Can't hear my bass drum

drummingman

Gold Member
My practice room is a storage space made of metal. When I play my kit it's very boomy in the room. I can't really hear what I'm doing on my bass drum alot of the time.

Is there some kind of micing system I can put in my bass drum that I can run through headphones? I also thought about maybe trigging my bass and running that through the headphones. Would this work?

I can't hang anything on the walls to deaden the sound because of how the room is made. So I have to find a way to be able to hear my bass.
 
You might try building sound absorption panels, that you can just lean against the walls. A couple of 4x8 sheets of plywood - covered with carpet, will probably deaden the "liveness" to a substantial degree. Or, the poor mans route. Lean a few old matresses up against the walls. Deep Purple style.​
 
/agree. Easiest thing to do is deaden the room by adding things to it. You don't need to hang anything on the walls or modify the room itself to do this. Build or buy some bass traps, would be the first thing. Then look into deadening the first 2-3 feet of the wall space above the floor. From there, you may need to tune the bass to fit the room size.

Miking what you have right now isn't going to help much because you'll just be capturing something that is already bad. However, adding mikes to the situation after you treat the room would be nice.

-jl
 
I wonder if you can take old mattresses and lean them up against the walls. This is cheap and easy, you may get the mattresses at salvation army or good will stores.

Or, you can build wooden 2 x 4 frames and tack carpet on them. This is similar to what harry said below.

The frames are just lighter to carry. The metal in the shed stops the higher frequencies from exiting the shed. The rugs would stop the lower frequencies. I do not think the plywood would add too much to the acoustics in the shed being that the dense material of the plywood would do a similar work as the sheet metal.
 
My practice room is a storage space made of metal. When I play my kit it's very boomy in the room. I can't really hear what I'm doing on my bass drum alot of the time.

Is there some kind of micing system I can put in my bass drum that I can run through headphones? I also thought about maybe trigging my bass and running that through the headphones. Would this work?

I can't hang anything on the walls to deaden the sound because of how the room is made. So I have to find a way to be able to hear my bass.

Do you use any hearing protection or headphones? This can sometimes help with controlling the soundwaves. My opinion is since there is no absorbtion of the soundwaves, they just bounce all around you and distorts or burries your kit. I kinda have this problem myself. I moved my kit into a smaller room and it just overwhelms you with sound. I play with headphones 99% of the time and this helps alot. Earbuds also work. I plan on doing some accoustical deading in the room in the near future with accoustical foam. This will help control the sound waves by absorbing some of te sounds.
 
I do put some muffling in my bass drum, a Tama kick pad.

I use Vic Virth iso headphones.

Thanks for the tips as well all! The mattress idea sounds good to me. I just have to find some old mattresses that aren't infested with something funky.

Everything in the room is made of metal except the floor. Even the door, which is a roll down, is metal. This makes for a seriously boomy environment.
 
mattresses, a good idea, but also bulky. you can hang old carpet (easy to find, and transport), from rafters.
 
There's nothing wrong with the mic/trigger idea if it's just for your practice. If you put your head in a bass drum, you're going to hear it regardless of what room it's in...!
 
I think I was going to suggest something genius... But I got distracted by Harry's avatar and forgot it. Sorry.
 
Usually my suggestion would be to make the BD louder by adding some body to the sound- you do that by taking out any muffling and using a more live head, like an Emperor, or a Black Dot, or even an Ambassador. The sound and feel take some getting used to, but your overall sound out in the room will really rock. But since the room is already boomy, you may not want to add to that- then again, it may not be noise that is your problem so much as the predominance of high and mid frequencies, and making the BD sound bigger will correct it... I dunno...
 
Why don't you make those stands out of PVC like they do for stage scrims and hang moving blankets on them and place them along the wall. Also place carpet on the floor. That should work for your sound problem.
 
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