More Things I Don't Understand: Kick Drum Madness

jeffgowins3 · Post by **jeffgowins3** » Sun May 21, 2006 10:54 am

Two questions regarding kick drums:
A) How do I get a good, clicky kick sound? I can't stand a kick drum that goes BOOOOOOOOW-AH (like mine does now), I want one that goes BUMP, and its over. Basically, deep with no sustain. How do I get to to happen? I imagine tight beater head, I just don't know what to do with the resonant head. Too tight and it's a high pitched BOOOOOW-AH, too low and its an even longer BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW-AH. This brings me to my next point...

B) Muffling!
I use RemOs on all my drums except for my kick. I've been playing with a pillow and a blanket in my kick, blanket horizontal and touching both heads, pillow leaned right up against the center of my beater head. This seems like a step in the right direction, it's definitely killing the sustain, but not enough, and if I move anything around or put anything in, it start to sound like somebody tapping a pencil on a desk or something.

So... drum gurus... deep click sound, how do I get that from my kick?

blue · Post by **blue** » Sun May 21, 2006 11:45 pm

that click is usually a boost @ 4k + pointing the mic directly at the beater.

getting a solid, well-defined bass drum sound is a combination of all the most annoying elements - drum tuning, having a nice bass drum, decently new heads, mic placement, and mic selection. also, compression. also, take the front head off of your bass drum when you record.

the quickest way to get it is to plunk down $199 for an audix d6, which will earn you a perfect rock bass drum sound every time, from anywhere in your house, no matter what instrument is put in front of it.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Mon May 22, 2006 5:35 am

I haven't a clue about the recording side of things, but once you've got it "in the box" I recommend trying an expander on the kick track. I had a huge problem with a flabby kick that only got worse as I compressed it. I tossed a medium strength expander on it with the threshold set to let the attack and the first 200 or so milliseconds through before it starts pushing down the sustain. On anything else this sort of "gating" would be pretty obvious, but it seems to work well on low-frequency percussion like kicks and toms. Still can't get that Tool sound, though.

ken · Post by **ken** » Mon May 22, 2006 8:30 am

Try ducktaping a dime or quarter to your drum head where the beater hits it. Sometimes that provided some extra click.

Ken

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Mon May 22, 2006 11:55 am

Mine used to have a horrible boom, so I filled it with blankets and hooked up something like you said, Ken ... it's one of those store bought sticker-type things that sticks to the head of the kick drum. I'm not sure what it's called, but if you're really looking for more of a clicky sound, that's something to look into.

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon May 22, 2006 12:51 pm

are you miking the drum directly, or do you just have one mic in the room?

if you're not direct miking it, you're just fucked.

jeffgowins3 · Post by **jeffgowins3** » Mon May 22, 2006 2:17 pm

I'm direct miking it. With a compressor I might add, which may or may not be wise.

And most of these things I say also apply to my snare. I'm using a 57 on my snare, pointing about 45-60 degree angle down at my snare, running into my Firepod and into my Audigy, and my snare sound is really... low-fi. My snare sounds great in real life, but on "tape," 'tis bad. I've tried EQing and I can almost get there, but the crisp, bright sound I hear on modern records is missing in action.

-JG

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon May 22, 2006 2:53 pm

get a pair of closed headphones and a buddy, turn the headphone volume way the crap up, have the buddy play the bass drum at about half-volume while you move the mic around in the bass drum until it sounds the best you can get out of it. wherever it ends up, point the mic back at the beater until you hear the click.

then crank the threshold on the comp down, ratio to 1.5:1 or so, make up gain up, output down, and see what you get.

if the frequency is bothing you, max out the gain on the the compressor and listen to the overtones, then tune your bass drum head to where you want the sound to be. then crank the compression back down till it all sounds nice.

the idiot king · Post by **the idiot king** » Fri May 26, 2006 6:58 am

a few suggestions...

if you have the inputs to do it, try getting a cheapo lapel mic and hanging it right near the beater. i talked to jon from mclusky about miking drums at one point, and he was telling me that this is albini's method for doing what you want to do. it's great to blend in with a fairly normal sounding kick to get some more punch.

also, if you've got a mic hole on your front head, don't be afraid to push that mic right in there. you'll get a lot less noise (when you figure the inside of that guy is probably 100-110+ dB) and far less bleedthrough.

in terms of mixing...

try pulling out some low mids as opposed to adding any frequencies. in around 400-600 should clear things up a bit and get the kick ready for some compression.

give the kick a quick release time on the compressor. the quicker the compressor lets go of the signal, the quicker the signal will be pushed back down. i'd also suggest a fast attack, as well, for what you're going for.

finally, similar to the aforementioned expansion, gate it to hell. play with the release to get as natural a sound as possible.

another thing to do would be to try some nyc style compression. the trick with this is to route the same track to two channels (i.e., copy and paste to another track in sync in a daw), and compress one at a ridiculous ratio of like 10:1 or higher. EQ the compressed track to taste, but don't be afraid to go overboard. try to stay away from low mids here, accenting 100-140 hz and 8-10 khz could work quite well. again, +6-8 db or more won't hurt. then pull the track back a bit and tuck it under the natural, uncompressed (and perhaps un-eq'd) track. i've gotten some great results from trying this on drums.

all together, this may sound like utter tripe. but the one rule is that there are no rules, so go house and good luck!

jeffgowins3 · Post by **jeffgowins3** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 4:27 pm

jeffgowins3 wrote:I'm direct miking it. With a compressor I might add, which may or may not be wise.

-JG

I meant condensor. Ack. But, yeah, I recorded drums at a studion in '04 and he used a condensor about 2 feet in front of the kick and it sounded good, so I've been trying it.

My snare sounds amazing to the ear but my 57 has something else to say about all that. It's either a really low and beefy KANNUH or I put the mike a bit furthur away and its a CLAT. I can't get a thick snare without it sounding like... almost like a plosive. Like it's clipping or something. I dunno. I'll try to take some pictures the next time I try to record.

blue · Post by **blue** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 8:12 pm

jeffgowins3 wrote:My snare sounds amazing to the ear but my 57 has something else to say about all that. It's either a really low and beefy KANNUH or I put the mike a bit furthur away and its a CLAT. I can't get a thick snare without it sounding like... almost like a plosive. Like it's clipping or something. I dunno. I'll try to take some pictures the next time I try to record.

try miking the shell, side-on. move it up and down a little to get more or less snap. i had good luck with this and an e609.

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