Making a subkick

[keithtoxic]

For my studio I'm building a subkick, for well, obvious reasons. I'm going to house it in a 10" tom, and pretty much know how I'm doing that. I plan to also run a female end and make it flush with the body so the tom has a jack into it, that way I don't have a cable constantly running from it.

 

Is my basic understanding correct I just need to properly wire an XLR cable to the speaker cables and that's pretty much it? Or is there another step in there that I'm not understanding?

[Big Elipso]

Bumping this because I would like to know as well.

[WRGKMC]

Nothing to it really. Heres the one I use. I used an old full ranged 8" Altec Speaker thats all paper coned. If you use the type with rubber or foam surround the frequency you get might be pretty limited.

 

I addad a 10K pot to mine to limit the volume out because they crank alot of signal. To connect I added a 1/4" guitar plug then a 1/4" to XLR adaptor.

 

You dont need a shell for it unless you want to fancy it up or reduce bleedover.

[WRGKMC]

duplicate post delete

[keithtoxic]

 

Nothing to it really. Heres the one I use. I used an old full ranged 8" Altec Speaker thats all paper coned. If you use the type with rubber or foam surround the frequency you get might be pretty limited. I addad a 10K pot to mine to limit the volume out because they crank alot of signal. To connect I added a 1/4" guitar plug then a 1/4" to XLR adaptor. You dont need a shell for it unless you want to fancy it up or reduce bleedover.

 

 

I do plan to fancy it up so clients aren't like "why the hell are you putting a speaker infront of my kick" hah.

 

If it's that simple I'm going to start doing it this weekend. Awesome :]

[ErikHoppy]

Very simple! My friend made one using the speaker out of a cheap peavey practice amp, just wired it up, and didn't need to add any pads or anything.

 

It works great for adding that low end.

[keithtoxic]

Is it pretty straight forward on how to wire it to a 1/4 cable?

[Big Elipso]

 

Is it pretty straight forward on how to wire it to a 1/4 cable?

 

 

I was wondering if someone could explain a little more about this and also wiring in the 10k pot. I have a pretty good idea about how to do it but would like to have a few more details.

 

Also, I have a 10" speaker out of an old stereo that measures 12.5 ohms. It has a fairly small magnet with a paper cone. Would this be a good candidate or should I look for something different?

[WRGKMC]

positive is positive and negative is negative. Positive goes to a 1/4" tip, the negative goes to the grounded sleeve. The pot uses a center leg and end leg to short the two wires together cutting off the voltage like a valve.

 

Positive and negative on speakers isnt always universal so you just need to try it and see if the phasing is correct. If its backwards most daw programs have a reverse phase switch on the channel strip or you can reverse the wires.

 

You could wire the speaker directly into an XLR jack but you need to know which wires are hot and cold. You can run the speaker balanced with a hot and cold wire and use the ground to ground the speaker frame if you want but the signal is strong enough to just run it high impediance as I first suggested. There isnt going to be much high impediance created so any loss wont be missed.

[keithtoxic]

 

positive is positive and negative is negative. Positive goes to a 1/4" tip, the negative goes to the grounded sleeve. The pot uses a center leg and end leg to short the two wires together cutting off the voltage like a valve. Positive and negative on speakers isnt always universal so you just need to try it and see if the phasing is correct. If its backwards most daw programs have a reverse phase switch on the channel strip or you can reverse the wires. You could wire the speaker directly into an XLR jack but you need to know which wires are hot and cold. You can run the speaker balanced with a hot and cold wire and use the ground to ground the speaker frame if you want but the signal is strong enough to just run it high impediance as I first suggested. There isnt going to be much high impediance created so any loss wont be missed.

 

 

I don't know too much about the insides of an XLR cable, as I've never taken one apart, so I may just wire it to a 1/4 and than use a convertor, since I already know how to wire the 1/4. Until I find a new 10" tom I'm just going to mount it to a stand, I'll post some pics when it gets done :]

[offramp]

Just remember that what you're asking the speaker to do is work backwards, so you'll need to wire it out of phase, at the subkick jack; otherwise, you end up having to take the extra step to flip the phase of the kick track every time you record it. On an xlr, the positive would normally go to pin 2, and the negative would go to pin 3. Wire the speaker to a female xlr jack, and solder the positive to pin 3, negative to pin 2. That way, any mic cable you plug into it will work properly.

 

The last one I built, I used a 6" speaker from a crappy old stereo system, and hot-glued it to a piece of 4" PVC pipe... the speaker magnet fit nicely inside of it. I drilled a hole for the mic stand to go in, and also got one of those pressure test caps for PVC pipe, installed the female xlr on it, wired out of phase, and glued it all together. It sat nicely on a little mic stand.

The sound was useable. It added meat to the kick drum that could be mixed to taste.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, I posted a thread on this, some years back, here on HC.

 

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/archive/index.php/t-1240727.html

[keithtoxic]

 

Just remember that what you're asking the speaker to do is work backwards, so you'll need to wire it out of phase, at the subkick jack; otherwise, you end up having to take the extra step to flip the phase of the kick track every time you record it. On an xlr, the positive would normally go to pin 2, and the negative would go to pin 3. Wire the speaker to a female xlr jack, and solder the positive to pin 3, negative to pin 2. That way, any mic cable you plug into it will work properly. The last one I built, I used a 6" speaker from a crappy old stereo system, and hot-glued it to a piece of 4" PVC pipe... the speaker magnet fit nicely inside of it. I drilled a hole for the mic stand to go in, and also got one of those pressure test caps for PVC pipe, installed the female xlr on it, wired out of phase, and glued it all together. It sat nicely on a little mic stand. The sound was useable. It added meat to the kick drum that could be mixed to taste. Actually, now that I think about it, I posted a thread on this, some years back, here on HC. http://acapella.harmony-central.com/archive/index.php/t-1240727.html

 

If that is all I have to do to wire it to an XLR I'll do that than. I'll just go buy a short 1' xlr cable and cut the male end off.