Sub kick wiring

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clevodrummer

Tascammer
Thanks for all the response re wiring a subkick. Ive got a slingerland floor tom I am turning into a bass drum and contemplating this procedure. Im in the dark about wiring an xlr cable to a speaker.

Do you mean, stripping the wires and soldering the cable to the speaker terminals?

Obviously Im not to sure about the wiring question to reverse the polarity, but I want to do this tomorrow sometime, so if anyone can help me out with the actual wiring from cable to speaker, I would REALLY appreciate it.

Sounds cool.

thanks again
 
I'd connect it to a 1/4" TS connector, negative terminal to tip and positive terminal to sleeve, and then I'd plug the 1/4" into a passive DI box. This will balance the signal and transformer isolate it so that you'll avoid ground loops.
 
i have just made one out of an old speaker about 10 mins ago. All i did was got a speaker out of an old hi fi. then got the speaker cable attached to the speaker (plus and minus) and switched them around (so the red cable or Plus cable is on the minus and the minus cable or black cable is one the plus) then if your using an xlr cable attatch the wire that would be Pin 2 to the now posotive wire and (i think) pin 3 to the negative wire.
I took out the circuit board (transistors etc..) so it is basically Speaker - Mixer. not Speaker - transitor etc... - mixer.
I havnt been able to try it out yet on my bass drum but i know it deffinatly works and picks up low frequencys so i will give it ago tomoro for my bass drum (probably with another bass drum mic shure pg52 (crap i know))
I hope this helps! ask away
 
I also just did this about 10 minutes ago using a 1/4" TS as suggested above. I used an old amp speaker. I just recorded some drums and Im currently transfering the tracks from my recorder to the computer so we'll see how she sounds.
 
guess what I'm gonna try soon............................BTW does the driver have to be in a cab???? it's probably been said already, I just can't be assed looking :p
 
Well I have to say that my subkick was a failure. Well not totally, I gained a lot of experience and im sure Ill use it for something, but i didnt get any usable results out of it. I didnt really expect much though because I used pretty small cheap speaker out of an old amp. I cant wait to try it with a bigger speaker though.
 
I think perhaps that people are expecting Sub-kicks or speaker mics on their bass drum to add some amazing element to the sound, and thats really not the case. More than anything, I think the whole process is best used as a learning tool, rather than as a technique for getting a very useful sound.
 
yer im sure that i might find a use for it. maybe in a classic rock song :confused: I put a crap recording of it on here somewhere... it doesnt sound like anything special. infact it soudns crap but with placement, eq, compression.... it might be handy haha :D
 
breeeeza said:
yer im sure that i might find a use for it. maybe in a classic rock song :confused: I put a crap recording of it on here somewhere... it doesnt sound like anything special. infact it soudns crap but with placement, eq, compression.... it might be handy haha :D
Click to expand...

I've heard your clip Breeeeza & for an untreated sound I think it rocks

Tools that we have in our box don't get used all the time IE you wouldn't use a sledge hammer to hammer in a drawing pin....................the subkick I can see would have it's place in a reggae setting or as somebody suggested on a bass cab, I wouldn't use it for a light country track though

what I did notice about the sound clip is that there isn't much else in there except the sound of the kick
 
Give me a few minutes, I'll make an example of what it does and post it.

You guys do realize that a subkick is not the only mic on the kick, don't you?
 
Here is a kick with the subkick being turned on and off. The mic on the inside is a d112. There is no compression or eq.

 
Are you using the actual Yamaha unit, or a homebrew version?
 
Home brew. 8 inch speaker strapped to a mic stand with the + and - hooked to the hot and cold of a mic cable. The speaker is about 3 or 4 inches from the front head.
 
definately adds a sense of serious depth to the sound along with the D112......................I'm assuming that the sound change towards the end of the clip is the D112 being turned off to leave just the sound of the speaker?????......................as an extra parameter to the kick sound it is awesome IMO
 
slidey said:
I'm assuming that the sound change towards the end of the clip is the D112 being turned off to leave just the sound of the speaker?
Click to expand...
Yes, that was just the speaker at the end.
 
Farview said:
Here is a kick with the subkick being turned on and off. The mic on the inside is a d112. There is no compression or eq.

Click to expand...

Nicely done!! ;)

Great example of how it should be used!
 
it adds that extra low thump, thats nice. It almost sounds like you could perhaps avoid EQing on the D112 which sometimes lacks that low end thump.

I'm gonna have to try that.
 
If you use the speaker-mic, you could actually forgo the kick mic, and use a speaker on the resonant side of the kick, with an SM57 aimed at the mallet spot from the batter-side. The Kick drum tunnel will help eliminate extra/non-kick drum sounds.




Tim
 
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