Posted by Chris Wood on April 03, 2002

Well I'm not a drummer but the basic method for *tuning* a drum is to wind it to roughly the pitch you want, then to beat next to opposite tuning pegs and adjust till they are in tune, moving around the drum until the whole surface rings at the same pitch. Usually the bottom skins are under much less tension than the sides that get wacked.

It is usually possible, in small-medium venues, to tune the kit to the resonant frequencies of the room (don't do it to the kick tho!) such that NO reinforcement of it is necessary. The other use is of course to achieve different sounds - compare a reggae snare to an 80s rock one for example!

There are numerous articles on the subject that can be found on the web - this is how I found out about it {you didn't think I was a drummer did you? ;-) }

Hope this helps to some extent...gotta dash to a vox session sorry i couldn't write any more.

Regards,
Chris


Posted by D. Parker on April 02, 2002

I read an article in Mix magazine years ago and my own experiences since have borne it out. Some rooms wont thump. I use my own system with different bands in different rooms, same system, sometimes chest caving kick with no effort, sometimes limp nada with everything I can do. More often than not, I get a pretty beefy kick, but I do know during soundcheck when it just aint gonna happen. If it's all wrong, the more you throw at it, the worse it gets. OR!!! The kick is either not there or overpowering, no inbetween.

If you concentrate all your efforts on kick, that is only ONE aspect of the sound job, and usually low on the list of desires for the average listener. If you make the rest of the mix sweet, people will remember that. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION: I went to a pump seminar once and the discussion was on calculating the resonance of an object. After much dissertation that went fully over my head and blackboardsful of calculations, the instructor said you couldn't accurately calculate the resonant frequency of an object because there were too many variables you couldn't account for.

You have to bump it and measure the resonance with a accelerometer, or some such meter. Same goes with a room, you can't judge a book by the cover. A friend works a club that has even bass dispersion. There are subs strategically placed where you'd least expect. Obviously placed by trail and error, you can do that with an install such as a club where speakers are not considered clutter. I'm sure engineers could calculate placement, but final exams are when you crank them up. Just my ramblings and opinions.

David


Posted by Alan Singfield on April 02, 2002

I don't know about the physics much, but surely the best way to get the chest cavity invading drum noise is to listen to the drum, and experiment with different mics on the same drum until you can hear what happens according to which mic you use.

A careful bit of EQ is nearly always needed for the kick drum, usually 60-100 Hz for the thud (the part you are after), however this alone is not enough to have a kick drum cut through a heavy mix, lots of guitars e.t.c., so you need to think about cutting a bit of the mid out to leave some space for other instruments, anything from 200 Hz to 2 kHz. Then if it still doesn't cut through then you may need to emphasise the attack of the beater, from 3K to 10 kHz or higher.

A little trick i like to use is to boost a couple of dB at around 4K, and then the same about 10-12K which helps to bring out the kick without giving you that horrible 1980's click noise so beloved of D112's. Try some different mics. I've been doing FOH for a famous scottish band for a while now and I'm using an old Sennheiser 421 on the kick. It works.

In short, experiment and listen. There is a world of difference between Vinnie Paul of Pantera's kick drum sound and John Bonham's. But they are both great sounds and have their place. Have fun trying.

Oh, and sometimes the system is just bad or the drum is badly tuned or over dampened. Dampening drums is bad. Ask any drummer. However i think the kick drum can sometimes do with a bit of taming. But only a very small amount, like a blanket folded so that each edge it touching each head and is about 2 inches deep in the middle.
I could go on.

Have fun.


Posted by W. Mark Hellinger on April 02, 2002

Well...about 15 or so years ago I bought a Tascam PE-250 mic at St. Vincent de Pauls for a buck. Not knowing any different, I placed it in a kick drum about 1" in-front of the beater. Anyway... it just naturally has the kick drum sound that I just can't improve on...streight up with just a little tweeking on the channel strip...no gates, no big time e.q., no black box processing. It doesn't seem to even matter what drum, mallett, head, tuning, size of rig, power, room... just always perfect.

I've never tried to figure out how to "do it right" or the physics involved. It's just perfect, probably doing everything wrong. I've even had split drum heads duct taped together and it's still just fine. I think I could mic a cardboard box and it would sound the same. I don't ask any dumb questions: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Of course if I'm on someone else's rig with their mics... well... it's try this, and then try that till I find a combination that is good enough.

So...what happens if I loose this mic? Fortunately I found another one in a Pawn Shop a couple of years ago, (for $35) and it's tucked away on the shelf.

I'm sure there's a scientific method to this, but dumb luck works too.

W. Mark Hellinger


Posted by Tom Young on April 02, 2002

I also discovered PE-250's (circa 1982 ?) and used them for kick, toms, acoustic bass and the like. A poor man's RE-20, perhaps ?

I stopped when they showed problems with coming loose on the inside (I think it was the nut on the EQ switch that would loosen up and come to pieces ?).

Yamaha developed an unusually good set of drum mic's ( we've discussed these here befor so I'll pass on details) that they then withdrew from the N American market and don't make anymore.

It is puzzling (to me) that these 2 companies and a few others developed such good sounding mic's (perhaps they stumbled into it to some degree) and didn't seem to appreciate what they had done. And other 'serious' mic mfrs have debuted (with much hoopla) their heavily R&D'd new mic and have fallen way short.

Of course, they (we) are all trying to duplicate sounds that were very likely an accident to begin with. It is yet another of the 'black-art mixed with physics mixed with dumb luck' scenarios that are prevalent in what we do.

Tom Young


Posted by W. Mark Hellinger on April 02, 2002

Yes Tom, both of mine have fallen apart. Just about every screw in them wants to fall out. One of them is put back together with Lock Tight on everything, and the other is put back together (sitting on the edge of a stage) with fingernail polish on the screws.

My second one is actually a TOA mic. It appears to be identical to the Tascam except the color is different.

I'm not too sure either Tascam, or Toa, or whoever possibly built them for Tascam or Toa intentionally got anything especially "right". It's just the dumb luck combination that is right. In the years that I've been using these, I have been told that my way of getting a good kick drum sound is maybe not the best, but if I try to "do it right" it doesn't sound nearly as good. Just streight on, one inch in-front of the beater is always perfect.

I'm certain I'm not getting the full wave of the kick drum... and all sorts of stuff. I'm also sure the reason I get the sound I do is because actually the mic is distorting, and the kick drum sound I get is more of a synthesized sound made by the cartridge rattleing around just right...who knows what it is. I do know that if the drummer is light weight on their kick drum foot (like tickles their kick drum rather than kicking it) then the Tascam just sounds like crap.

Mark


Posted by D. Parker on April 02, 2002

I started out with a pair of Radio Shack mikes, I forget the number, they probably don't have them anymore, but it was an omni, looked like a clone of mike interviewers commonly use on TV. Not nearly the magic you mention, but for $50 it was the best I could do till I got a pair of D112's. It was better than a '57 on kick.


Posted by Tom Young on April 01, 2002

I'm no physicist but it is evident to me that even though lots of folks speak w/ authority and certainty about such things, to some degree it boils down to a variety of factors coming together for a specific engineer/band/gig/system/space. I don't mean to dismiss all of the sage advice I've seen and tried over the years, but I have learned that there is no recipe or formula that will work all of the time and for every one of us.

I do not mean to imply that this is "luck" or an unachievable thing. What I do mean is that what you get one night may take lots more time to get another and in some cases is not gonna be had. Of course, I'm a dyed-in-wool cynic and others (who in many cases are more successfiul than I) tend to have a "yeah, sure..... we can definitely do that" attitude. God bless 'em.

Others who read this may provide some insight that fits into the idea that it is a physics and therefore scientifically-derived and consistantly repeatable phenomona. But it will be hard to convince me. I never forget the psycho in psychoacoustics.

Tom Young
Electroacoustic Design Services


Posted by Jim McKeveny on April 02, 2002

No two things in the history of mankind have been more quantized, scientized, and analyzed more than the weather and the stock market. How reliable would you regard their forecasts (other than on a general trend level)? You are not being cynical,Tom, you are being wise.

Regards,

Jim McKeveny