I’ve been playing around with micing and mixing for a while now, so finally caved and cut a 4” hole in the Reso head at 5 o’clock position and put the mic up to it. Way easier to control the tone going into the mic. Lost a bit of pedal feel and some sustain, but there was very little room between the mic and the reso head, so not a bunch of air escaping. Also, the head was a straight up 1ply with no dampening. Moving around inside to try and adjust dampening was tougher than I thought and I don’t have big paws!
I also tried moving the mic into the drum to be angled to the batter and I had cut the head too small to make the pass through easy. It went in with some manipulation, but then too low, even for the short boom, so I figured that must be why everything is a 5” hole and not a 4! I carefully cut the hole into a 5”, a touch higher, between 4 and 5 o’clock position and tried again. Mic went in nicely and easy to maneuver. No surprise there. Much easier to adjust dampening, but pedal feel disappeared as did all sustain. Mic didn’t sound nearly as good inside or in the same position as white the smaller hole. Should have left well enough alone. If I cut again, the hole will be 4” max.
I don’t play double pedals, so don’t need a deader sound. Pedal feel and sustain are a bigger deal to me, but the 4” was a very nice compromise. In the end, I put on my unported reso (EQ3), tuned the batter side higher and reso lower than I had and not only did the BD sound fuller and punchier, but the mic picks things up way better too.
I guess what I’m saying is, know why your cutting. I now have a useless reso head, but learned a ton more than I did just reading. Education always costs something!