Miking up a 24â€

If you're tracking the drums without other instruments i'd say you stand a fair chance of picking up a pretty good bass drum sound, and i'm sure they'll be a sweet spot. Baring in mind they'll be a fair amount of other frequencies coming off the kit, i'd go for a mic with strong bass definition at the expense of higher frequency response (D112 comes to mind) to counteract some of that. I think the best answer to your question is to try it out, but maybe keep a blade handy just in case.

It all depends on what you are going for.
I find that outside the bass drum gives me less definition and a little more low resonance. If you're looking for the metal clicky thing, you may have to go inside that puppy. You don't always need to cut a hole, you might be able to get away with taking the head off and leaving the mic in there. If you want the click get in fairly close to the beater pad and face it there. If you are looking for more low and, move it towards the shell or away from the inside. Also, of you're having problems with the overheads or room mics or any other mis after having taken the head completely off, you may consider throwing a heavy blanket over the kick drum in order to contain the sound. This will allow you the best of both worlds.

I typically use a Shure Beta 52 from way inside the kick drum, a couple inches away from the batter head, angled away from the floor tom. To cut the hole in the front head, I usually get one of those plastic Holz rings (about $15) to keep the head from ripping and to make the hole nice and smoove looking.

However, if you don't want to do that, you pretty much have 2 options. You can mic the kick from the resonant side about 6" to 12" away. You should get a pretty deep, thick, non-clicky sound that way, assuming you're using a proper kick drum mic. If you're after a clickier sound, try micing it from the batter side. Put the mic about the same distance away, angled toward where the beater meets the head, and angled away from the floor tom if at all possible. It's usually a bit of a tighter squeeze that way but it can be done with good results.

Good luck.

Lately I've been experimenting and playing around a little bit and using a mic on both the res. and batter head. It's fun to play around with if you've got enough channels.

I've gotten some pretty good results using an RE-20 on the res. side, about six inches out and if room permits I squeeze a D112 on the batter side, and mix them together.

It's cool to try out and mess around with, but remember to reverse the phase on one of the channels, which I always forget to do at first.

dre wrote: To cut the hole in the front head, I usually get one of those plastic Holz rings (about $15) to keep the head from ripping and to make the hole nice and smoove looking.

Good luck.

Another easy way to get a really nice hole in your kick drums head is to heat an empty coffee can on your stove top with the open side down. When it is really hot (like red hot) lift it using tongs or oven mits or whatever and slowly push the open end into the plastic head where you want the hole. It will push right through the plastic, melting it where it touches. It makes a perfect circle hole. I read about this in Martha Stewarts 'Guide to Perfect Touring' special issue. She goes on to tell how to get vomit out of plush interiors while making your van smell of tangerine and vanilla.

Mayfair that is funny as hell.

Anyway, ricardo I had a similiar question about a month back. You may want to look at it.

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