sm57 to audix d6 upgrade..EQ question

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L mandrake

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Im a guitarist but play some drums and have been recording a lot of live drums lately. I used a 57 on the kick for a while and got a pretty good sound after all the appropriate EQ ing. I recently bought an audix d6 and was hoping that I would shove it in the kick drum and it would magically create the perfect punchy kick sound that I had been searching for. It sounds great but I still have to do Eq to get it acceptable. I assume that with any kick drum mike that even when you do find the right spot , there is still a bit of tweaking to do, or are the shure beta 52's, atm25's, d112's etc the dream mikes that just sound great as they are.
Any body had any experience with the d6 sounding great 'as is'?
 
Make sure your drum is tuned right. All I have to do is stick a d6 inside, place it right and I do a little eq bumb at about 2khz and it's beautiful.
 
so no cut in the lo mids eh? maybe I'll play around with the tuning a bit. My drummer friend lent me a tama tension watch (yes I know , every drummer on this site is gonna jump down me throat) to get acquainted with drum tuning and it sounds much better. I'm using an Aquarian super kick, pillow inside and front skin off.
 
L mandrake said:
so no cut in the lo mids eh? maybe I'll play around with the tuning a bit. My drummer friend lent me a tama tension watch (yes I know , every drummer on this site is gonna jump down me throat) to get acquainted with drum tuning and it sounds much better. I'm using an Aquarian super kick, pillow inside and front skin off.
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I'm not a drummer, and someone will probably correct me here, but I would get a good front head with a port, and get rid of the pillow - and tune the drum well (as mentioned already).
 
NL5 said:
I'm not a drummer, and someone will probably correct me here, but I would get a good front head with a port, and get rid of the pillow - and tune the drum well (as mentioned already).
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The pillow is ok and sometimes needed to kill some of the overtones but yes he should get a front head and either use a cd as a template for the hole or buy one with one in it. I also use the superkick with a pillow and good tuning and my kick sound is pretty good. If you want to hear my kick sound go down to the mp3 section on this site and look for the thread I started called something like "most recent mix". Some people swear its triggered but I swear it's not. I had a really good drummer actually hug me because my kick sounded so good. And no, I don't really need to cut the mids at all.

Ah screw it I'll stop being lazy, here's the link if you wanna hear it.
 
kick drums have mids. :eek:
the kick drum sounds you're used to hearing on tape, usually do not.
the d6 should definitely reduce the amount of eq you're using, but it won't necessarily eliminate the need for it all-together.

possibly, the d6 is just not the sound you're looking for.
 
jonnyc said:
Ah screw it I'll stop being lazy, here's the link if you wanna hear it.
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that's a very good example of the sound the d6 is made to get.
 
Thanks for the response guys. Appreciate the mp3 post JonnyC....but it wont open for me. I will try it again. If and when I do get it open, I'm assuming that the recording is using a D6, I didnt see it mentioned in your post but Giraffe seems to recognize the sound.
 
I mentioned it, just read again. But yes it's what I used and yes it does have a distinct sound. A lot of attack.
 
Sorry, just re read it.... and I just got it open. Sounds great, the attack is what I am really lacking. I got a bit too much boom in mine. I'll go back and play around with it. Thanks again
 
Could the kick be tuned too low? Sounds perfect acoustically. It seems to be tightened just beyond the wrinkly stage
 
try a different beater?

just above wrinkly is probably not that far off, maybe try going up a little more?

how old is the head?

post a sample at lightnigmp3.com
 
the head is only a few months old, its a relatively new beater, iron cobra borrowed from my regular drum source. I'll try going up a bit more.

Thanks
 
Ah screw it I'll stop being lazy, here's the link if you wanna hear it.
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jonnyc that IS a great kick sound. What is the recording chain? How did you record it? I am curious. Thanks
 
elmerfunk said:
jonnyc that IS a great kick sound. What is the recording chain? How did you record it? I am curious. Thanks
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The kick itself is an '82 Tama ImperialStar with an aquarian superkick head. Pedal is a dw7000 using the hard beater. Mic's a d6 into a joe meek 3q using ptle eq bump at 2khz and some light compression. The mic itself is about 6" off where the beater strikes and so on.
 
I wouldn't screw with other mics or beaters. I think you will get the sound you want just fine with the D6. Tuning, tuning, tuning and then play with damping and maybe remove the resonant head. Heck, I even have a resonant head on my kick and with a throw pillow against the resonant head I get a very similar tone. See here on a tune I am working on and this is with no EQ on the kick as we are still in the tracking stages. Just make sure you have that slap.

http://warsaw.innova-partners.com/~cburke/NoManRough_r8b.wma
 
Thanks for that demo. I liked the sound of the kick , gives me something to work towards. Also enjoyed the song, good groove, the drum sound is right there and especially liked the ambient guitar feel.
Are you miking the guitar?
What are you using to record the drums?

Brought the D6 over to my friends place to try on his drums. Yamaha drums with resonant head and small pillow, Definitely getting closer but still had to cut a bit of that monster bottom end out.
Appreciate all the input.
 
1/2 of the kick sound will be where you place the mic too. So once you have the drum tuned, the next step is screwing with mic placement. Gotta do both or your kick will sound like poo. If you are getting too much low end, try moving the mic more to the edge of the drum. In the center, resonant heads can be very rumbly if not dampened, and thuddy when dampened.

Are you miking the guitar?
What are you using to record the drums?
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All the guitars are mic'd... electric and acoustic. The bass is just a DI, but is is just a scratch track I put down myself for the vocalist to hear while she tracked. A real bass track will come later one our bass player is back from boot camp (really).

To record drums.... D6 on kick, i5s on toms and one for the snare bottom, SM7 for the snare top, AT4050 and Rode NT1000 as over heads, Shure SM94 on hats. This all goes through a Mackie 1402-VLZ mixer except for the SM7 which is going through a Summit 2BA-221.
 
Jesus, the D6 is the godzilla of mikes. If my woman had a bottom end like this friggin mike I'd make sure she shaved a few db off too. Anyone know what the word steatopygic means?? The dictionary definition is 'having very large buttocks'. This mike falls into the steatopygic category for me.

But...... I did a lot of playing around with it tonight, moving it all around the kick and I found about 6 inches off the beater or just pointed away a bit produced a good sound. I ended up EQ ing it though, dropped a bit of the arse end out, some lo mids and boosted 2k and it sounds pretty amazing.
I guess I was expecting to be able to throw the mike into the kick drum from the other side of the room and push record. I think that I will get into this mike with a few more sessions
 
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