Port on batter side kick head?

Lickety Britches

Senior Member
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyNzpejtYBw

I saw this video and had never seen something like this before. Is this in anyway common? I ask because I really dont want to port my Fiberskyn because I love the way it looks unported. obviously if Its the best, sound wise, then I'll do it but If I could do this instead, would this work? I feel like with the mic not really facing the beater in anyway, you'd miss out on some attack, and I play in a harder alternative band so the attack is somewhat important.
 
This is new, never saw a batter ported before. I'm skeptical. I'd have to hear it up close and personal. I really don't see how it could be more awesome than a full headed drum though. To me there are no such thing as unwanted overtones, I want them all. Poor unwanted overtones. I'll take them.
 
I fooled around with a ported batter a few years ago. It worked fine but I couldn't really see the advantage to it so I switched the bass heads back to port out front.
 
You would have the poor, inexperienced sound guy perplexed and running in circles, probably arguing with you that your bass drums facing the wrong direction, lol.

Dennis
 
Never done it. Never seen it done. Let us know how you go with it.

I figure there's gotta be a reason why it's never caught on and gone mainstream.......see if you can find it for us. :)
 
What about something like a vented EQ head on the batter side? The kind with a bunch of small holes around the edge. Relieve some of the pressure and cut down on the boom, but allow a solid front head. Interesting idea.
 
What about something like a vented EQ head on the batter side? The kind with a bunch of small holes around the edge. Relieve some of the pressure and cut down on the boom, but allow a solid front head. Interesting idea.

Kumu Drums come out of the box with that sort of bass drum resonant heads. The sound is supposedly the same as with an intact head, but the playing feel is closer to a head with a mic hole. Check it out!

http://kumu.fi/en/drumset/406
 
It sounds like a crazy idea. Why anyone would want to stop a drum skin resonating at all is a mystery to me. Gel and tape are bad enough but a hole must be near fatal to the wave pattern on the head.
 
Kumu Drums come out of the box with that sort of bass drum resonant heads. The sound is supposedly the same as with an intact head, but the playing feel is closer to a head with a mic hole. Check it out!

http://kumu.fi/en/drumset/406
Now that makes a lot of sense. Evans do a similar thing but with many more smaller holes. We vent just under the bearing edge on our performance series drums, but not on our Classic series. The reasons for edge venting the shell are more to do with disruption of standing waves than overtone curtailment though.

As for porting the bass drum batter head with a single hole - personally - I think that's a nonsense. Reduction in volume and especially the adverse affect of uneven tension on tuning is enough to turn me away. Same thing with the silly mini Kickport deal for snares & toms. Love the quote "kinda dries out the sound but really opens up the shell & lets it sing" - wrong - it just dries out all tones other than the fundamental & really f*&^&ks up your tuning, oh, & shell to head sustain, you can forget that too. I suppose they have a place with those players who want absolute thud & nothing else. Hey, each to his own. Don't expect any of this to be a Guru option anytime soon!

I do see a strong benefit in multiple small vents on the bass drum batter though. Rather like using a smaller hole version of Kumu's reso head. It's the uneven tension & weighting thing that screws this whole idea up for me.

As a side note, I like Kumu - they're one of the few companies out there that really know what they're doing :)
 
Kumu Drums come out of the box with that sort of bass drum resonant heads. The sound is supposedly the same as with an intact head, but the playing feel is closer to a head with a mic hole. Check it out!

http://kumu.fi/en/drumset/406

The Evans heads were what I was referring to. I had one once on a 22x18 Pearl MMC. It didn't sound the same as two intact heads. There was less resonant boom. Somewhere in between a 4" hole and no hole. I imagine it wouldn't matter which side of the drum you put it on. It had an EQ ring like a solid EQ3 and was otherwise the same.
 
the only reason I would do it if for a mic. now I know you can get a good sound without a mic being inside the kick drum. but I have never really experimented with it. I know in the studio we did 2 mics (one in back and one in front), But if I'm on tour, I dont want to be the only guy on the bill requiring 2 kick mics and throw the sound guy's flow off. I probably just wont do it. it seems like too much. I would be skeptical.
 
I actually really like this idea, but only for a specific use case. I play at a really small venue that requires the use of a drum shield. We have a great sound system setup and our in ear mixes are so good that I can really hear everything well. Front ported bass reso puts the mic in a horrible location for a reflective echo off the drum shield. At first I thought I was getting too much room ambiance in my mix, but after removing that entirely we figured it out. Since an absorbent drum shield that would hide the kit is out of the question, this may be an option to improve our sound quality.
I have some pretty major concerns about the rest of the kit being less shielded this way. The snare and floor toms will be much louder in the kick mic this way for sure, but it might actually work out better this way. I also like the idea of picking up the initial attack at the point of impact with the mic pointed the proper direction and then catching the reflection from the reso which will fill out the boom a bit. I'll have to see if a have a batter head that I am willing to sacrifice, but I do have a home studio setup with audix D series mics run through Ableton, so I will check this method out and see.
Anyone else see this as a viable use case?
 
Back
Top