Tommy wrote:I bet the M88 would sound good in this exact placement and wouldn't really be in any danger of plosive damage if that's why you were avoiding putting one in the drum.They blew one at Burn the Furniture doing that but of course it boils down to drummer loudness. One excitable kick downbeat might just do it, though.I do like the D112 though, and like anything of this nature if you can afford to get it a few inches, maybe even a foot off the drum head it sounds less cartoon-ish.

Over the years (fourteen since I started this thread) I've come to the following choices in kick drum mic for FOH purposes, placed always, no matter what, inside the kick drum. If I have a good mini-stand and I can control that, off center, from favourite to least favourite:- RE20- SM91 / Beta91- D112 / Md421 (very different from each other, but tied)- Beta52 (which I always try to avoid)What I need from a kick drum 90% of the time is a dry, short thud, and when I need the pronounced attack it's there, I normally just duplicate the input and process it differently on an adjacent track for maximum top end control. More often than not I have to reverse the polarity on the duplicate track after I'm done fucking with it. It's still tighter, phase wise, than a two mic setup, from my experience.But then I think not using a hi hat mic live leads to poor results (I've seen other people do it and was not impressed with the outcome, those cymbals are there for a purpose), so you may want to disregard my opinion.

I've come to find that if there's some sort of padding in the inside surface of the bass drum there's not much of the basketball going on. It's never a problem to me, and I hate clicky drums.

I'm back to using the D112 myself. I have a Kelly SHU and no hole in my reso head (the wire comes out the little hole in the top of the kick) and yes there is a little b-ball tone but I've covered half of the interior surface with egg foam so it's not bad. Right now the mic is closer to the reso head than the beater, as it was too clicky if it got any closer. What I like about the D112 is that it's open-backed which seems to capture more of the reso head's resonance. Like the diaphragm is vibrating with the whole drum structure as opposed to just the beater head. Here's a clip of my kit with the D112 (I'm not the drummer in this clip)https://app.box.com/s/injg5ib7w3a98chicat03dd3d2f2bitw

Why does the D112 has such a bad rap? Yeah, it's got a bit of the basketball sound, but if you place it right and use it right* then it's actually a really good kick mic. Also, I said it elsewhere and I'll say it again - a large diaphragm condenser outside the kick sounds really good.*If you're using room mics, then the oomph of the kick comes from them. Use the close mic for more definition and attack. If the overheads are giving you some room sound, then same. If you're only getting kick from the close mic on the kick, then yeah the D112 might not work.

garthplinko wrote:...I didn't see it posted hereHa, that's because it didn't exist when this thread was last active. 7 years ago.

154 wrote:Beyer m88s sound good on kicks and fairly 'natural' but I wouldn't recommend putting it inside the drum.On a very similar note, we've been using an SM7B for kick for awhile now. Both outside and inside the drum. Experimented with a lot of placement inside the drum and only one position works (as a single kick mic anyway). Basically half inside the port pointed at a 45 degree angle at the center of the side of the shell (nearest side to the port).I bet the M88 would sound good in this exact placement and wouldn't really be in any danger of plosive damage if that's why you were avoiding putting one in the drum.