EQ'ing kick drum

[cameltoe]

Hi guys,

Apologies if this is in the wrong section.

We run 2 JBL EON subs, and two SRM 450 tops. The kick is mic'ed with a AKG D112, located just inside the port hole. Desk is a Soundcraft Spirit Folio F1 with 4 band EQ for each channel (low, mid, mid sweep, high).

Wanted some advice on how best I should EQ the kick, as I'd like to take the guess work out of it! We don't always have the time to listen intently to each instrument when sound checking, and it's usually a case of close-enough, as we know once we start playing and the venue fills up the sound will change anyway, and the desk is always on stage, with no-one out front to 'fly the desk' and adjust as we go.

The sound I want is a tight, in your chest thump, as our folky-rocky beer music drives along quite hard, and the kick is a big part of it.

Something I've personally noticed, is that if I boost the low too much, the kick sounds bouncy, like a beach ball.

The lowest adjustment on the mid sweep is 240hz, which I usually keep rolled right back, and keep the mid level quite high, however when experimenting recently it actually sounded better with the mid sweep all the way up?

I know it's going to change with each venue, but looking for a rough guide if possible.

If I have to buy a rack-mount EQ then so be it.



PS:Our new drummer insists on using a pillow in his kick drum- good or bad?

[Ian Savage]

Top soundman tip - if your desk has a low-cut switch on the mic channels (I seem to remember that the F1 does), kick it in, and THEN boost the low EQ on the channel to suit. Gives you a 'peaking' response around those nice 'kick-in-the-chest' frequencies without eating your amp power with sub-bass that at best the speakers can't reproduce and at worst turns your drum mix into a flubby mess.

[cameltoe]

Yep it has a low-cut, thanks for the advice, I'll give it a try!

[Lozz196]

I always drop lows, add mids, and leave highs flat. Seems to get that "thwack" that`s required.

[Lowender]

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1371597515' post='2116122']
I always drop lows, add mids, and leave highs flat. Seems to get that "thwack" that`s required.
[/quote]

As a producer, engineer and drummer, I believe in the exact opposite of this.

Low mids give a kick drum "woofiness" and high mids make it sound like cardbord. Pump 60 hz for depth and 4K for snap and scoop the mids. .

Edited June 19, 2013 by Lowender

[mike257]

Yeah, Lowender is on the money, you want to pull the low mids right back to lose the wooliness and stop it fighting with everything else in that range.

The high mids (i usually find somewhere between 2.5k and 4k works) emphasise the attack and the click of the beater and the lows.... well, that's what its all about!

Edited June 19, 2013 by mike257

[JTUK]

How does the kick sound acoustically..??

[Lozz196]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1371610896' post='2116163']
As a producer, engineer and drummer, I believe in the exact opposite of this.

Low mids give a kick drum "woofiness" and high mids make it sound like cardbord. Pump 60 hz for depth and 4K for snap and scoop the mids. .
[/quote]

My experience is only doing it through vocal PAs, so don`t have set frequencies to choose from, just low, mid & high.

[cameltoe]

Acoustically the kick sounds very nice, it's got all the thwack I want, but getting that through the PA does seem like guesswork. Sometimes I get it, others I spend ages fiddling and still don't.

Just to be clear, when describing where to set the mids, I have a mid level and mid sweep. Are you guys suggesting I pull back on the mid level for the scooped sound, and keep the sweep somewhere in the middle of the range?

[charic]

[quote name='cameltoe' timestamp='1371630023' post='2116289']
Acoustically the kick sounds very nice, it's got all the thwack I want, but getting that through the PA does seem like guesswork. Sometimes I get it, others I spend ages fiddling and still don't.

Just to be clear, when describing where to set the mids, I have a mid level and mid sweep. Are you guys suggesting I pull back on the mid level for the scooped sound, and keep the sweep somewhere in the middle of the range?
[/quote]

Boost Low
Mid Sweep High
Mid Level Med High
High Level 12'oclock

OR

Boost Low
Mis Sweep Low
Mid Level Low
High Level Med - High

I think....

[TimR]

I've got the soundscraft F14? I found setting the low and high at 0 then set the mid at max and adjust the sweep until you get the frequency you want, then pull the mid back to about +3 to + 6 is better on the kick. You'll also have to play with the mic positioning until you hit a sweet spot. If you just boost the bass you'll get tons of bleed from the bass guitar.

The kick in the chest is from the mids the issue you have is as mentioned above, lots of instruments will be fighting for space in the mid range.

Unfortunately you can't just set it to a guessed frequency without hearing the mix.

[cheddatom]

Yeh I would have the mid level all the way down. Sweep from the bottom to the middle of the range to find the right cut. It should only take a second or two. Deffinitely have the low cut engaged. I wouldn't bother boosting lows.

[JamesBass]

Remember EQing isn't just about getting the instrument to sound good, it's also about piecing the mix together sonically.

With a kick drum the first thing I would do, is remove ALL frequencies above 6khz, you don't need them as it's dead air, think about it, it's a kick drum that has a bassy nature too it so why would you need some treble, it's just not needed for a kick but is needed for a guitar or vocals, which if you don't remove the 6khz+ sound squashed and not properly seated in the mix.

For the actual kick I'd go with: some sub bass between 16hz and 60hz, that's where you will "feel" the boom from, then again in the bass frequencies only a slight boost and again slight boost around 1khz.

Remember you will have the dynamics change when you get round to compressors!

[danthevan]

If he has a double sided beater (hard or soft), flip it round and see if it's better to work with.

[51m0n]

TIme to do some experimenting with drum tuning and dampening and mic position - then worry about the eq!

Remember what sounds great acoustically a 6 feet away, is not necessarily going to be perfect miced at 2 inches, or trnaslate as you'd like when its in a mix. EQ should eb the last thing you reach for (alongside compression) to solve this IME.

What mic have you got?

- If you dont have a dedicated kick mic I'd seriously recommend the Red5Audio kick mic, bang for buck its superb

How is the drum tuned?

Check this video out:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n35K6vB52ok

That tuning method, just above the resonant pitch of the kick will give you more punch thatn anything else I've tried live or int the studio. Most drummers tune their kick too high, unkless its jazz, stay awys from that it woint help. The batter skin will feel dead floppy to the drummer, he will need to tighten up the kick return spring probably to be able to play the same as before. He will bitch, then get used to it, because he will love the sound of his drum in the end.

How is the drum dampened and where have you tried placing the mic?

- Sounds to me like you want not too much click, but plenty of definition, an older school sound say more 70's than noughties.

- Try getting the pillow out of the drum, instead, get a fluffy new hand towel, fold it in three longways, lay it in the bottom of the kick drum so the ends overlap the front and back skin (by 4 or 5 inches max). It will seem a little ringier than you are used to, now on the resonant skin roll the towel back under itself, it needs to still be against that skin, so its dampening, but not killing the front skin.

Getting the mix of the bass tone and decay right with dampening at this point is super important, most drummers are used to hearing super short punchy sounds and overdamp their kit as a result (even in the video above its overdamped), taking some dampening away will give the kick a note, some duration and a bigger transient, it will also be acoustically louder. All this will help to ttranslate into a better mic'ed sound, even if you have to compress/gate it after the fact a little to control it. In order to have punch you need a striong transient and plenty of energy just after it, over damping the kick kills the transient a bit but removes all energy behind the transient meanin you get a less punchy kick, not a more punchy kick.

- Place the mic first outside the front ofthe the drum an inch or two off the resonant head, this is a classic old school position for the kick mic, having taken a lot of damoening out of the drum the mic will pick up lots of attack, and a bit of a tone from the ring, which will supply some body, but it wont ever quite be clicky.

- If thats not working move the mic over the hole in the skin and point it from just level with the skin straight at where the beater hits the batter skin, you will get more click, you may need to adjust the dampening going on from here, which will mean getting that towel over the resonant skin more o rless, the batter skin usually is always fine with a 3 or 4 inch overlap of towel in my experience.

The result yo are aiming for is a slightly longer note than you get now, with a lot more punchiness and a rounder transient. The Red5Audio kick mic, like most of the rest, has a nice big cut in the low mid, and a boost around 4KHz and 60 to 80Hz. Which with a well positioned mic and a well set up drum may be all you need to capture the sound you describe without any eq on the desk at all.

If you need to eq still though, at least you have something morethan a dampened transient to actually apply the eq to, it will go a lot further in the mix than it did before!

[Ziphoblat]

Before you spend forever messing about with EQ trying to get the drum to sound how you want, try and find an occasion where you can sit and spend an extra few minutes on the kick drum, and move the microphone around into different positions. You might find you can get the sound you want without having to touch the EQ, if you can get the microphone in a suitable place. I've never personally found a D112 to be a great microphone for those really deep kick sounds anyway. They're more effective (in my experience) for the beater sound. My favourite low end microphone for a kick drum at the moment is the Beyerdynamic TGX-50.

[TimR]

I love drummers. I spent 5 years trying to tell our drummer he needed new heads and to learn how to tune them (diplomatically) - He just said he needed a new kit. Doh! In the end he bought a new kit, he liked it, well for a few months anyway...

Shame really but essentially telling a drummer how his bass drum 'should' sound is like telling a bass player he should be using a fender P bass...

[Lozz196]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1371638751' post='2116408']
Shame really but essentially telling a drummer how his bass drum 'should' sound is like telling a bass player he should be using a fender P bass...
[/quote]

Can`t see an issue with that Tim

[51m0n]

Agreed, its far easier in the studio where you can use all sorts of plausible reasons why we might be best changing this or that.

The single most important thing in recording a drumkit (other than get rid of squeaks) is to get tip top new head on, if the guy canes his kit you want to change the snare batter head daily if possible, and the kick batter head every couple of days. Try explaining that to him when he says he wants to sound like BillyBobn from DeathMettleHardcoreMuthaF***ers or whatever....

Its not really any dfferent live IME. Just there is a lot less time to get it right

Edited June 19, 2013 by 51m0n

[cameltoe]

Thanks for the advice, guys, I will certainly try some of your suggestions.

To be clear though, I usually do experiment with mic positioning, but end up with the mic just inside the port, aimed more-or-less at the beater.

The drum 'appears' to be well tuned, but this is certainly something worth thinking about, as is the dampening method.

I have though managed to go from an 'eek that sounds terrible', to a nice, tight punchy bass drum by fiddling with the EQ so I do know it's in there somewhere.

[risingson]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1371638751' post='2116408']
Shame really but essentially telling a drummer how his bass drum 'should' sound is like telling a bass player he should be using a fender P bass...
[/quote]

Bass players should be using P-Basses

[Bolo]

A pillow with a street-tile on it inside the bassdrum does wonders! And is not an answer to your question, sorry

[Jazzneck]

Try a bass drum instead of a kick drum.

[Ziphoblat]

[quote name='Jazzneck' timestamp='1371725815' post='2117352']
Try a bass drum instead of a kick drum.
[/quote]

Kick makes a lot more sense when you're working with lots of channels. Having simply "bass" and "kick" as opposed to "bass drum" and "bass guitar" is quicker and easier.

[Skol303]

Obviously how to EQ a kick drum is all about context - ie. whatever fits best with the mix overall.

But generally-speaking, I always approach the kick and bass together - deciding ASAP whether the kick is going to sit below or above the bass part, frequency-wise. You run into trouble when the kick and bass end up duking it out for who's king of the bottom end, and it usually ends in tears