Kick Port thoughts?

If you're going to use a TRS 1/4" connector, be sure to carry a can of Deoxit D5 in your hardware box. Because of the constant vibrations of the bass drum, those spring contacts can and will get intermittent. I've seen it happen dozens of time with triggers. Although I too don't care for the idea of drilling the hole for the male XLR connector, I rarely see an XLR go bad or intermittent, plus it locks into its mating connector.

Dennis
 
If you're going to use a TRS 1/4" connector, be sure to carry a can of Deoxit D5 in your hardware box. Because of the constant vibrations of the bass drum, those spring contacts can and will get intermittent. I've seen it happen dozens of time with triggers. Although I too don't care for the idea of drilling the hole for the male XLR connector, I rarely see an XLR go bad or intermittent, plus it locks into its mating connector.

Dennis

TRS plugs and sockets are easy to maintain and replace. Once you've bored a huge hole in your bass drum from an XLR socket, there's absolutely no going back. The TRS is just more discreet and, if used with a 90-degree plug, can be installed at the bottom of the bass drum for near invisiblity.
 
Why on EARTH would you cut a 7/8" hole into a drum shell, when you could just wire your internal bass drum mic to a quarter-inch TRS socket in the vent hole that's already in the drum?

Convenience.

I did the wire through the air vent, not as happening as a direct drill. You're limited to where the air vent is placed and its usually visible and/or in the way, cord on the drum shell etc.

TRS? You have to pack your own cord, which is OK if you mic your stuff up yourself, but its also just one more thing to forget. Anyones working XLR mic cable on the planet is usable with my set up and as you know, they're pretty common.

If you just slipped the mic cord through the air vent, then yes, that is one way to avoid drilling the shell. But then you have a mic cord flopping around outside the bass drum and risk it getting damaged, yanked in transport, etc.

You are correct, I had to carry around my self-made TRS cable with a 90-degree plug. It was a couple of feet long and I kept it in the drum transport case, so forgetting it was never an issue. It plugged in the bottom side of the bass drum and was nearly invisible. It worked well but I so rarely needed to mic my bass drum that I removed it all to save weight and increase air volume in the drum (I was using a Shure Beta 52 which as you know are massive).
 
Once you've bored a huge hole in your bass drum from an XLR socket, there's absolutely no going back.

Going back to what, aTRS through the vent hole?

You can take spectral analysis, blind fold tests, you're not going to hear the difference with a 7/8" sealed hole in the shell of your kick.

I certainly don't want to be dependent on a TRS-female XLR cord making my kick mic work. If anything happens to that cord you don't have a working mic. "Hey sound man, do you have a (20') male TRS to XLR female cord?" --- "Nope, sorry man."

You'd need a locking 1/4" socket to even have a chance at making real sense, then its still not as dependable (or practical- that cord again) as XLR.

The miniscule, exposed contact points on a 1/4" connection are not what I want inside my kicks, they bend, weaken and get dirty the more they get used.

Who wants to be replacing 1/4" jacks in their kick as general maintenance? You put a good chassis mount XLR in and your (most probably) never going to have to remove it.

You'll also get jacked for TR$-XLR cords b/c they're not that common. I considered locking 1/4" TRS, but XLR made so much more sense.



I too don't care for the idea of drilling the hole for the male XLR connector


I had reservations, till I did it, experienced how solid it is and how much it simplifies things. Sound men love it, they click the mic cord in and smile, nod and say "That's cool".

You don't get a positive connection with 1/4" not physically or mentally, you always question the contact, with speakers, mic's anything. How many times has a 1/4" cord not been plugged fully into a speaker or worked its way out? Not many, but it does happen and even once it too much.

I've 'never' encountered an XLR that wasn't full engaged, or one that had worked its way loose (1000's of connections).
 
Once you've bored a huge hole in your bass drum from an XLR socket, there's absolutely no going back.

Going back to what, aTRS through the vent hole?

You can take spectral analysis, blind fold tests, you're not going to hear the difference with a 7/8" sealed hole in the shell of your kick.

I certainly don't want to be dependent on a TRS-female XLR cord making my kick mic work. If anything happens to that cord you don't have a working mic. "Hey sound man, do you have a (20') male TRS to XLR female cord?" --- "Nope, sorry man."

You'd need a locking 1/4" socket to even have a chance at making real sense, then its still not as dependable (or practical- that cord again) as XLR.

The miniscule, exposed contact points on a 1/4" connection are not what I want inside my kicks, they bend, weaken and get dirty the more they get used.

Who wants to be replacing 1/4" jacks in their kick as general maintenance? You put a good chassis mount XLR in and your (most probably) never going to have to remove it.

You'll also get jacked for TR$-XLR cords b/c they're not that common. I considered locking 1/4" TRS, but XLR made so much more sense.



I too don't care for the idea of drilling the hole for the male XLR connector


I had reservations, till I did it, experienced how solid it is and how much it simplifies things. Sound men love it, they click the mic cord in and smile, nod and say "That's cool".

You don't get a positive connection with 1/4" not physically or mentally, you always question the contact, with speakers, mic's anything. How many times has a 1/4" cord not been plugged fully into a speaker or worked its way out? Not many, but it does happen and even once it too much.

I've 'never' encountered an XLR that wasn't full engaged, or one that had worked its way loose (1000's of connections).

I see what you're saying. I just have strong reservations about boring a hole nearly one inch big in a musical instrument, especially when there is a non-invasive way to do it.

TRS connections are very common, especially among mixer boards where there is no room for many XLR connections. XLR may be more reliable than TRS, but I don't buy that TRS connections are all that fragile. I used this setup for many gigs and it always worked flawlessly. The extremely low profile of the right-angle TRS plug was a definite plus in terms of protecting the connection from accidental blows and kicks.

The main drawback to TRS I see is its apparent inability to carry phantom power. Maybe it could, but I've never seen it. For a bass drum, you're going with a dynamic mic anyway.
 
I don't see why a balanced TRS couldn't manage phantom power.
 
I just have strong reservations about boring a hole nearly one inch big in a musical instrument, especially when there is a non-invasive way to do it.

That's perfectly alright, I had the same reservations. The naked holes are scary looking in the drum shell, but once the XLR is sealed-in it becomes copacetic, its not a hole anymore. Much like drilling for a tom mount.

Now you may be talking about a one piece shell, just for resale sake I wouldn't drill a one piece bass drum shell.

If I never planned to re-sell it I 'would' drill it.

My MO though is that Im just renting my gear (even if I own it), everything is for sale sooner or later.
 
Oh get over it already, Cut the hole if you want to! Set the mic in the drum!
DW sells kits with mic plug holes cut into them and they charge much extra for it!
This is like watching a Soap Opera!
If you put a mic inside of the drum and it has a problem, It can be fixed without much effort.
It is a mic, a mount, and a three wire cable with a plug! Not much to go wrong there.
 
Last edited:
I don't see why a balanced TRS couldn't manage phantom power.

You're correct in theory, but there are a couple of of scenarios to watch out for. The first one is to not plug into a TRS circuit with the 48 vdc phantom power already activated in the mixer. The reason for this is because the tip of the connector will short into every other internal circuit of that connector before it's fully seated. Another reason I wouldn't use phantom power with TRS connectors is because the balanced circuit has to remain just that. The 48 vdc runs through both the hot and cold pins of the connector with the shield being the return. Before the regulated dc voltage connects to these pins, it feeds through series resistors which are usually about 6.8K ohms. These resistor are Very close tolerance to keep exactly 48vdc on each leg of the connector in reference to ground. If for some reason, dirt, oxidation or whatever, occurs on one of the very small areas that has contact with the mating connector, an unbalance of both phase and phantom voltage will occur. At this point it's no longer phantom power and damage can happen to just about any microphone or mixer being connected through this unbalanced 48 vdc system. Sometimes I'll find an open series resistor in the mixer that burned just because someone transposed wires when re-soldering an XLR connector.

If you look into the contact area of a female XLR connector, you can see that those contact completely encircle the mating pins of the male connector. This has many times more the contact area than what a TRS connector will have.

I'll go one further, even though you probably will be using a dynamic microphone in your bass drum, most mixers cannot individually select just the inputs where you want the phantom power to go. If this is the case, if you're using condenser microphones for overheads and you need the phantom power for them, it will still find its way into the TRS connector in the bass drum from the mixer. What I already stated above could very well possibly happen.

Dennis
 
Who's that company that ports the side of their bass drum shells?
I like that idea, it's like a big air vent that you can stick a mic in. I'd love to compare a ported and miced shell to a full shell with a ported reso. Then adding Kickports to both. Actually no that's a horrible idea. You can't put a Kickport in the side of round shell! Silly me!


There may be others, but at least Kumu do it.
 
So not to deviate too much from the subject with this question, I just thought i should share my past experiance with my church's sound guy... lol So its a pdp platinum with a 20x18 kick, it has a Holz ring in it, and the mic is the shure beta 52... The mic was placed on a mini boom stand and put about half way into the drum... by the assistant... anyhow after the set, he came up to me, blaming and yelling at how it can damage the mic by being inside of the drum and needs to be right at the hole to work good..? so any thoughts? cause im sort of confused... lol
 
So not to deviate too much from the subject with this question, I just thought i should share my past experiance with my church's sound guy... lol So its a pdp platinum with a 20x18 kick, it has a Holz ring in it, and the mic is the shure beta 52... The mic was placed on a mini boom stand and put about half way into the drum... by the assistant... anyhow after the set, he came up to me, blaming and yelling at how it can damage the mic by being inside of the drum and needs to be right at the hole to work good..? so any thoughts? cause im sort of confused... lol

I'm not a hugh fan of placing microphones in bass drums, but I doubt Very much that the high SPL and extreme air turbulence inside the bass drum will do any harm to that dynamic microphone's element. The Beta 52 was designed to withstand those extreme pressures (over 170 SPL), especially with the massive foam built into the microphone's grill. In fact the thickness of the foam is what attenuates much of the higher frequencies in the Beta 52 (very limited high frequency response above 8K). So no worries about killing the microphone, the only worries he should have is about the sound being muddied because of the high proximity effect of that particular bass drum microphone because it is fully encompassed inside the bass drum.

Dennis
 
You're correct in theory, but there are a couple of of scenarios to watch out for. The first one is to not plug into a TRS circuit with the 48 vdc phantom power already activated in the mixer. The reason for this is because the tip of the connector will short into every other internal circuit of that connector before it's fully seated. Another reason I wouldn't use phantom power with TRS connectors is because the balanced circuit has to remain just that. The 48 vdc runs through both the hot and cold pins of the connector with the shield being the return. Before the regulated dc voltage connects to these pins, it feeds through series resistors which are usually about 6.8K ohms. These resistor are Very close tolerance to keep exactly 48vdc on each leg of the connector in reference to ground. If for some reason, dirt, oxidation or whatever, occurs on one of the very small areas that has contact with the mating connector, an unbalance of both phase and phantom voltage will occur. At this point it's no longer phantom power and damage can happen to just about any microphone or mixer being connected through this unbalanced 48 vdc system. Sometimes I'll find an open series resistor in the mixer that burned just because someone transposed wires when re-soldering an XLR connector.

If you look into the contact area of a female XLR connector, you can see that those contact completely encircle the mating pins of the male connector. This has many times more the contact area than what a TRS connector will have.

I'll go one further, even though you probably will be using a dynamic microphone in your bass drum, most mixers cannot individually select just the inputs where you want the phantom power to go. If this is the case, if you're using condenser microphones for overheads and you need the phantom power for them, it will still find its way into the TRS connector in the bass drum from the mixer. What I already stated above could very well possibly happen.

Dennis

That's great info right there. While all the drum mics are dynamics, at larger gigs I do use overhead condensers, so the phantom power on my drum sub-mixer is pretty much always on. If I accidentally plugged in the TRS cable with the mixer already powered up, I'd have a problem. Zowie...
 
I just put a kickport on my 22 inch Gretsch Renown bass drum. The reso head is a single ply Remo coated head and I csn tell you the difference is dramatic. I still bury the beater and have the batter head fairky loose to prevent the pedal from bouncing. I tightened the reso a little more than normal with the KickPort and it sounds great. Should have done a before and after sound byte. Kind of a tease right now with my healing elbow and not being able to spend much time drumming.
__________________
 
In my opinion "No drum head should ever have a hole in it"...
 
Back
Top