Do I need a kick drum mic?

[danbb]

I'm looking to mic up a drum kit for home recording. These are the mics I have currently:

Shure Beta 57a
Electro-Voice nd767a
Electro-Voice PL80c
Røde NT1A

And my drummer has a Samson 7 piece drum mic kit:

x2 C02 Pencil Condensers
x3 Q-toms
x1 Q-snare
x1 Q-kick

I was thinking of replacing his snare mic with the Beta 57a and replacing one of the pencil overheads with the Rode. But I'm concerned that the Samson q-kick is not gonna cut it for a decent recording.

Could I use any of my other dynamic mics on the kick, or do I need to just bite the bullet and buy a Senny e602 ?

[jpanderson80]

My first reaction is to try what you've got. The kick mics are usually large diaphragm dynamic mics with a bump in the EQ on the low end. I suppose that they are "made" for it, but you can use other mics.

After the drum is tuned and in the correct place in the room...

Mic positioning is extremely important, so play with your positioning as you listen to through headphones to the kick mic input. Moving the mic as little as one inch can make a difference in the tone and transient response. Find the spot that is best for your idea of the sound and that mic. If that doesn't work try switching out to a LDC.

Sure, you can always go buy a new mic, but it will not instantly solve for drum tuning, room positioning and appropriate mic placement.

If you need help with mic placement, I'm assuming that there are plenty of YouTube videos about this from good sources.

[MrBongo]

When you want to use stereo overheads, it should usually be two identical mics. That means two Samsons. Maybe they aren´t too bad for starters

Just test the mics on the different sources. One will be good to capture the low-end of kick and floortom, one will suit the snaredrum better. Very often the kick drum needs heavy EQ anyway, so it´s not too bad. And as said above, placement is crucial! It´s not uncommon to spend a day for soundcheck in total, even when the engineer knows his tools.
And as always, maybe you will like the sound you get

[Fergler]

The C02s are great mics, I'd leave them.

With your mics I'd take the Q kick and put it inside as a beater mic, and put the NT1A outside the kick for the resonant head tone.

Do make sure the drums are tuned first and don't forget about the kick drum's tuning, it's not all about snare and toms!

I've not used the Samson mic set but I have compared them to what I have used, the CAD series in the same price range, and they are essentially the same. They get a good tone and do the job. I wouldn't worry about their capability.

[James HE]

Originally Posted by Fergler

With your mics I'd take the Q kick and put it inside as a beater mic, and put the NT1A outside the kick for the resonant head tone.

^^ yep the NT1A will be great outside the kick as long as the room is fine. If the head is ported, don't put it in line with the air pressure coming right out of it though.


*edit

honestly, if the room isn't all that great and you aren't liking the kick drum sound - just throw that samson kick mic in there - and use a drum replacer to trigger a good set of samples. (if you want to get into that sort of thing anyways )

[Tod]

Yah know, when it comes to Kick drums, nobody hardly ever talks about the floor. If you're sitting on cement then there shouldn't be any problems.

However, many times it's sitting on a floor that has floor joists that's covered with plywood, or some kind of subflooring, and either tile, wood, or maybe even carpet. what ever it is, few recording folks take that into account, and it can be devastating to drums, especially the kick.

Back in the old days under these circumstances, I created all my shock mounts for this, but the Kick was exceptionally difficult. At any rate I came up with my own means for a shock mount on the Kick, using a heavy mic base, short stand, and fly tying type rubber (special rubber for tying fishing flies).

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...9&postcount=19

This is probably not a problem for you but thought I'd mention it.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by Fergler

Do make sure the drums are tuned first and don't forget about the kick drum's tuning, it's not all about snare and toms!

^^^THIS!!!

One thing that blew my mind, but made total sense once I thought about it, was a drummer I was playing with who had the biggest, thumpiest, snappiest bass drum sound I'd heard live telling me it was all about tuning the two heads slightly off-pitch to kill the resonance.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by Tod

Yah know, when it comes to Kick drums, nobody hardly ever talks about the floor. If you're sitting on cement then there shouldn't be any problems.

However, many times it's sitting on a floor that has floor joists that's covered with plywood, or some kind of subflooring, and either tile, wood, or maybe even carpet. what ever it is, few recording folks take that into account, and it can be devastating to drums, especially the kick.

Back in the old days under these circumstances, I created all my shock mounts for this, but the Kick was exceptionally difficult. At any rate I came up with my own means for a shock mount on the Kick, using a heavy mic base, short stand, and fly tying type rubber (special rubber for tying fishing flies).

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...9&postcount=19

This is probably not a problem for you but thought I'd mention it.

My memory fails me, but I have a vague recollection of some big name engineer claiming his success at drum sounds was in part due to his specially designed risers for drum kits.

[vinnie2k]

Song > Performance > Tuning > Mic placement > Mic :-)

(I think :-P)

So make sure that whatever you put in the sound value chain is properly taken care of before buying new mics.

[danbb]

We spent a few hours tuning up the kit and the Samson Qkick sounded surprising decent after I played around and found a sweet spot. I'm gonna try the NT1a as an extra outer mic for the kick as suggested. But I'm already surprised at how decent it sounded. I think my brand snobbery about Samson made me jump the gun.

Can someone explain the physics behind why it's best to leave the condensers as a matched pair rather than add the NT1A overhead?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Judders

^^^THIS!!!

One thing that blew my mind, but made total sense once I thought about it, was a drummer I was playing with who had the biggest, thumpiest, snappiest bass drum sound I'd heard live telling me it was all about tuning the two heads slightly off-pitch to kill the resonance.

There is nothing worse than a song in Ab and kick drum tuned to A, ask me how I know that.

[MrBongo]

Originally Posted by danbb

Can someone explain the physics behind why it's best to leave the condensers as a matched pair rather than add the NT1A overhead?

Good to hear the kick sounds okay now

Overheads are kinda like one stereo source: they pick up the same things, just a little different depending on their positioning and direction they´re pointing at.

So let´s start with just the snaredrum, for simplification:
It´s present in both overheads, and at the two spots it is of equal volume and sound. If you exchange one of the overhead mics for another, you create an imbalance: the two recordings of the snaredrum sound different from each other now, you created an imbalance.


Think of it like your ears: you got the same on both sides of your head

[jazznfunk]

I like to use omnidirectional condenser (it must be high SPL) inside the kick drum near beater. If kick sounds OK themselves, omni condenser gives lots of attack and short "boom" to.

[cereboso]

You'll probably get the best sounding final results by using any of those mics you currently have for the kick and just using that with Slate's Trigger 2 to replace the kick with a great sounding one (such as from the Blackbird expansion pack) tbh.

[MrBongo]

no, they won´t.

[danbb]

I prefer to have real recording of the kick drum, not triggers. I like the dynamics of real drums. Triggers sound too machine-like. Maybe it works for certain types of music, but I'm playing old school hard rock and triggers wouldn't work.

[Jae.Thomas]

Kicks triggered don't bother me - snares would.

[G-Sun]

Originally Posted by danbb

I prefer to have real recording of the kick drum, not triggers. I like the dynamics of real drums. Triggers sound too machine-like. Maybe it works for certain types of music, but I'm playing old school hard rock and triggers wouldn't work.

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

Kicks triggered don't bother me - snares would.

I'd have no issues with triggered kick,
and in modern production it's more the norm than the exception. m2c

[cereboso]

Originally Posted by danbb

I prefer to have real recording of the kick drum, not triggers. I like the dynamics of real drums. Triggers sound too machine-like. Maybe it works for certain types of music, but I'm playing old school hard rock and triggers wouldn't work.

That's cool if you just don't like drum sample replacement, but I don't know if you've tried it recently. It can sound very real and natural. Sample packs such as the Blackbird one from Slate are fully velocity sensitive and have multiple round-robin hits to avoid the machine gun effect. You can use Slate's Trigger 2 to make it sound super natural and it would generally work really well in a hard rock context. Just saying. But I get it if you're against drum replacement from some sort of a purist or philosophical reason.

[Jae.Thomas]

I haven't found anything that touches the value of slate trigger 2

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by danbb

I prefer to have real recording of the kick drum, not triggers. I like the dynamics of real drums. Triggers sound too machine-like. Maybe it works for certain types of music, but I'm playing old school hard rock and triggers wouldn't work.

If that is the case, it's probably better to use the real kick to trigger a sample and blend the sample in 'just a little bit'. This is going to work better with something that has velocity layers so the sample velocity somewhat matches the analog velocity of the real kick. If you get it just right, you'll be happy as it won't sound machine like at all unless the kick pattern is super fast and maybe not even then. I'm from the old school and have done this on a couple of occasions.

Also, don't forget the turning an 8",10",12" woofer into a kick mic which can be blended with the regular kick mic. You can also take second kick drum, if you have it, space it 18" or so in front of the played kick drum and place a Fig-8 in between. The extra kick will act as a bit of a passive radiator but might take some experimentation to make sure phase isn't an issue.

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

If that is the case, it's probably better to use the real kick to trigger a sample and blend the sample in 'just a little bit'. This is going to work better with something that has velocity layers so the sample velocity somewhat matches the analog velocity of the real kick. If you get it just right, you'll be happy as it won't sound machine like at all unless the kick pattern is super fast. I'm from the old school and have done this on a couple of occasions.

Also, don't forget the turning an 8",10",12" woofer into a kick mic which can be blended with the regular kick mic.

is there a good tutorial for that?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

is there a good tutorial for that?

For which one? The woofer thing or the sample thing?

[danbb]

All of my favourite rock albums from the 70s and 80s; none of them used triggers. If I can get a good sound from mic'ing, I see no value in triggering. Trigger away with your music, but it's not for me I'm afraid chaps! "Everyone does it nowadays" is not a strong enough argument to convince me, if anything that's enough to put me off it because I'm not keen on the modern rock sound

[Fergler]

To trigger, just load up Audio to MIDI Drum Trigger (JS effect) and load up your kick samples after that. Adjust the Peak Detection Interval and Trigger Align to make sure it comes exactly in the right place. The thresholds at the top also help, obviously.

Now, you can stop there and trigger your samples, but there's more you can do.

Right click the audio items and Render effects to item (MIDI). This will create a new take with kick notes and their velocity which you can move to a new track (copy the items and then restore them to just the MIDI take and just the Audio take), so now you can fix any misfires or missing kicks and also adjust the velocity.

Pretty neat!
http://puu.sh/rAadP/747329b6e8.png

To the above post, if the technology was affordable back then, it would have been used. It's a very powerful way of adding weight or click or whatever it is you deem to be missing from your kick without having to use drastic EQ - so you can avoid bringing up the sympathetic ringing, snare drum rattle, and in some really unfortunate cases, cymbal bleed (btw, to avoid that if it's become a problem on your beater mic, try putting it higher up and angling it down toward the beater instead. Not too different a tone but you get better rejection of everything above. You can try similar with the resonant head mic but it won't be nearly as effective).

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by danbb

If I can get a good sound from mic'ing, I see no value in triggering.

Nobody does, so if you get a good sound without it, do so.

Trigger away with your music, but it's not for me I'm afraid chaps! "Everyone does it nowadays" is not a strong enough argument to convince me, if anything that's enough to put me off it because I'm not keen on the modern rock sound

That has little to do with it, what it has to do with is getting a good sound, if you can get it with a mic you are good to go but if you can't it's either substandard sound, supplement with a trigger or no sound. Albeit, I typically don't need a trigger (maybe 5% of the time) you'd never be able to tell which was which and neither would your audience - or even the drummer who laid the track - ask me how I know that.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by danbb

All of my favourite rock albums from the 70s and 80s; none of them used triggers. If I can get a good sound from mic'ing, I see no value in triggering. Trigger away with your music, but it's not for me I'm afraid chaps! "Everyone does it nowadays" is not a strong enough argument to convince me, if anything that's enough to put me off it because I'm not keen on the modern rock sound

But, depending on the band, by the 80's they may have been triggering signal generators to add low end or white noise to bass drums and snares with gates. They may also have looped tape as well. Other tricks included using B3 organs and cellos to subtly thicken up guitar sounds (Motley Crue and Cheap Trick spring to mind).

The olden days weren't always as sacred as some people think.

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by Judders

But, depending on the band, by the 80's they may have been triggering signal generators to add low end or white noise to bass drums and snares with gates.

Or actually triggering just like we do now using an AMS or a number of other methodologies, or just straight playing electronic drums.

I'd love to just use the sound from the mics, but I'll do whatever the song itself wants. If that means some triggered kicks mixed in, so be it, without hesitation

[Judders]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

Or actually triggering just like we do now using an AMS or a number of other methodologies, or just straight playing electronic drums.

I'd love to just use the sound from the mics, but I'll do whatever the song itself wants. If that means some triggered kicks mixed in, so be it, without hesitation

Yup, people listen to the product, not the process.

[G-Sun]

The thing about KD and triggers.

The beater is fixed mounted and hits the head precisely same position every time. It's only the velocity that changes.
And bleed to the KD-mic is not a big thing.
This makes it very easy to get a convincing sound with triggers.

Now, if you can get that right with a mic, sure, fine.
But, know that I estimate 0,5% of the users here have a room that is decent down to 20hz.

Personally, I don't have space for a kickdrum,
not to mention a good sounding room,
so, trigger is my only option

That said:
The pros usually take very good care to record the kickdrum well.
They often use several mics.
Se eg. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVitFd4HhRQ 1.45

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by G-Sun

That said:
The pros usually take very good care to record the kickdrum well.
They often use several mics.
Se eg. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVitFd4HhRQ 1.45

Yeah, so that we have a good trigger signal

And those slight slight variations of live mic mixed in give some good realism to the trigger sound

[Judders]

Oh hey, even triggered "fattening" techniques on Back in Black!

"We fed a gated snare signal into an H910 detuned to about 93 with the feedback and anti feedback up. This was a real pain as it would fail to trigger sometimes. Yes it was just under the real snare. no other harmonizer will work!! I often use short delays to fatten up the sound of many instruments."

- https://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-ha...ack-black.html

[Bazzbass]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

There is nothing worse than a song in Ab and kick drum tuned to A, ask me how I know that.

HOW do you know THAT ?


I was on a recording project years ago,and we'd tune the drummer's roto toms to specific notes so he could play riffs along with us, sounded very cool.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Bazzbass

HOW do you know THAT ?

Because the song was in A and the kick was an Ab and the minor 2nd dissonance created every time the bass guitar played sorta sucked. Actually, maybe the opposite because it was DWs with tuned shells.

[pipelineaudio]

How did you record the roto toms?

No joke, i have NEVER gotten to record roto toms, not once as far as I can remember

[James HE]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

How did you record the roto toms?

No joke, i have NEVER gotten to record roto toms, not once as far as I can remember

Drummer in a band I was in used them for a few years. Early 90's. I was a very young man tracking on a 4-track cassette back then and had dick for equipment, so take this with a grain of salt...

It just didn't matter where you put a mic - mic from the top - or from the bottom they sounded pretty much the same. You just needed enough distance so that the loudness balance between the heads wasn't to far off. I guess using 2 mics a bit closer could work. Micing each head sounds like something you might only do if you were recording a Mockumentary.. ha ha.

[danbb]

Also my drummer wants everything to be 100% live. He performs every song live in a single take. No triggers, overdubs or editing. He is more of a purist than me :-)