Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[craig boychuk]

When using a mic on the beater side of a kick drum, some folks like to key it with the snare to minimize bleed...

It would seem that this works well for slower, less busy players, but if the drummer plays a lot of double pedal and/or hits every drum at least once every measure, is this even worth trying?

Anybody have any experience using this technique on a drummer playing a lot of double kick? Tips and tricks? Horror stories?


Thanks folks!

----edit------

I got it backwards (see below, ha ha) Of course you duck the beater side of the kick to minimize snare rattle. Whoops. Late night post.

---------------


-craig

[Ronny]

craig wrote on Wed, 05 April 2006 01:52

When using a mic on the beater side of a kick drum, some folks like to key it with the snare to minimize bleed... It would seem that this works well for slower, less busy players, but if the drummer plays a lot of double pedal and/or hits every drum at least once every measure, is this even worth trying? Anybody have any experience using this technique on a drummer playing a lot of double kick? Tips and tricks? Horror stories? Thanks folks! -craig

I'm baffled as to how a ducker is going to help bleed. If you set up a ducker on the snare and key it with the kick, whenever the kick hits, the snare channel will duck and you'll lose your snare by the amount of decibels the ducker range is set at. Not often will a drummer hit snare and kick at the same time during a steady beat, but during rolls, chord changes or fortissimo outro's I wouldn't want my snare being ducked by the kick. If you put a ducker on a kick channel with the snare key-in, than every time the snare hits, the kick will be ducked, again during rolls, chord changes or outro's where the snare and kick are being hit together, your kick is going to be attenuated by the amount of decibels that are set at the range parameter.

If you want to eliminate snare out of the beater kick mic, a gate would be more appropriate, IMHO, set the threshold 1dB above the snare's loudest beat and you won't hear the snare bleeding in the kick track. This is much easier said than done as the snare is typically louder than hell in a beater kick track. If any kick beats are lower than the loudest snare beat, a gate won't work any better than a ducker. I wouldn't attempt to gate the snare out on the tracking, trying it after the recording is made, so that you don't cut out a weak kick attack. I typically don't mic the beater side, getting all that I want from the front side, with a 6 inch diameter hole cut into the front head. Everybody's milage varies though, it's important to try for yourself, everything you can possibly think of to get a good sound. Remember that almost all drum dynamics processing can be done after the recording is made with a greater margin of safety against accidentally gating or ducking out something that should have been recorded fully.    

[pg666]

Quote:

I wouldn't want my snare being ducked by the kick.

you've got it backwards. the idea is to duck the kick drum beater mic on snare hits to keep the snare rattlin' down. on rolls and such, you generally don't kick the drum quite so hard anyway so it doesn't matter so much if you lose some attack.

you're right, ducking the snare would be really bad!

[craig boychuk]

Oh shit. I reversed it.

Well, you know what I mean.

[Ronny]

pg666 wrote on Wed, 05 April 2006 08:57

Quote: I wouldn't want my snare being ducked by the kick. you've got it backwards. the idea is to duck the kick drum beater mic on snare hits to keep the snare rattlin' down. on rolls and such, you generally don't kick the drum quite so hard anyway so it doesn't matter so much if you lose some attack. you're right, ducking the snare would be really bad!

Work with the gates "after the tracking" and you won't have to worry about losing kick beats or snare beats.

[electrical]

craig wrote on Wed, 05 April 2006 01:52

When using a mic on the beater side of a kick drum, some folks like to key it with the snare to minimize bleed...

Key a ducker or sidechain limiter, yes. I do it, oh, almost every day.

Quote:

It would seem that this works well for slower, less busy players, but if the drummer plays a lot of double pedal and/or hits every drum at least once every measure, is this even worth trying?

I find it works especially well with double-kick players.

Note that this is only appropriate if the dominant bass drum mic is the front mic, otherwise you'll lose too much LF energy when the ducker fires. If you're ony using the batter-side mic, then you need to be more judicious with any treatment.

[craig boychuk]

Thanks for all the response, everyone. I'm gonna give it a shot!

[Bernardo]

Maybe I should start another thread for this, but:

What are some mic recommendations for beater side mics, considering the issues of placement and rejection?

Is rejection a total non-issue with the ducking technique?

[cdr-1]

Steve,

Do you usually blend the front and beater kick tracks to one track? If so, do you ever run into any problems with the ducked beater signal doing funky stuff to the kick track?

If not, do you usually print the ducked or limited beater to tape or do you duck the beater track in mixing?

-Adam

[cenafria]

Quote:

Anybody have any experience using this technique on a drummer playing a lot of double kick? Tips and tricks? Horror stories?

I started doing this after finding out about it on the EA website. For me blending in the beater mic the kick drum sounds more like what I hear in the room and I end up using less eq. I don't feel confident enough with this technique yet so I print the beater mic on another track and I insert the ducker on the channel rather than printing the ducked kick (although I'm sure that printing it all to one track (I think that's what Steve Albini does) makes the mixing process faster). I've found that adjusting the release time for the songs tempo/drum pattern is important. Also paying attention to the threshold setting in order to avoid clics.

Listen for thin sounding snare drum hits. Thats what the beater mic does to the snare. The snare in the beater mic is out of phase with the snare in the snare mic. When you duck the beater mic successfully the snare sounds "heavy" again.

I've used several mics. The beta98 is ideal. The attack seems to have a real weight to it. Plenty of headroom. Mic choice here is determined be the mic's size and how easy it is to place it. It's a tough spot to put a mic.

Hope this helps

[mitgong]

My patented technique (since nobody asked) is called "the Crotch Mic", a mic placed roughly equidistant from the bottom of the snare and the batter of the kick drum.  Sometimes I'll favor the kick over the snare.  I've had good luck with QTCs and THE 25s in this application, but sometime a mic that can do figure-8 is nice, too.

This almost always gives me what I, as a drummer, am used to hearing.  Works great live, too, where a less-than surgical PA needs a little help maintaining definition on closed (two heads) kick drums, which what I ( and more and more of my clients) play.

And I don't have to play any games with gates or duckers after the fact, IF I GOT THE PLACEMENT RIGHT from the get-go.

[craig boychuk]

Hmm...that's an interesting idea.

I tried a 98 on the batter side this weekend...I ended up not even tracking it because the mic was overloading like crazy...even with the pad. Yikes. Very hard hitter. Tried moving the mic away from the beaters, but that sounded like poo. Oh well. Maybe I'll try it with a different mic or check out this "crotch mic" idea next time.


-craig

[Jean Taxis]

I sometimes have a good result with a 441 near the beater, the snare's bleed is not so high and does not sound uninteresting(But the sennheiser is rather bulky !)
Has anyone tried a Beyer 201 ?
Btw, I sometimes found this combination as one of the hardest phase issue to deal with: first, between front mic and beater mic, then, between  front+beater mics and the rest of the kit.

[Bernardo]

The one time I recorded a beater mic, the cymbal leakage was uncanny, though that was certainly an issue of poor mic choice + very small room.

[John Ivan]

To get a "click" sound that I can blend in with another kick mic, I sometimes go right up into the drum, 1" in front of where the beater in hitting. I EQ this {or not} and blend it with a D-112 or what ever else I'm using. I did a Metal thing with two kick drums once and had a total of 5 mics getting kick drums. 2 per drum, and a condenser getting both together out in front, sort of between them. other stuff like tom's dumped in there too but it worked fine.

I have ducked Bass Guitar's out of they way of kick's before, real fast times.

JI.......................................................... .