Tim Brown.............need Question Answered

jeff5xo

jeff5xo

New member
Hey Tim, over in recording technique forum, you mentioned something about putting a speaker in front of the bass drum. What does this do? What kind of speaker? Do you hook it up to your mixer? Please explain..........I don't get it. Thanks bro.
 
jeff5xo said:
Hey Tim, over in recording technique forum, you mentioned something about putting a speaker in front of the bass drum. What does this do? What kind of speaker? Do you hook it up to your mixer? Please explain..........I don't get it. Thanks bro.
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Hi Jeff,
Any kind of speaker will work.

I use 8" Carvin speakers for this.

You just wire the speakers up to a 1/4" jack or an XLR and plug them into yur mixer like they are a microphone, because that's exactly what they are. They will add extra oomph to your recordings. And you can use the "speaker mic" with a pair of overheads and a snare mic, and make really good recordings - the thing is, the kick is going to sound low and thick, because the speaker mic by itself won't really pick up any "slap"/click from the mallet hitting the batter head.



Tim
 
As always Tim, thanks a bunch. I'll give it a try. Another question, does speaker size matter? Can I use a 4x12 cab, or do I need to use an individual speaker? What's the placement? Drummers resonant head is on, 8" hole in front, 3 moving blankets over bass drum and 5 gallon bucket forming a tunnel. How far away does "speaker mic" go. Where is it aimed? (or at least what's a good starting point?

Eraos, thanks for the reply. I clicked on the link and the link worked, but the link on the link didn't work.............if that makes sense! Anyway thanks again for trying to help me out!
 
jeff5xo said:
As always Tim, thanks a bunch. I'll give it a try. Another question, does speaker size matter? Can I use a 4x12 cab, or do I need to use an individual speaker? What's the placement? Drummers resonant head is on, 8" hole in front, 3 moving blankets over bass drum and 5 gallon bucket forming a tunnel. How far away does "speaker mic" go. Where is it aimed? (or at least what's a good starting point?

Eraos, thanks for the reply. I clicked on the link and the link worked, but the link on the link didn't work.............if that makes sense! Anyway thanks again for trying to help me out!
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If you wanted to, you could get a new 5 gallon bucket, and cut a decent sided hole in it - and mount the speaker to the bottom of the bucket.
Or.... you can try this, place the speaker cone down in the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket (whiile it's sitting upright on the fllor) and mark the holes to mount it, and just mount it face down in the 5 gallon bucket.


In theory that will work, and you won't have to reverse the polarity of it.

I haven't tried this, I'm just thinking stream of though consciousness about this. I have my speakers mounted to PVC frames that I made.
The placement is all going to be up to you - generally you want it fairly close to the kick - the farther away you go with it, the more other stuff you might pick up because you'll need to raise the gain.

If you go here:

http://www.myspace.com/buckskincondom

listen to that song with headphones on, and you'll hear what a kick drum with a speaker on it sounds like - keep in mind that is a 28" Kick drum, so it will go really low - and that one was tuned up a bit, normally I played them all the way detuned - I was trying to build up the strength in my legs by playing with the heads totally loose...plus it feels really good to really lay the mallet into the loose head of a kick drum. LOL

There's screw ups galore in that, since it was just a running tape of bandpractice, but you can get an idea of what the "speaker mic" will do.


I don't know if a 4x12" will work.

I've seen guys use little 12" single extension cabinets for this, and I've seen people literally mount the speaker to the kick drum - they used short Bungee cords to mount/suspend a 6.5" speaker to the front of a kick drum - they just hooked the bungee cords (those little short ones) to the speaker mounting holes, and then the other ends to the Tension Rods of the kick drum.



Tim
 
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A 4x12 cabinet will work. I've done this with my Sovtek 2x12. I just ran a guitar cable from the speaker jack to a passive DI box, and ran the DI to my mixer. Easy as pie.

PLEASE NOTE: I am talking about the input jack on a speaker cabinet. I am NOT talking about an amplifier's powered speaker output. I just wanted to clarify before someone sends 100 watts of Marshall power straight into the line input on his mixer.
 
Problem is, if you use a 4x12, all four speakers will be picking up signal (if you just use the speaker jack on the cabinet), and you will be picking up too much other stuff , because once you center one speaker on the kick, the other three will be picking up other stuff. It won't isolate the kick well enough. You could probably get away with it with the 2x12, like Adam P said he did, but a 4x12 would pick up too much stuff.
 
Right. I didn't say it would sound great, just that it would work. I had the best luck with this using my 1x15 Ampeg cab.

Really though, just go to Radio Shack, buy an 8" or 10" speaker and a cheap guitar cable. Cut one end of the guitar cable off, attach the conductor to one of the terminals on the speaker, and the shield to the other. Plug the other end into a passive DI box. Suspend the speaker in front of your kick drum. Voila. Then just experiment with other stuff (putting the speaker in a tunnel, reversing the terminals on the speaker, etc etc) until you get the sound that works best for you.
 
That's too funny, Buckskin condom doing Crack Junkie Girlfriend! I love it. Thanks for all of your help guys. I didn't even think about th 4x 12 cab having ALL the speakers pick up sound.........duh. I love this this website, it's guys like you that make it easy to find out new things. Thanks!
 
Hey I had another thought that I wanted feedback on. Is it possible to "re-amp" A Bass drum? What I mean is, take the recorded bass drum and feed it through a speaker, mic the speaker and blend it in with the original sound. Is that worth trying or is it just a bad idea?
 
I suppose you could. I had never thought of that. Try it out and post some samples!! I have heard of people running the snare track through a speaker, and and placing the snare drum on top of the speaker, and then recording the drum again. The speaker will excite the drum, and then you can rerecord the snare track that way, to get a different sound. A cool idea.
 
jeff5xo said:
Hey I had another thought that I wanted feedback on. Is it possible to "re-amp" A Bass drum? What I mean is, take the recorded bass drum and feed it through a speaker, mic the speaker and blend it in with the original sound. Is that worth trying or is it just a bad idea?
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They do it all the time.

Hell, they will bring in a full PA system, mic the kit through the PA system - and then record the PA system.



TIm
 
jeff5xo said:
That's too funny, Buckskin condom doing Crack Junkie Girlfriend! I love it. Thanks for all of your help guys. I didn't even think about th 4x 12 cab having ALL the speakers pick up sound.........duh. I love this this website, it's guys like you that make it easy to find out new things. Thanks!
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LOL my brother named us Buckskin Condom. We even have a song - but I don't have it online. "Feel the fringe of my Buckskin Condom - Feel the pleasure of the leather in You!" All the songs were really raunchy, and some of them were downright nasty. Mike didn't care - he was trying to embarass women. Crack Junky Girlfriend is a true story - he dated a girl who had been a cokehead, and she was slipping out at night and going to screw crackdealers for crack.


Actually - you could try putting the 4x12" yunder some blankets with the kick drum.



Tim
 
Thanks Tim............. and everyone else. I sure do appreciate ALL of your guys suggestions! I'll try to post some stuff, although I'm not sure how. I signed up for nowhere radio, I guess I can do it that way. I'll post the link when I get it up there.
 
i have tried a lot of different drivers. Bookshelf speakers work well. I got a 12" radioshack woofer with a blown cone, and that thing is AWSOME. I have tried a Marshall 2x12 jcm800 cab and got GREAT results.
 
DuoToneBand said:
i have tried a lot of different drivers. Bookshelf speakers work well. I got a 12" radioshack woofer with a blown cone, and that thing is AWSOME. I have tried a Marshall 2x12 jcm800 cab and got GREAT results.
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I just mike the room with a couple of neumanns and the an akg on the kick. I get a great drum sound.
 
firby said:
I just mike the room with a couple of neumanns and the an akg on the kick. I get a great drum sound.
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A kickdrum mic isn't going to give you the kind of low end a speaker will because of the sheer size of the speaker.


Tim
 
jeff5xo said:
As always Tim, thanks a bunch. I'll give it a try. Another question, does speaker size matter? etc........
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oh, they say it doesn't matter,
but we know better than that. :D
 
giraffe said:
is there a distinct advantage to a sub kick?

my kicks never seem to lack in the lows.
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It just depends on what kind of low end you are after I guess.

From here on out I'm going to be triggering the kicks. To to get the sound I'm after requires too much crap for me (gates, compression, etc, ) and now that I'm starting to play again, I just decided to makew it easy on myself - my ddrum unit gives me the exact kick sound I'm after every single time, so I figured why bother?

But if you are into the totally organic thing - the speaker mic can add a nice low end thump that a regular mic's not going to get.

I'd still like to try it with like an 18" speaker, just to see what kind of sound it would get.


Tim
 
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