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I have recently come across something. I have recently made my own "experimental" mics and one is very good at picking up high and mid frequencies and the other (being of large diaphragm make) picks up the lower frequencies. Individually these mics would be terrible at Micing the bass drums, however, I placed the both mics in the bass drums and it produces an excepional sound.
Has anyone here heard of a similar tequnique or such? Any comments, I would like to hear.

tim...

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anonymous Fri, 08/26/2005 - 08:41

Audio Technica makes a dual element mic (AE2500) specifically for Kick which is probably what Cucco was trying to say. Unfortunately the link that he provided didn't work so try looking under the model name when searcing on their site. The mic strategically places a condenser mic beside a dynamnic such as to eliminate any problems with Phase coherency. Their aim is to acheive the sound that you are looking for which is a mix between the attack and ambience of the KIK drum

I happen to own this mic but I am not that thrilled with it, I find that a mic deep inside the kick and one out front (by the air hole or near the center of the KIK works best for me. You will have to experiment with placement but I like to get fairly close to the beater on the inside mic. The outside really needs some practice and patience to find the right sound. I find that mixing these two elements (Mics on the inside and out) gives me more felxibility in shaping my KIK sound.

Hope that helps, good luck

P.S. - If recording Acoustic Jazz I tend to stick with a single mic out front.

anonymous Fri, 08/26/2005 - 23:50

I had an engineer once build a kick mic out of an old snare and a speaker. It probably had a 3 inch cone so it picked up plenty of thump, then he put a mic on the front head, for attack, mixed em up threw on a little eq (I think) and the result was GREAT. by the way this was not some back alley hole in the wall studio, I think its the best studio my city has to offer. pop c. 250/300k peeps. The point is hes a serious and experienced professional and he used a home made mic. It was cool.

anonymous Sat, 08/27/2005 - 18:53

i double mic-ed a kick drum a couple days ago while recording the drums for my bands EP... what i found that got the best sound on this particular kick and in the room we were in was:

audix d6 slightly off-center of resonent head (an inch or so off the head) and an akg d-112 pointing at the beater on the batter head...

took-the-red-pill Sat, 08/27/2005 - 21:47

timtu wrote: I have recently come across something. I have recently made my own "experimental" mics and one is very good at picking up high and mid frequencies and the other (being of large diaphragm make) picks up the lower frequencies. Individually these mics would be terrible at micing the bass drums, however, I placed the both mics in the bass drums and it produces an excepional sound.

tim...

Please proceed to your nearest lottery centre and purchase a ticket. I'll take 5% as commission :lol:

Anyway, have you any pics or info on the mics you built? Or are they of the "doubletopsecreticouldtellyoubetthenihavetokillyou" variety?

Cheers
Keith

anonymous Mon, 08/29/2005 - 21:42

I'm a bit lazy as to taking photos but I'll see what I can do. They were pretty basic thing though: One was an old speaker (one of them wierd rectangular ones) and the other was a small headphone earpiece, no more than an inch across. I made a dodgy casing out of pipe and crap I had lying around.
Thanks for everyones comments though, I like it when people comment instead of being negative, however I thought the 'Charlie Watts' comment was a bit distastful but he is old....

tim....