TIPS ON GREAt KIK DRUM SOUND

[ecktronic]

Can anybody help me get a GREAT sound from my KIK drum recordings? eq compression settings..
Mic placement. I only have an AKG D112 to work with, not sure if that is a great mic or not.
DO i place the mic close to the skin or at the hole or outside the hole?
Do i need padding in the kik drum?

 

[Drummer4Life05]

The D112 seems to be a very picky mic from what I've heard.
Try messing around with placement inside and outside the drum.
Make sure the drum sounds good *before* you record.

 

[Lance135]

There are so many ways to mic a kick. On the last session, we needed a natural sounding kick drum, and preferred good isolation, so the mic (also an AKG) went inside the drum less than a foot from the drum head. The front head was on with a small port. With a little messing around, we got a pretty natural sound, but I had to scoop out copious amounts of mids on mix down.

The isolation was incredible. You could only hear a tiny bit of snare on the track, and no cymbals. Granted, he was using brushes, and you would hear a lot more bleed with sticks.

 

[alien]

as stated, placement is importnat as well as having a good kick sound beforehand.

I'd have to look at my compressor (I'm not in the studio now) but I have it set for a pretty tight compression on the kick and have the gate set to help keep out bleedover. I also have an EQ sidechained.

I use an Audix D4 which is an extremely hot mic and placement was a bitch lol.

 

[barger]

d112 is a fine mike!!

i personally use a d-6 on my drummers kick, but that was his prefrence. the d112 is a good all around kick mike!! here is how you do it!!! take the front head off your kick. place a pellow in the drum, tune your drum pretty dead untill your get nothing but a good acoustic thud attack. place the akg about 12 inches away, inside the drum, and point the mic at the beater. got to your mixing console turn down your mid freq down and keep your low and high freq flat. set volume "trim" until it does not clip and you sould have a good basic kick sound to start with. if you have a compressor set your ratio 4:1 AT -10 and you should be off and running!! good luck!!

 

[BrettB]

Gate it!
Really, I thought it was a stupid idea still someone showed it to me! It may sound ridiculous when you hear the kick solo, but in the whole you can get a really punchy kick when working on heavy rock stuff for example.

I always use an AKG D112, placed in the kick pointed at the beater. Be sure the Kick drum is tuned as you want to!

Afterwards, EQ by searching the Attack in the high range and give that a slight peak. Usually I cut a little in the 150-300Hz range and give low boast at 80Hz to give it that heavy sound. EQing depends on the recorded kick of course!

 

[rudalicious]

Well i dont have tons of experince. But I notice that if your track doesnt cut though the mix well even though its almost peaking you can just double the track. ALmost allowing it more sonic space I guess. That worked for me. Of course you will have to mess with it and make sure it isnt sucking up too much of everything else. When I tried this it was great... more punch, more of the sound I acutally recorded and it just really made the kick more apparent. This is only as more of a last resort when you're happy with the sound but it wont show.

good luck

 

[TexRoadkill]

Well i dont have tons of experince. But I notice that if your track doesnt cut though the mix well even though its almost peaking you can just double the track. ALmost allowing it more sonic space I guess.

All that does is raise the volume by 6db. You are better off using compression, limiting and/or EQ.

 

[goldfish]

There are so many ways to mic a kick.

That is so true.

Now, it really depends what you mean by "Great". What is great? Sharp and defined? or powerful and pumping? It really depends on the music you're recording.

My personal method is to use two MD401 Sennheiser mics, one inside the drum, and one micing the outter skin, of course both alighned and phase shifted apropriatley. I play around with the mix between the two and the EQ of each to give a nice overall sound. Generally i take a lot of mid from the outter one, and mainly boost on the inner one. The inner one gives the "thwack" sound of the beater hitting the inner skin. The outer one gives the bassy "boom" sound of the outter skin vibrating. Both are usually gently compressed as required, just to bring the overall level up and make the sound more sustained. Too much compression and it'll be booming for ages. I will limit the whole drum submix to 0dB, to be on the safe side when recording (just in case the drummer gets a bit over excited during a drum solo )

I've got very good results with this, but hey, do whatever you think is right. Experiment!

Gateing is a bit of a double edged sword. When used properly, it can be very effective. For dance or rhythm based tracks, it can be great. But bear in mind that you do get bleed from the rest of the kit when micing any part of a drumkit, so turning off one mic is going to completley alter the sound of the rest of the kit (the mic picks up the whole kit and will apply EQ to it, and so changes the sound).

A snare with gated reverb can sound brilliant. Toto used to use this in a few of their tracks, it makes a very defined sound which sounds very measured and driving. But be careful with it!

 

[rudalicious]

All that does is raise the volume by 6db. You are better off using compression, limiting and/or EQ.

Must have been one of those one time things i guess. The band I did this for had large instrumentation and I found that by doubling a track and then making one sound one way and the other dry and then mixing it did more that just tweaking one track. But im also sure you know way more about it than me hehe.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Can anybody help me get a GREAT sound from my KIK drum recordings? eq compression settings..
Mic placement.

It's not rocket science.... the kick has to sound great acoustically before you can expect to get a great recording of it. Get the kick sounding right in the room - then place the mic where you get the sound appropriate for the song.

You get best results at the front-end with dynamic mics by using a high-quality mic pre - try an API or Great River....

 

[ecktronic]

Cheers everybody. I see that there is no formula for success. Every situation needs a different plan. So i am going to studio tonight and will experiment for an hour or so to get a decent kik and hopefully snare sound! I beleive using the two mics is the best for my situation as the kik drum is pretty small and feeble. A d112 outside and a 58 inside i think. Will play about with tuning first though as it is so true and obvious that the source needs to be right before recording. Its like that expression "you canny polish a shite"! SO TRUE! cheers.