How do you not hear your bass drum?

I've just come to accept that I will not be able to hear my bass drum in live situations. Years of playing in different bands, and it's always the same. As soon as the bass player comes in, my bass drum disappears. I've played, muffled, no muffling, solid heads, ported heads. Nothing makes a difference, I've just gotten used to playing where I only feel and not hear my bass drum. The weird thing is, I play my BD as hard as I can, heel up, little muffling, hard plastic beaters so far back they almost hit my foot and I can never hear my BD. I have a friend that has a heavily muffled kick, felt beaters, only a few inches off the head, and he plays heel down. He looks like he's barely hitting the drum and he says he has no trouble hearing his BD. I don't know if it's just my hearing or if I just have that wimpy of a foot. I do wear through those kevlar kick pads, so I can't be hitting it that softly.

Well there must be an explanation,cant possibly be as obviously odd as Bo suggests .
 
I suppose there's music that does not require much bass drum awareness,Im talking the money beat kind of stuff,etc ..you just know the barrel is there on 1 and 3 and you forget,hear or no hear,you play by inertia ...but some more intricate things,groove or fill wise, may suffer enormously from not hearing a bass that happens in fractions of a millisecond and forms integral part of them (when it's not the main protagonist)to the point of not being able to do certain fills or grooves because you cant recognise them any more if that bass is not there at the same dynamic level of the other sound sources.
 
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