bottomfeed Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 I have been playing in various bands with a great drummer friend of mine for many years now... we even recorded a sample CD together & it's selling.... slowly!...( [url="http://www.bigfishaudio.com/4DCGI/detail.html?749"]http://www.bigfishaudio.com/4DCGI/detail.html?749[/url] ) But sometimes.... playing live, we have a problem... He likes to use a double headed kick drum (no hole) .. he likes that big 'Jon Bonham' sound.. (...me likey too!) but the problem we get at times is the punch & depth of the bass & the kick drum occupy the same kinda frequencies (around 250 hertz) with the sh*te acoustics of some of the venues we end up at, he's moaning at me coz he can't hear his kick drum... & I'm moaning back coz all I can hear is his f***ing kick drum!! we use a mackie PA (2x 450's & a sub) ... no gates or comp Anyone experience anything like this? Any solutions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 How about investing in a baffle to go between you and drums to separate the sounds a little? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 Does he want more of the kick in his monitor mix? 'Cos you can probably do a nice cut at 250-350hz and leave him with some low end, and the high end for presence. You can roll of the bass below 100hz or so, and that should let his low end cut through. Are you talking about monitor mixes though, or, what? How do you listen to yourselves on stage? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay249 Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 Or....try everything flat, bass n'all, and everything at nice volumes, and work from there, but you might have done that already... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanOwens Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 Bass shaker? Internally mounted mic? I'm hungover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 It's an acoustic instrument and it will interact with the room acoustics. He needs to be prepared to use damping to solve problems in specific rooms even to the point of considering having a hole in the resonant skin to add or remove internal damping. I don't see 250Hz as a key area for a good kick drum sound, it tends to end up very boomy. If he's miking the kit experiment with positioning to get more of the good frequencies and less of the bad ones. Also he should consider his distance to the back and side walls - if he's not careful he could end up sitting in a null where the sound from the kick is cancelled out by its own reflection off the wall - this is a very common problem. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bottomfeed Posted September 27, 2007 Author Share Posted September 27, 2007 the majority of gigs, there isn't enough room for a baffle we only have wedges for vocals, no drum monitor at the moment...(the sh*tty carlsboro one packed up, but was useless anyway!) Not sure why, but it seems that if I add 250hertz to the bass ... he can't hear the kick..... if we take 250hertz out of the kick mic, it's sounds better to us .....but he isn't happy! if it's a gig with a hired in rig... generally no problems, often the kick gets gated to shorten the note, but keep the ummph.. kinda tried working from flat.... but often don't have time to adjust to every acoustic situation whats a bass shaker? he's considered an internal mic, but thinks it wont have the same 'acoustic tone' (or long droning note as our keyboard player calls it!) recently added a dampening strip behind the resonant skin.... very much improved the situation but not elliminated it entirely tried mic positions all over ...even tried micing from the back!... (not a bad sound actually!) ..again not consistant with every situation ' Also he should consider his distance to the back and side walls - if he's not careful he could end up sitting in a null where the sound from the kick is cancelled out by its own reflection off the wall - this is a very common problem.' - could have a point there! (sorry, I should have done all this with quotes!) thanks for the considerations so far..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 Another tip - if he can't hear the kick drum he should hit the rest of the kit less hard so the volume balances. Most drummers are too heavy with their hands and too light with their foot. The kick really shouldn't need gating - what about your drummer's pedal technique? He can control the length of the note by leaving the beater on the skin for varying lengths of time. Internal mics usually work very well but are relatively complicated and expensive. What kind of kick drum is this? If he's going for the big Bonham sound is it big enough to take a high tension tuning without losing all its bottom? More and more it seems to me that the most effective solution for tonal problems is practice - not at EQing but at listening and reacting in changing how you play. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bottomfeed Posted September 28, 2007 Author Share Posted September 28, 2007 [quote name='alexclaber' post='66643' date='Sep 27 2007, 10:05 PM']Another tip - if he can't hear the kick drum he should hit the rest of the kit less hard so the volume balances. Most drummers are too heavy with their hands and too light with their foot. The kick really shouldn't need gating - what about your drummer's pedal technique? He can control the length of the note by leaving the beater on the skin for varying lengths of time. Internal mics usually work very well but are relatively complicated and expensive. What kind of kick drum is this? If he's going for the big Bonham sound is it big enough to take a high tension tuning without losing all its bottom? More and more it seems to me that the most effective solution for tonal problems is practice - not at EQing but at listening and reacting in changing how you play. Alex[/quote] hey... the guy knows what he's doing when it comes to drumming.... it's a thing about micing an acoustic sound in venues with sh*t acoustics.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalMan Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 Get him [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=6189"]THIS[/url] for his birthday / Christmas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 You are talking about a notch EQ at 250, rather than a high pass, yeh? I would have thought a slightly higher notch, 300 or 350 would have been more appropriate, but perhaps the kick drum is tuned very low? What part of the kick drum sound is he missing? What about it is making him unhappy? I find that when you're playing live, it's nice to have a great sound on stage, but not essential. If he can hear enough to stay in time, and so can everyone else, and it sounds good coming out of the PA to the audience then, leave it be. Is it that he can't hear the kick drum because your bass is overpowering it? Try rolling off some low end on the bass? Pointing your cabs away from him etc... If it's changing from venue to venue, and sometimes it sounds good, try observing what the differences are between the venues and the positioning on stage. I don't know really, it's an interesting problem though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaedrus Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 Bottomfeed, it is (aparrently) possible to use EQ to avoid bass & kick drum battling for space in the sonic spectrum. I read somewhere else on ProSoundWeb.com (can't find the specific thread) that if you cut the bass guitar signal to the PA below 200Hz - 300Hz, it allows the bass to be hotter in the PA (your onstage sound may be thin, but careful tweaking of the bass channel EQ can restore that for FOH) and can help prevent the kick drum & bass guitar competing for the same soundspace. If you have time to go through them, there's some really good stuff in these threads from ProSoundWeb: [url="http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/3333/8685/#msg_24397"]http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/...8685/#msg_24397[/url] [url="http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/24074/0/0/8685/"]http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/...24074/0/0/8685/[/url] [url="http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/9265/0/0/8685/"]http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/.../9265/0/0/8685/[/url] I don't know what monitors you use, but be [i]very[/i] careful if you're going to put [i]any[/i] kick drum into a monitor - there aren't many semi-pro monitors that could handle much level of kick drum. I would say don't put any kick at all in his monitor - if he can't hear his own acoustic kick drum, there's something wrong. BOD used two 450s & (I think) two SWA1501s in his last band - he might be able to comment on whether one sub is ample for your application. What's your sub? 250Hz is indeed a boomy frequency for most kick drums. Regarding gating kick drums - it can be a very effective method of stopping any boominess making it's way into the PA - gate threshold is lower than the boom level (but obviously higher than the beater slap & main body of the drum's sound), so the boomy signal gets cut. Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 [quote name='bottomfeed' post='66705' date='Sep 28 2007, 02:12 AM']hey... the guy knows what he's doing when it comes to drumming.... it's a thing about micing an acoustic sound in venues with sh*t acoustics....[/quote] It's all part of the same thing. I know more about bass playing than I did five years ago but that doesn't mean five years ago I couldn't play bass. I can guarantee that a truly great drummer wouldn't be having this problem. There's always more to learn. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 You could just send the high frequencies to the monitors, giving the kick more presence could fool him into thinking he can hear it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Funk Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 In the studio you always have to decide which of the two will occupy the lowest position when you're EQ-ing. Live, I think the sound he's going for just won't work. A big boom might feel great, especially on its own, but you'll get all rumble and no clear start or end to the note. That's why you're having to use a noise gate. In Led Zep, remember that JPJ had a smooth mid sound with not much low end. Somewhere one of you will have to compromise your low end. I personally think that bass should go lower than the kick drum. But then I'm a bass player. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 I agree whole heartedly with The Funk. When playing live, all you need from the kick drum is attack, a nice thumb for the audience to feel the beat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bottomfeed Posted September 30, 2007 Author Share Posted September 30, 2007 Thanx for all the comments.... been very useful... we have decided to bring a sound engineer friend along to a few gigs & see what he makes of it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slaphappygarry Posted September 30, 2007 Share Posted September 30, 2007 [quote]Or....try everything flat, bass n'all, and everything at nice volumes, and work from there, but you might have done that already...[/quote] Thats what i sugest too. Your sound and how he likes his kick sound may not work well in a mix but may be the monster of monster bass/kick sounds. Its all about how they co-exist. G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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