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elcubo 1 January 2011

Im having problem getting a tight sound from a 28" kick drum...can anyone give me some advice about it?

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elcubo Sat, 01/01/2011 - 21:45

TheJackAttack, post: 360292 wrote: What microphones do you have available? Are your drum heads actually installed properly and tuned? What techniques have you tried?

The whole drum sound nice, nice toms, nice snare, even the overs and pair of room mikes (Fat heads). The Kick sounds ok...but im looking for a tighter sound but keeping that nice rumble from a kick of that size...

I have a 1 beta 52,1 U87,2 Fat heads II, 3 AKG451, 1 SHURE sm81, 2 AT4033, and others...

Davedog Sun, 01/02/2011 - 18:23

What drum head are you using on the batter side? 28 is a big kick and 'tight' isnt always the first reaction you'd get from this size of drum. Depth is an important measurement here also. And beater material. Also remember that MOST kick beater lengths wont be long enough to contact a 28" kick in the middle of its head. Lenthening this will also give the drummer a little slower reaction time due to the increased length and weight of a longer beater rod.

If you really want 'tight' a smaller kick drum is probably going to make it easier to get this sound. 'Rumble' you can always get.

elcubo Sun, 01/02/2011 - 20:12

Davedog, post: 360334 wrote: What drum head are you using on the batter side? 28 is a big kick and 'tight' isnt always the first reaction you'd get from this size of drum. Depth is an important measurement here also. And beater material. Also remember that MOST kick beater lengths wont be long enough to contact a 28" kick in the middle of its head. Lenthening this will also give the drummer a little slower reaction time due to the increased length and weight of a longer beater rod.

If you really want 'tight' a smaller kick drum is probably going to make it easier to get this sound. 'Rumble' you can always get.

Thnx Dave, thats what i thought...i really like the sound of the gigantic kick in rock style! but i guess i need another one...22"...or 18" ...for latin, pop and jazz...

TheJackAttack Sun, 01/02/2011 - 22:00

Usually, a smaller drum is used in a studio and tuned or specific heads installed and tuned for a particular sound. As you are finding, it is very difficult to get a great recorded sound out of a very large drum. The same can be said of many different types of drums or even guitars. Additionally, in today's audio soundscape world, often drums are triggered meaning what the set on stage sounds like is not what comes out the FOH.

The reverse is true of pianos. You cannot make a 9 foot piano out of a 5'6" or a vertical. The bass and tenor strings simply can't be made long enough.

jkchuma Wed, 01/05/2011 - 19:40

TheJackAttack, post: 360355 wrote: Usually, a smaller drum is used in a studio and tuned or specific heads installed and tuned for a particular sound. As you are finding, it is very difficult to get a great recorded sound out of a very large drum. The same can be said of many different types of drums or even guitars. Additionally, in today's audio soundscape world, often drums are triggered meaning what the set on stage sounds like is not what comes out the FOH.

The reverse is true of pianos. You cannot make a 9 foot piano out of a 5'6" or a vertical. The bass and tenor strings simply can't be made long enough.

Listen to this guy! Visuals are great live but in the studio it will be under a magnifying glass forever once it is released. Match the instrument to what you are trying to achieve. You either need a smaller kick drum, better tuning, or mix in some samples. If you go the samples route be careful that it doesn't start sounding robotic. The best drum replacement works by taking amplitude information into account and randomly varying the samples it triggers.

RemyRAD Mon, 01/31/2011 - 03:24

Repeat after me: Sennheiser MD 421, phase inverted. Problem solved. Lather, rinse, repeat. And then sometimes I'll add some quick downward expansion so that everything else gates out. You might also want to stick a little soft knee compression before you gate. But if you don't invert the phase, it'll always be flabby. Invert your phase and it will punch your lights out.

Just invert the phase with what you've already recorded. That's how you tighten up a bass drum. What that does is it creates all this special cancellation between the other drum microphones and voilà! I've been doing that since the early 1970s. Okay, I lied, the mid-1970s. No, wait, maybe I did do that in 1973?

Stiff upper lip and an inverted bass drum
Mx. Remy Ann David

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