Speaker in front of the kick? What's that about?

S

sixer2007

New member
I see pictures tracking sessions where the engineer places a speaker in front of the kick drum and uses that in some fashion. Can anyone explain why they do it and how to hook it up? Can it be any speaker, or are they from subs, or...?

I often mix other people's tracks from places like mixoff.org, or from Mike Senior's webpage, but haven't come across this type of track yet.. Just curious if it's common and all that.

Thanks!
 
A speaker is just a microphone in reverse and, because of the size of the cone, can do an interesting job especially on bass notes.

Any speaker cone would work but obviously cabinets with crossovers or amplifiers won't. I've never tried anything as big as a sub--from memory it was a cheap 8 inch speaker I played with.

For wiring (assuming you want it into an XLR) put the positive speaker terminal (probably red) and the negative (likely black) to both pins 2 and 3 (as you would with any unbalanced source.

The effect on drums can be a good one--worth an experiment!
 
Bobbsy said:
For wiring (assuming you want it into an XLR) put the positive speaker terminal (probably red) and the negative (likely black) to both pins 2 and 3 (as you would with any unbalanced source.
Click to expand...

Is it not speaker+ to 2 and speaker- to 1+3?
That'd be the equivalent of grounding the ring of TRS to get unbalanced TS, I think.
 
If you're using screened/shielded cable, another method is to connect both the negative and the screen together at the speaker end but I was assuming cheap speaker cable type stuff in which case shorting pins 1 and 3 together would achieve exactly the same thing. I've always done it thus:

unbalanced-XLR_zps419be93d.jpg

Must admit it's just something I was taught about 40 years ago and have been using that long. It works for me! I'll have to go think about it after a smaller amount of blood is circulating in my caffeine stream.

Of course the idea above to use speaker terminal to TS then into a DI box would probably work even better. When I played with this I happened to have an adaptor cable like the above handy and it seemed to work because I had a good range of gain on the mixer of I was feeding into (an old Soundcraft). The DI idea would cover a multitude of sins on the connection.
 
I made one out of an 8" m audio BX8a studio driver. I just clamp the thing sideways to a snare stand, works great. Got to pad it though, or get an in line attenuator, or build one if your savy enough.

Basically captures a nice thick thump centered around 80hz, combine with the mic inside the shell and it works well.
 
Hey guys, sorry I didn't come back to the thread for a while.

All of your information has been really helpful, especially about wiring. I think I'll try to build one of these when I get the chance. Seems like a cool idea.
 
Hijack alert! Guys, I've been contemplating making a sub kick for a little while now...I just wonder if I'd ever use it. Really, what frequencies are you using from the sub kick? Because on a single mic setup I personally roll off at maybe 12-18 db/octave at 30 hz on the kick. It keeps the "important" or more-so "audible" lows, and that slope works well at tightening and punching it up for me. That being said, are you using maybe 30hz to say 80 hz on subkick? Then using your inside mic for the rest?

Because I've seen guys use 3 mics and I don't think I'd ever use the subkick in this scenario: Inside for JUST the click, outside (lets say condensor) for the boom and the body, subkick for ultra lows. So to me, I'd think to use the outside mic for the majority of the range, cross it over with the upper mids on the inside mic and "put some point on it", then I don't know where the sub kick would come into play. Below 30 only for big sub-heavy sounds systems? Wouldn't that hog headroom? And how in the world to expect to mix that properly without correct monitor subs for that and pristine bass trapping in the room?

For the record, I know it all depends on what sounds best for the song.
 
When combining mics yeah I let the subkick do all the low and the mic do all the highs. Like I said there is a nice peak right around 80hz on the 8" driver I'm using.
 
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