Micing the kick drum

[Nubus]

Most important overall will be the actual drum tho make no mistake. .Not having any damping in there at all can become too much kick sound getting into everywhere if youre not careful . I'm still using the no hole in the front head approach with great results. Im shyinga away from micing the middle of the head though, the more the mic gets toward the rim of the drum the more snap you get and less whoom, basically same thing as micing the batter of any drum. This is for recording.

[smopo24]

I remember an engineer once having me use a 57 on the beater side, an audix d6 in the middle with lots of pillows inside, and some sort of blanket covering the top of the bass drum (it was a bit hot, kept picking up the toms for some reason), and a beta 52 a outside of it. All 3 combined sounded amazing; but I thought it was a bit of overkill.

[Jared Kubokawa]

Maybe a bit of overkill smopo24. It does sound nice to mic the beater head sometimes if the drummer is playing a lot of triplets or a bunch of ghost notes on the kick that wouldn't otherwise get picked up entirely. What do you think of that D6? I haven't tried one yet but was thinking about it...

[smopo24]

Originally Posted by Jared Kubokawa

Maybe a bit of overkill smopo24. It does sound nice to mic the beater head sometimes if the drummer is playing a lot of triplets or a bunch of ghost notes on the kick that wouldn't otherwise get picked up entirely. What do you think of that D6? I haven't tried one yet but was thinking about it...

Yea, he was one of those "more is more" people. The D6 was great for a particular sound. It was really modern, I guess that's the best way to put it. It sounds a bit scoopy, but definitely cuts through the mix. A lot of people use it in the studio, but it's well-suited for live use too; very rugged.

[neal79]

I think someone else hit on it already. Overheads are key for drums everything else is icing. The kit should sound great with just the overheads. If you can get that you are golden. To many people think of these as just cymbal mics but they are a lot more than that if used correctly. If I am remembering correctly many of the Zeppelin drum tracks were only recorded with 4 mics, 2 overheads, kick, and snare.

[neal79]

The D6 is a nice mic if you want a modern kick sound. I also really like the ND868 from EV. Haven't had a chance to do a studio recording with one but I use one live all the time and have tracked one gig with it and its a great sounding mic.

[smopo24]

Originally Posted by neal79

I think someone else hit on it already. Overheads are key for drums everything else is icing. The kit should sound great with just the overheads. If you can get that you are golden. To many people think of these as just cymbal mics but they are a lot more than that if used correctly. If I am remembering correctly many of the Zeppelin drum tracks were only recorded with 4 mics, 2 overheads, kick, and snare.

Have you ever tried Schoeps' mics for overheads? Super-expensive, but totally worth the cost. I had gone to a studio that just purchased a pair; we threw them up on this drum kit and were totally blown away on how crisp and defined they sounded.

[smopo24]

.....well, here:

http://www.schoeps.de/home.html

If you can afford some, i'd suggest you check them out for yourself, or read a review:

http://mixonline.com/products/review...choeps_cmc_xt/