Hello,

I'm very interested in a type of kick sound but don't know how to get it. You can here this kind of kick sound on Nirvana's album Nevermind ("In Bloom") or on the first Poison The Well record (The Opposite of December). On Poison the Well is too high for me but it sound well and in the same style I think. Very round & powerful but doesn't seems to be trigged at all.

With by Beta 52 I'm just not good enough to get that sound.
What advice will you give to me (first) for the head of the kick ? The batter head have to be very low and the front head high ? Should I remove the front head ? What brand of head should we use (at the moment we use Remo head)

I have tried different position for the mic with no success. Can you help me ?
And what kind of mic get that rich, loud & natural sound ... perhaps the RE20 ... i've tried a D112 a long time ago but I didn't liked it (but it was year away) . Can you help me too ?

Thanks for any answer . Sorry for my English (hope everything can be understand) . Nick .

ps: My drummer have a good Ludwig Bass Drum and hits hard (not a very good drum but not bad one). Thanks again .

well, the nevermind bass drum is most likely triggered. a simple trick for filling out a bass drum sound is to tape a cardioid mic (preferably a condenser) to the floor maybe 6-8 feet away pointed at the bass drum. compress a little. this will kind of exploit the 'roundness' of the bass drum and blended with the 52 or whatever will sound much more convincing. that's a good lesson for any drum really; never rely on the close mics alone for getting the final sound.

thanks for the technic I'll try this. i've got a rode ntk and i will try with this mic. the problem is i've got "only" 8 tracks recording at the same times for the drum. 2 overhead + 3 tom + 2 snare + 1 kick ... I should buy another card to record ambiance mic.
Are you sure the Nevermind drums are trigged ... sound very natural to me ??? Do you know were I can find good free sample for that ?

Thanks for your answer . nick .

*&%$cough&*&*splutter.... nevermind drum sound? natural!!!?? i just sicked up my breakfast dammit!!!

seriously though, like 154 says, use the room, it's your friend. if you don't have a good room, try recording playback of the close kick through a large speaker in a small bathroom and roll off the highs and super-lows then blend. best trick of all for big hitting drums is to set up ambient condensers in a particularly reverberant corridor/room adjacent to the drum room with the door between left open, and don't be shy with the ambient mics in the mix.

m.

p.s. if you're limited to 8 tracks get yourself a little submixer and commit the drums to stereo or stereo plus kick/snare on tape.

lol ... I understand what you mean ... to me the Nevermind sound big but natural compare to all the shitty drum sound we are earing now (with kick sound like kick of disco music "tak tak").
I will try to have some more tracks (get an extra presonus card) to use ambiant mic.
The room were we record is quite big and sound ok.

And for the drum head you have any idea of what tunning we should use ? And what brand of head ?

for you the 52 is good to obtain that sound ?
perpas if I post somewhere sample of what I do with my band you could help me. it's only demo ... we did it very fast but it give the direction we are after.

Thanks anyway for all the anwsers Nick.

first off, put all the mics in a box and take them away. don't bring them back in the room until you've got the kick sound you're after standing next to the kit. i've always found the actual drummer makes a much bigger difference than subtleties like brand of head etc. Unless you've got someone who plays very hard you'll struggle to get that big drum sound in the first place, obviously. Play around with tuning and use your ears in the room - try removing the front head altogether to improve definition, especially if you're getting too much boom. Once you've got it sounding the way you want in the room, you can start micing up. My favoutite kick sounds tend to come from a combination of beyer M380 (lovely and deep!) way back from the beater head, possibly just outside the drum itself, combined with a 57 or whatever's around pointed at the beater contact point pedalside, polarity reversed. But then I like to hear that crunchy pedal mechanism working, which may not be your thing...

Once recorded you can try various tricks like bringing up a heavily squashed version of the kick and snare just under the main kit mix etc, but you shouldn't have to do too much of this if you've done a good job positioning the ambient mics. just remember that it's always those that really bring the kit alive!

m.

try an Evans EQ3 - it's a multi-ply head.

I personally like this head after I've cut a few holes in the first layer, but I'm never really going for the type of kick sound you are.

good luck.

Jeremy

THANKS MUCH for all of your answers.
mattr: yes, i should try to get the kick sound i'm after before placing the mic, you're right. Today we try to get something near. We reversed the beater to use the plastic part to hit. Then we remove everything into the bass drum. Then we tunned very low the beater head and low the front head.

We got something fine now . Very powerfull. But it's not the sound I've got in my head.

I will buy a new presonus firebox (i've already got a firepod) ... it will give me 10 préamp and 14 tracks at the same time.

I've tried to use my ear but that's the center of the problem lol
about 6 feet away the sound is very round ... i'll try to put a condenser here. 10 feet away the sound is poor. In our vaulted cellar the sound is strange ... it change each feet.

THANKS

i noticed you're using 2 tracks for snare. ditch the bottom snare mic if you wanna free up a track for ambience. it sounds like you have a pretty cool room, and a room mic will benefit your drum sound (especially the bass drum) way more than a bottom snare mic, which rarely adds anything cool. if you need more strainer sound in your snare mic, try pointing it parallel with the head to get less of that 'doing' sound.

oh yeah, the Nevermind drums are definitely triggered. andy wallace triggers almost everything he touches. i think with some tasteful compression and subtractive EQ, you could probably get a pretty similar sound with real drums. actually, they'll probably sound better.

Yes, I think Andy Wallace drum sound very very big. For example on 'Pet' from A Perfect Circle the kick sound is incredible.
Do you know where I can find great sample for trig ?

I've listend to different test of mic and I think I will acheive more easily the sound with an RE20 than with my Beta 52. I will try to buy one but in Europe those mics are expensive.

And I know it's not the better place to talk about trig but do you know what kind of software I can use to create a trigged track from an kick track ??

THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL OF THE ANSWER.
I will try the trig but only to test because I still want our record to sound natural ... big but natural. Thanks !