If I'm not mistaken, it's simply an in-line pad for the microphone. Since Earthworks mics are relatively sensitive and they are suggesting that you use a SD omni for kick, it only makes sense to pad it prior to the preamp.

I would think of this as a reaction product. Quite a few people have probably bought their drum kit and started commenting that the kick overloads their preamp. (Cuz let's face facts - most people are plugging these high-end, high-output mics into Presonus or Focusrite Platinum pres that can't handle that kind of input.)

I wouldn't think of this product as your "silver bullet" for making the kick sound great, only if you have the Earthworks drum kit and your kick is overloading your pre.

J...

Cucco wrote: If I'm not mistaken, it's simply an in-line pad for the microphone.

The KickPad is not only a pad, it also has an EQ curve built into it.

Ahh....
Makes a little more sense, but growing ever more skeptical.

It's a sure bet, it was designed to work with THEIR mic and no one else's.

J.

The kickpad was developed by earthworks originally as part of a kick mic. Something about they were trying to emulate the eq curve that gets eq'ed in a lot anyway.

Story goes that they found it was too limiting to permanently incorporate it into the mic, so they decided to sell it separately. From what I've heard, it actually sounds pretty good. Obviously it's not going to sound good every time in every situation. But, I've learned that anything that improves the workflow/efficiency is golden. If that is one more thing that you can put in the chain quickly and get another sonic viewpoint, then it's worth it!

kick pad

The demo disc I have from Earthworks has demo's of other mic's (AKG D112, Audix D6, the Earthworks mic and a few more). They say that they were gonna put the (kick pad) technology in the microphone. But then it would limit the uses for the microphone. So they moved it to the outside of the mic and put it in what is now called the kick pad.
I must say, the demo is really impressive.
Also the narator on the disc say's that "they were curious if it would sound good on other commonly used kick drum mic's?"
So, then they recorded with the AKG D112 without it (kick pad). The next track was with the kick pad. It really was a big difference in sound.
Quess I'll buy one! And then at least I can say I have used them. If you go to Earthworks.com they have some more information about the technology behind this little guy. And of course if you want a free demo disc that is where I got mine. :wink:

Errr.. That's:
http://www.earthworksaudio.com/

If you get it, let us know what you think.