Mic for bassdrum

[SubFunk]

a little oldskool DIY tip from me (did not jumped into the mic suggestions, the ones i like have been mentioned already)

Woah that sounds pretty neat. Totally trying this next time we record.

after a little experimentation with the placement, like with any other mic!, i guarantee you, you will get the fattest chest thumping kick you ever recorded, that trick can't be beaten by any mic around, no matter how expensive, nothing else can capture that much air being moved

well, as i said you need to mix it with a traditional bass drum mic, to get the attack and transients.

and you need to be in phase with the other mic, otherwise you cancel each other out.

[shuutobi]

a little oldskool DIY tip from me (did not jumped into the mic suggestions, the ones i like have been mentioned already)

go to radio shack and buy an 8" - 10" el cheapo generic speaker without enclosure (check, preferably with a relatively soft rim), mount that on a simple woodboard construction in a way that the the speaker is freestanding (don't construct an enclosure!) parallel to the bass drum skin roughly about between the middle and edge of the bass drum. solder a cable onto it, with a jack plug (or whatever your mixer / soundcard's input connectors are) place that thing about 15" - 20" inches in front of the bass drum (experiment and vary!) and blend (compress maybe a little) that received 'signal' from your DIY bass drum mic with the mic you have to taste. (so you get the attack / transients from the mic and the bottom end boom from the DIY speaker mic, you need to try around a bit, if you use this combo (highly recommended for ultimate fat acoustic kicks) then it is often good to cut a bit of the bottom of the original mic signal, it otherwise can get a bit muddy, try it!)

you will get one of the fattest bass drum sounds on earth. a real chest pusher that is. and dirt cheap to do.

...or you could do this:


But bah, the real deal is always cooler.

[SubFunk]

^^^^ this is not getting you there in a thousand years my friend

it is about what you are able to capture in the first place, not about how to manipulate the sound. you can't manipulate what is not captured first of all.

[shuutobi]

^^^^ this is not getting you there in a thousand years my friend

Not quite, but it gives similar results. (tweaked to taste of course)
Sub miking or dual kick micing in general will give more natural/organic results.

[SubFunk]

of course you can manipulate to a degree something close, but this method (and it is not about using two traditional mics) has an impact you simply want achieve with any mic made. and what you don't capture you can't manipulate with any technology on earth, this trick was developed not to save money on a mic or as a workaround, but simply because there is no mic on earth that can achieve that kind of impact from a natural / acoustic bass drum.

if that would have been around at times of john henry bonham you could have teared houses down by playing the recording back. just try it next time you are in a studio and then you know what i am talking about.

i don't diss your suggestion, but it is far from being the same.

it is about what you are able to capture in the first place, not about how to manipulate the sound. you can't manipulate what is not captured first of all.

well, actually already motown and later paul Mc cartney used similar 'techniques' to record fat basses, they used instead of just one mic a second cabinet as a an additional 'mic'