Why even mic a kick drum?
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joeymusicguy
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AdamWathan
Member
+1, I've always gotten WAY better kick drum sounds farther away vs. close to the beater... Proximity effect slaughtered all my kick drum sounds with ridiculous amounts of mud when I get close to the beater... 2-3" inside the hole sounds great.
AdamWathan
Member
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
Great clip, really shows how different the sound gets from different mics. Did you only change the mic, not the position? The last bit sounded like it was moved drastically compared to the rest.
No I actually haven't tried 2 mics on the kick. I'm recording with 8 channels, and once I mic everything up with 1 mic each, I get 1 spare channel which I tend to use for the snare, to mic from the bottom to add some highs to the sound. I guess 2 mics could improve the kick a lot but also destroy it completely if they cancel out the bass etc... as you said, practise practise
Uh, can't remember now but I think it touches veeeeeeeery slightly, but I'm pretty certain it doesn't touch enough to dampen the ring/ping. Good point... perhaps I should look into making sure it dampens a bit on both heads.
Ah, removing the front head trick... I think I tried it once but it felt like I lost so much bass, but I'm not sure, it was a long time ago. If you say it's one of the best kick sounds you've ever gotten, I definately must try it again. It makes sense that it would cut down on the reflections though, and that is a good thing.
I usually don't like loose tunings on drums, but the kick drum is one hell of an exception so yes, I also tend to make the heads (both of them) really slacky... pretty much to the point where the bass drum just goes "Thump (and smack) and that's it.
When you say you "aim just inside the sound hole, not right by the beater", how do you exactly mean? Do you put the mic just inside the sound hole and aim it right towards where the beater hits the head?
Thanks for the tips so far guys, already given me some stuff to think about and some stuff to try out.
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
Haha Joey, trust me... I'm so considering getting a pack of Ddrum Pro model triggers... I can imagine how freakin' convenient it must be! Total freedom in manipulation...
I'm not keen on buying a drum module just to get MIDI though. I heard KTDrumTrigga puts out MIDI, has anyone tried that? Maybe there are other ways, preferably free or cheap, to do it. I was just thinking of putting the triggers straight into the board and in to the computer, and then getting MIDI from the splats from the triggers.
- Dec 31, 2006
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Awesome thread
I mic it just to practice with the kick, Im also a drummer and when i reach a fast pace a loose kick head just dont bounce back sometimes causing me to do a little more work
However i did find that if i low pass the original kick and blend with a sample from the trigger i get a nice fat sound
I use a beta kick mics
I mic it just to practice with the kick, Im also a drummer and when i reach a fast pace a loose kick head just dont bounce back sometimes causing me to do a little more work
However i did find that if i low pass the original kick and blend with a sample from the trigger i get a nice fat sound
I use a beta kick mics
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
Cool, I'm gonna have to check that out. Why buy a drum module when I in fact have a giant drum module (my computer), right?
why mic kick?
well slap my ass and call me Sally... but i'd say so that uh... you can have some real kick in your mix, at least when the drummer is good enough.
well slap my ass and call me Sally... but i'd say so that uh... you can have some real kick in your mix, at least when the drummer is good enough.
AdamWathan
Member
Come on James, this is 2009. There's no such thing as drummers that are good enough these days
This is the era of writing songs in Guitar Pro with 275bpm double bass and wondering why you can't find anyone in your 60 000 population town who can play it.
jipchen
ForesterStudio
yeah, that's also what i do (love apTrigga2 for that
)i think i could life without a mic'ed kick, but triggered cymbals sound always gay and unreal to me
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
It would be interesting to record drums in two takes. One with everything but the kick, and one with the opposite. Edit away on the kicks!
Hehe, yeah I know this is not an unusual technique, but I just haven't tried it yet.
Hehe, yeah I know this is not an unusual technique, but I just haven't tried it yet.
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
yeah, that's also what i do (love apTrigga2 for that
i think i could life without a mic'ed kick, but triggered cymbals sound always gay and unreal to me
Umm yeah, since cymbals are extreeeeeeemely dynamic in the way they sound after each hit... depending on how the hit before it was, in what position the cymbal is when you strike it, etc etc.
It's kind of a dilemma in metal... you've got a thick matress of sound from the distorted guitars, screaming vocals and the bass. If you don't trigger the kick drum, you'll have to compress it pretty heavily, and that will just "ruin" the quality because of the added noise etc. Triggering is the best alternative to compressing, and I don't feel "bad" for triggering stuff like some old school guys do. The snare drum is a different topic though... I don't like 100% triggered snares, atleast not most of the times since it's just too unnatural.
I trigger my bass drum using my dm5 and roland trigs, then run that via midi into my profire. allows me to use more inputs for overheads. then i use a blanket and kinda make a tent over the bass drum to try to isolate it from the overheads.
I agree with placing the mic just inside the hole on the front skin. thats where i`ve gotten the best results. It comes down to the tuning of the drum, the skin and the beater. I`m using wooden beaters with remo falam pads on an evans emad skin with the big dampening ring in. with a small pillow, and foam around the inside of the drum.
I agree with placing the mic just inside the hole on the front skin. thats where i`ve gotten the best results. It comes down to the tuning of the drum, the skin and the beater. I`m using wooden beaters with remo falam pads on an evans emad skin with the big dampening ring in. with a small pillow, and foam around the inside of the drum.
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Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
Cool
I suck at double bass drumming anyway though, it would still be a pain to edit even if I recorded in 2 takes, hah.
AdamWathan
Member
Cool
I suck at double bass drumming anyway though, it would still be a pain to edit even if I recorded in 2 takes, hah.
Play the hands, program the kicks, that's how I roll when I'm recording little demo clips for myself
joeymusicguy
Member
