How to make your bass drum sound like a metal bands

Blashyrk

Junior Member
Hey, so i want to make my bass drum sound like As I Lay Dying's bass drum. I dont have a lot of money to buy stuff, so if there are things i can do with household items, that would be awesome.
 
Most recorded kick drums these days have a crazy amount of studio effects on them - things such as EQ, gate, compression, enveloping (making the attack more noticable, in this case), and all those sorts of things. And in other cases, the kick drum will be replaced by a kick sample. So to get that sound out of an unprocessed kick drum is going to take some experimentation.

The best thing I can say is try a hard (wood) beater with some sort of impact pad. I know Vinnie Paul used a quarter on his kick drums way back in the day (granted, his kicks aren't nearly the same sound), and you might be interested in the Danmar metal pads.

I hope that helps.
 
Since your strapped for cash, I'd say stick a pillow or two, or try a couple of blankets or three. Definitely the impact pad or falam pad of some sort and a wood or rubber beater, felt is your enemy if that's the sound your trying to go for. Mind you won't get the exact sound without all of the audio processing dwsabianguy mentioned, but it should get you in the ball park.
 
Agree, trigger it or you'll probably need a mic and a nice rack (or computer plug-ins) with effects. Triggering is easy and getting used brain units can be cheap enough.
 
im with sqadan, I had some metal buddies tape washers to there beater and head. . . crazy stuff. . .
 
so far ive been able to get the sound your looking for with either red oak beaters or any hard plastic beaters, gibralter graphite click kick pad, evans emad bass skin tuned very low, and a blanket inside just big enough to touch both skins. but be warned in an unmiced situation you wont have as much volume.
 
lol.... tape an expired credit card to the bass drum head as a beater patch.

I've also heard of some people taping a half-dollar to the head and using a plastic beater...

WOW! Are you freaking SERIOUS?!?!? Whatever happened to a bass drum actually having some......oh, I don't know.......what's the word?.......oh, yeah: BASS!!!!
 
Wood beaters. Danmar patches. Tune JAW. Get metal.

OR...

Get four quarters. Tape one to each beater. Tape the other 2 on the bass drum where the beaters hit. Tune bass drum JAW. I reccomend duct tape. Get metal.
 
My bass drum sound is so extreme I use a bounced check for a pad and a gold nugget as a beater....j/k. The Axis marksman beaters with a patch (probobly Danmar but Evans has a clicky one too) and muffled drum makes a pretty good metal BD sound.
I was into the triggered kick sound for awhile but I think at the end of the day a great bass drum sound is Dave Lombardo's. So powerful, I listened to some live Slayer recordings from the 80's, and he is not playing at most 210 bpm but such a great kick sound.
 
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