What do you put into the kick drums?

[::XeS::]

I'm curious about how do you deal with the kick drum in terms of dampening etc...
I used lot of things (pillows, blanket, quilt and also nothing) and I have to say that pillows usually didn't dampen so much...but when I used a quilt inside the kick the sound was very tight and punchy.
The only cons using a quilt inside the kick is that you don't have lot of "headroom" to position the mic...anyway you can deal with it, positioning the hole in the right position.
So, what do you use into the kick?

 

[kaomao]

this

http://www.drummerconnection.com/user/drumfreak/blogs/2008/09/14/entry-3361-rockbag-kick-drum-microphone-mounting-system

it makes the sound tight and kills overtones

 

[if6was9]

I usually take all the padding they have out, then place 2 small pillows into the drum, one placed touching the resonant head the other the batter head. Works great for me

 

[bryan_kilco]

I find that a heavy-ish blanket resting slightly on the batter head works nicely. Too much on the batter and it sounds funny, too little and it's boomy.

 

[Trevoire520]

I tend to just use a feather pillow, that combined with low tuning tends to do the trick for me.

 

[Jevil]

I got a nice story related to kick drums and pillows.


Many years ago, we were rehearsing in an old big house cellar. Once we noticed a bad smell in the room and day after day, the stink was worse... I realized that when our drummer played double kick, the air displaced from inside the kick was the cause of the horrid smell.
The drummer put his arm into the kick's hole to see what happened, adn take out the pillow.

The pillow had blood stained rotten and there was a little putrefacting piece of placenta of a cat with white worms... that was nasty!
It seem that one of the female cats around the house decided that the kick drum was a good place to give birth.

 

[Clockwork]

I got a nice story related to kick drums and pillows.


Many years ago, we were rehearsing in an old big house cellar. Once we noticed a bad smell in the room and day after day, the stink was worse... I realized that when our drummer played double kick, the air displaced from inside the kick was the cause of the horrid smell.
The drummer put his arm into the kick's hole to see what happened, adn take out the pillow.

The pillow had blood stained rotten and there was a little putrefacting piece of placenta of a cat with white worms... that was nasty!
It seem that one of the female cats around the house decided that the kick drum was a good place to give birth.

That is so gross. I just use a pillow and a flannel shirt.

 

[::XeS::]

Ahahahahah...nice story. I had to work with a kick "cat lair" too...but it was not that extreme!
Anyway with a single pillow against the batter head I noticed that the dampening is not very effective (too many rings and flutter echoes inside). Moreover with the kick tuned too low, you lack attack also. My solution would be a head tuned a little higher and more dampening inside...like a pillow against the batter head and a blanket to absorb echoes.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

http://www.thomann.de/de/rockbag_rb22180b_drumkissen.htm

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

lol. One time my cat decided to crawl into the port of a kick drum. Drummer didn't know and started playing, never saw my cat bolt through a hole faster in my life. It was pretty funny.