When Mic'ing Kick Drums...

What is the best mic placement? Near the kick head, or right at the opening of the resonator head blow hole?

Is the object to get the air movement out of the hole into the mic, or just picking up the actual sound of the drum head?

[loudboy]

For rock/pop kick, I'll go anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 the depth of the drum, away from the beater head, pointing where the pedal hits the head. Adjust in this range to balance out beater slap from body, to taste.

Place the mic to one side or the other, never dead in the middle of the kick, to avoid resonances.

9/10 this will do the trick.

Loudboy

[LSchefman]

>>For rock/pop kick, I'll go anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 the depth of the drum, away from the beater head, pointing where the pedal hits the head. Adjust in this range to balance out beater slap from body, to taste.

Place the mic to one side or the other, never dead in the middle of the kick, to avoid resonances.

9/10 this will do the trick.<<

+1

[MichaelK]

Same, and definitely experiment with placement. Every shell is different.

[Brian D]

I deleted my first response as I was clearly sniffing airplane glue when I posted. Just listen to these guys and you'll be fine!

For something different, and if you have the time, try experimenting with pointing the mic more at the shell.

[Impulse 101]

I'm going to sound a bit strange but I never got a kick sound that I really liked until I started recording with two full heads on the drum. I bought a fairly cheap but very sturdy copy of a May drum mic mount for my Tama Rockstar Custom 22" kick drum. I headed both sides with Aquarian heads. I use a standard resonant head and a Force I batter head with only a kevlar pad and a single small pillow below beater and only touching the bottom three or four inches of the head. (It's all about the tuning.)

The mount fits on the lugs for the feet that are inside the shell. I then set the mic (AKG D112) near the center of the drum as far as depth and slightly to the side of the beaters strike point but aimed directly at it.

This setup gave me body and depth to my kick drum sound instead of just attack. It translates very naturally to any kind of rock or pop music where a real kick drum is needed (instead of a electromechanical equivalent) and requires only a minimum of tuning to sound good.

JT

[Bassomatic]

Originally posted by LSchefman
>>For rock/pop kick, I'll go anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 the depth of the drum, away from the beater head, pointing where the pedal hits the head. Adjust in this range to balance out beater slap from body, to taste.

Place the mic to one side or the other, never dead in the middle of the kick, to avoid resonances.

9/10 this will do the trick.<<

+1

+2.

BTW, there just happens to be a very good article on recording drums in this month's Electronic Musician. I've read a ton of such articles, but this one's really worth checking out, especially for the less experienced among us.

BTW, there's no one 'right' answer, imo, as a lot of it's dependent on the sound your going for. There are a lot of acceptable variations, which is where experience really comes into play.

[MichaelK]

Originally posted by Bassomatic
BTW, there just happens to be a very good article on recording drums in this month's Electronic Musician. I've read a ton of such articles, but this one's really worth checking out, especially for the less experienced among us.

I saw that article, and I agree that it's worth checking out.

Also an article in this month's Mix about miking percussion.