck the drums I have everything on one giant track say i was able to sample the kick how would I go about doing it even though its all on one track. Should I sample behind the track to give the kick an extra boost? Like I said before I'm using cool edit pro.