Kick Drum doesn't quite cut through

How do you know what it sounded like? What you hear and what the audience hears is completely different.

You could hate what you hear on stage and be blown away by what comes through the PA.

The best post I have seen so far was the one ignored buy drumr0

Once you mic your kick you give it to me (the sound guy). More than anything else on that stage he will likely spend more time tweaking your kick and snare then everything else on stage combined.

Even if you asked for drums in your monitor (not the norm unless stage volume is ridiculous) you would still get a completely dry mix without gating, compression, eq and reverb.

Anyway all I’m saying is you can be very unhappy with what you hear and in-fact it can be great in the front of house system. We specialize in making 400 dollar kids sound like 4,000 kits! LOL It just takes a lot more work with the shitty kit.
 
I never understood people that put pillows and such inside there drum, along time ago yes but not now with the pre-muffled drum heads. I still love the Remo ps3 or the emad. It lets your drum be a drum ,pillows kill the drum. Anyway bro. try a Danmar disk pad with a felt beater.
 
SIDENOTE: Could you imagine "When the Levee Breaks" with a clicky bass drum sound?

Look all i said is that it cuts through well! No need to start a big debate over the pros and cons of a clicky bass drum sound mate! Look i think you've got completely the wrong end of what i was trying to say. Of course there are a lot of times when it just doesn't work, that "just the two of us" song for example, the bass drum just sounds completely stupid. But that is a quiet song and in terms of musical space you could whack any bass drum sound there is practically and you'd still be able to hear it. Now i don't know what sort of music this bloke plays but if it's loud enough to drown out the kick drum then it must be worth suggesting the dreaded "click" surley?
 
The best post I have seen so far was the one ignored buy drumr0

Thanks for the Kudos! The way I read the original post, it just seemed like that this was a mix problem/PA problem more than anything. He's gotten good sound in the past with the same tuning (I assume).

If hurders could tell us a little more about the venue and sound equipment, I think it would help.
 
Look all i said is that it cuts through well! No need to start a big debate over the pros and cons of a clicky bass drum sound mate! Look i think you've got completely the wrong end of what i was trying to say.

Whoa! Easy there, tiger! I wasn't starting any kind of debate. I just pictured in my mind what "When the Levee Breaks" would sound like with a clicky bass drum sound, had a little chuckle to myself, and thought I'd pass that ridiculous sonic image along for a laugh. No debate or disrespect intended, mate...
 
Hey guys, thanks again for the tips.

For the guy that asked if knew how it sounded out front? Yeah I got some feedback from my bro in the audience who said the kick wasn't cutting through. There was also another guy who plays drums in the audience who also commented on the lack of kick.

For the people saying get rid of the pillow/muffling etc. yeah, I hear what you're saying but when I've tried that in the past the feel and vibrations I get through my pedal are just horrible so I feel I need something in there against the batter head (the single pillow I have in my kick is mostly up against the batter) just take away the vibrations from the pedal and give a nice solid feel. I am definitely going experiment with a bit less muffling though, probably a towel.

Our sound equipment? Well, I'm not really too clued up on that, one of out guitarists sorts and controls all that. The PA is nothing too fancy but I'm sure its good/powerful enough to blast out my kick better than it did. At the gig in question, the venue was your typical pub/bar, quite a long room, plenty of space. I just had my kick miced, the rest of the kit cut through quite well without any mics.

We've got a gig coming up this sat, its outside and we're playing on a trailer so i'll most likely go with a couple of overheads as well as the kick mic. I'm going to have a bit of a play with tuning my kick and experiment with less muffling on sat morning to see if I can get some more boom from it.
 
50 to 100hz are the frequencies where all the thump is from. Your kick and the low string on the bass are the only instruments down there. Therefore you either need to ensure you always have a good sound man with an adequate PA or make it your business to be clued up on that.

It used to chap my ass where we would pull into a bar and the house PA was crap. My son (the drummer) is up there beating away killing himself and if I was not watching his sticks moving I would have thought he was not playing!

As a result I have spent the last three or four years learning as much as I can and building a PA rig to ensure he is heard loud and clear!
Your guitar player will focus on his rig on vocal and his guitar. Both are in similar frequencies and relative to bass frequencies easy to get up and sounding good.
The ratio of the power it takes to amplify kick frequencies compared to vocals and guitar frequencies is about 3 to 1 if not more… easily more!
I don’t have unlimited funds so I’m down low on this scale but I have about 3,600 watts in my PA. 2.600 watts is devoted to 50 to 100hz and a mere 1,000 watts is dedicated to 100hz to 20,000Khz.
This PA I run is only capable of covering 200 to 250 people. Anymore more people, larger room or outdoors and all bets are off. The kick just drops off exponentially. At this point I have to rent more front of house gear to get the job done.

As for cut… I assume you care how it sounds or you would not be asking about it here… next time your setting up for a show get a friend to sit in your seat and just kick. Go out to the board find the kick channel look for a control in the 3K to 5K ish area and add about 5 or 6 db at that frequency. I can’t be more specific than that as every room and PA is slightly different. If the board does not have sweepable controls to add gain there plug your kick into an outboard EQ and add in that frequency and pull some 250 to 500hz out. Buy hearing it for yourself you will appreciate how much it can be improved or made worse for that matter with just EQ.

When I get home tonight I’ll append this with some video examples of my kids playing with good PA’s and bad ones. Similarly with a mic on the kick and a few overheads vs every drum mic’ed along with overheads.
This should help to make my point and hopefully get a few guys more interested in how they sound to the crowd. I may not be a drummer myself but I sure care how you all sound!
 
50 to 100hz are the frequencies where all the thump is from. Your kick and the low string on the bass are the only instruments down there.

The thump can exist nicely above that range, as do bass notes, and you're right that they exist in the same space. And that's where the problem of one covering up the other exists. As bass notes are typically more legato, they win.

What I said very early in this thread is that when the bass is that low, the kick needs to be tuned (or at least EQd) out of that low-end range so it can be detected. It's not really a volume issue, as that's an endless battle that no instrument competing with another can win.

If the bass doesn't have a lot of lows (some bass players perefer more mids and attack) then the kick can have as much thump as the p.a. allows, and it will be heard in that way.

Bermuda
 
Hi all,

I've just registered to this site. Just got back into playing after a 15 year lay off and I'm rusty as hell. Played sessions for years then gave up as the business got to me. Anyhow, I've always played a 20" kick in a rock environment and never had a problem with definition or depth, with or without PA. It sounds like a little cannon! I can't endorse the importance of tuning enough. Especially critical on a 20" kick. I use a small size 6 piece Spaun custom maple kit. Emad2 on the batter tuned just above lowest fundamental pitch. I keep the dampening ring in place for PA use and remove it for acoustic work. Nothing inside the drum. 4" offset mic hole in the reso tuned about half a turn all round above the lowest fundamental pitch. My friend uses the same tuning / head choice principal on his 24" kick and it sounds great. On the subject of PA's, my present band uses a little 1.4kw DB Technologies rig with only 800w of sub through 12" speakers. We can easily get a full & kickass sound from this in gigs up to 250 people. Only the kick is mic'd. D112 on a stand positioned inside the kick about mid drum. On a stand is essential. Hope this helps someone.
 
I was using a cheap Superlux mic for a long time. About 2 weeks ago during sound check the sound guy came up to me and said "the kick sounds week and distorted, let me try my mic" so he popped a Shure Beta 52 on it. OMG! I was shocked at the difference.I went out a bought one before our next gig.

Also if the band is not hearing it that is stage mix, are you putting any kick in the monitors, or are you even running monitors?


You are getting great advice from knowledgeable people above but I have to say I will never use a cheap bass drum mic again. If you can find a way to try a higher quality mic, I personally would give that a try.
 
Good advise on the mic. I couldn't agree more. The Beta is a great mic & not too expensive. Equally, the AKG D112 I use you can pick up for the price of a couple of good quality kick drum heads. There's better than the D112 around in specific applications but it's a great all rounder and bomb proof. No EQ needed for live work either. You'll probably want to use something a bit more natural such as a high quality condenser for recording.
 
More good advice guys, thanks,

Regarding monitors, no we don't tend to play with them but as I said in an earlier post, it wasn't just the kick not coming thorugh on stage, I had people in the audience who said it was lacking too.

Yeah, ideally I probably need a better mic but at the moment I'm going to try and make do. We are only really playing pub gigs at the moment so I think with better tuning and mic placement I should get an acceptable amount out my cheapy kick mic. If we start to play some bigger venues then I'll probably consider getting something a bit better
 
The thump can exist nicely above that range, as do bass notes, and you're right that they exist in the same space. And that's where the problem of one covering up the other exists. As bass notes are typically more legato, they win.

What I said very early in this thread is that when the bass is that low, the kick needs to be tuned (or at least EQd) out of that low-end range so it can be detected. It's not really a volume issue, as that's an endless battle that no instrument competing with another can win.

If the bass doesn't have a lot of lows (some bass players perefer more mids and attack) then the kick can have as much thump as the p.a. allows, and it will be heard in that way.

Bermuda

This really does make sense. I've been in certain clubs to where when the drummer was doing the kick sound check, it sounded huge and would almost knock you over. Yet, when the rest of the band would come in, you couldn't really hear the kick any more. The smaller/longer clubs tend to have this problem. With all the other instruments bouncing around off the walls, and being amplified at the same time, it can be a struggle to get a simple acoustic instrument heard; especially one in the lower frequency range.

BTW, I had a friend that used the superkick with a pillow inside, and I could never hear his kick, no matter what the club or soundsystem. Maybe just go with a PS3, and tape a rolled up towel to the batter side. You'll retain volume and tone that way, and the towel will cut down on the vibrations.
 
More good advice guys, thanks,

Regarding monitors, no we don't tend to play with them but as I said in an earlier post, it wasn't just the kick not coming thorugh on stage, I had people in the audience who said it was lacking too.

Yeah, ideally I probably need a better mic but at the moment I'm going to try and make do. We are only really playing pub gigs at the moment so I think with better tuning and mic placement I should get an acceptable amount out my cheapy kick mic. If we start to play some bigger venues then I'll probably consider getting something a bit better

I had an experience tonight in Baltimore that made me think of this thread. We were playing a pretty big club, headlining a show that had a house kit. The house kit was a 24" bass drum, tuned low, ported, with a top of the line mic being used. I usually use an un-ported 20" bass drum with a medium-priced mic, so I expected serious boom. I got up there, and could barely hear the darn thing. I asked them to send it through my monitors (and it was an incredible monitor system...I actually had a sub and a regular speaker), and I still couldn't hear it well. The people in my band, who usually don't need my bass in their monitors at all and can hear it fine, were asking for more and more. After the show, a lot of fans said that we sounded great except that you could barely hear the bass drum. In talking to the soundguy, I found out he had it turned up to where it would feedback if it went higher.

The drum had a pillow and two towels in it, as well as a muffled batter head.

Oh, and if your pedal is vibrating when you hit the bass drum unmuffled, there is something wrong with the pedal, or how it is set up.
 
Well the gig we did saturday night was much better. Before the gig I re-tuned my kick (probably ended up with the heads tuned near enough back where they were originally but made me feel better to do it anyway!), I also adjusted the pillow (it is only a small flat pillow) so it was laying horizontally across the floor of the drum with just a little touching the bottom of the batter (I usually have it long ways with a good amount of it reared up against the batter head). Also, I put the kick mic on a mini-boom stand, not quite in the port hole, facing slightly away from the beater to pick up more from the reso head.

Anyway with those changes I got a much rounder, fuller and powerful sound from my kick that definitely cut through the mix.

Oh, and if your pedal is vibrating when you hit the bass drum unmuffled, there is something wrong with the pedal, or how it is set up.

Maybe I exageratted a little before when I talked about the vibrations but there is definitely a different feel from the pedal when you play a kick with a pillow resting against the inside of the batter head to 1 that's completely unmuffled. I tend to bury the beater a little so with an unmuffled kick I can feel the batter head vibrating through the pedal more than if its muffled as the head is resonating for longer. But, playing with less muffling certainly wasn't as bad as I expected and I'm definitely going to swap the pillow for a towel just resting against the batter head for the next gig.

All in all, it was a big improvement.
 
Well the gig we did saturday night was much better. Before the gig I re-tuned my kick (probably ended up with the heads tuned near enough back where they were originally but made me feel better to do it anyway!), I also adjusted the pillow (it is only a small flat pillow) so it was laying horizontally across the floor of the drum with just a little touching the bottom of the batter (I usually have it long ways with a good amount of it reared up against the batter head). Also, I put the kick mic on a mini-boom stand, not quite in the port hole, facing slightly away from the beater to pick up more from the reso head.

Anyway with those changes I got a much rounder, fuller and powerful sound from my kick that definitely cut through the mix.



Maybe I exageratted a little before when I talked about the vibrations but there is definitely a different feel from the pedal when you play a kick with a pillow resting against the inside of the batter head to 1 that's completely unmuffled. I tend to bury the beater a little so with an unmuffled kick I can feel the batter head vibrating through the pedal more than if its muffled as the head is resonating for longer. But, playing with less muffling certainly wasn't as bad as I expected and I'm definitely going to swap the pillow for a towel just resting against the batter head for the next gig.

All in all, it was a big improvement.

Glad everything worked out well for you! Yeah, I was shocked at how little sound came from the bass drum I mentioned in my last past. It's an amazing difference.
 
Whoa! Easy there, tiger! I wasn't starting any kind of debate. I just pictured in my mind what "When the Levee Breaks" would sound like with a clicky bass drum sound, had a little chuckle to myself, and thought I'd pass that ridiculous sonic image along for a laugh. No debate or disrespect intended, mate...

okay fair enough haha yeah that is pretty silly. On the same token though, imagine most fast paced double kick patterns you hear on almost any metal song with a john bohnam kick drum tone. Imo it would be just as ridiculous. It's all about context.
 
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