Buttkicker -- possibly too good to be true?

[Zeromus-X]

As you guys know, I've been trying to look for ways to reduce my stage monitoring volume while keeping the sound that I've got. Right now it's a Meyer UPA-1 2x15 for lows and an Avatar 2x10 for highs, powered by a Yamaha CP2000, with a dual 31-band EQ in between; setup crossed over at about 150 Hz. It's a giant beast to lug around and I play drums, which means it takes me the longest to set up/tear down anyway... so anything I can do to shorten that time is great, as it's no fun leaving the club at 3 AM when the show ended at 1!

 

Anyway, I figured I'd try the Buttkicker Concert. Good reviews online, not ridiculously expensive. It says 400W-1500W handling and runs at 2 ohm, and my Yammie puts out 1000W @ 2 ohm... seemed like a nice match.

 

To make a long story short, they seem to advertise it as making you get that kick-in-the-chest feeling when you hit your bass drum. I disagree. It feels like my chair is vibrating when I hit the bass drum. It makes a decent amount of noise (enough that it might be a problem if using a sensitive mic near the snare). I've tightened all the bolts; it's just the unit itself that's vibrating like mad. In order to get any real power out of it I've got to crank my poweramp as high as it'll go AND boost the gain before it hits the poweramp as high as it'll go. At this point I'm clipping the hell out of my preamp. You can also feel it "powering down" after each hit, kinda like it's still oscillating inside the device; it's not a single "hit" but more of a "wave" as it hits hard once and then less hard a couple times before it finally settles down -- thus turning it into a giant assvibrator if you're doing fast double bass stuff. This might be fun for some people, but it's in no way accurate, and I found it actually threw me off if I was playing faster than the device could oscillate.

 

It seems like there are lots of different "bass shakers" -- some of them are little tiny flat things. Do these not have the weight oscillating? If so, maybe they'd be more accurate? I can see them not being as "powerful", but for the cost of some of the cheaper ones compared to the Buttkicker Concert, it looks like I could bolt quite a few of 'em to the chair.

[Jess]

Don't even bother with the el-cheapo shakers you will fry them just like i did today. I have the buttkicker mini and as long as you don't push it to hard it does the job quite well, but i am using in ears which may differ from your situation, anyways i have been told by various peeps that 2 of the mini's will do a much better job than the big kicker, smaller piston faster reaction time.

 

Jess.....

[Zeromus-X]

If the Mini uses the same mounting bracket as the Buttkicker, I don't think I could even do two of them... nowhere else to mount 'em. It's a good point though... it should react faster if it's smaller. Hmm.

 

They're getting nothing but praise over at the drum forum so maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[Zeromus-X]

Hell, I can't even bridge it... the thing's 2 ohm. No way my CP2000 is gonna handle that.

[Jess]

The mini comes in a 4ohm version and i attach mine directly to the underside of my seat (no bracket), also they are only 250watt max so you don't need a huge amp to drive them.

Jess...

[Zeromus-X]

Well, was going to test it tonight but the gig got cancelled. Won't know until at least Tuesday!

[soul-x]

After reading through your review over in the drum forum, it's pretty clear (as I'm sure you know) that until you properly hook your mic up to a proper mic preamp, you won't get any reasonable gauge of it's performance.

 

Your D6 puts out 2.2mV/Pa. If your kick mic is picking up 120db (20 Pa) that's still only 44 mV. The ~12db of gain in the eq will get you nowhere near what you need to drive your amp to full power, and maxing every EQ slider simply guarantees that you were sending the amp a clipped, distorted, noisy signal.

 

I'm sure if you had heard the signal you were feeding your amp, it would have been the nastiest sound possible. I would suspect that the buttkicker responded accordingly.

[Zeromus-X]

Looks like most of Phonic's other offerings (I can't find anything on this particular model) have +/- 15dB per frequency, and then +15/-inf gain adjustment. So that's more... but still not enough. Since I wasn't clipping the EQ whatsoever, I can't imagine it was sending a nasty signal. The biggest thing that confuses me is that when I was playing and not clipping the EQ, and had the poweramp as high up as it'd go, it wasn't reacting a ton... as in, it was noticeable, but not crazy or anything... and the poweramp was peaking (the Yamaha has three LEDs -- green, yellow, red -- and the red light was on). At 2 ohms, that's 1000W, confirmed by the ammeter on my Furman jumping up to the 8-12A mark when I was playing fast double bass stuff. Since it wasn't clipping at the preamp I can't see how the signal would sound horrible if I were listening with headphones or anything like that... I was just really using it for a boost.

 

Either way, like you said, I won't know ultimately until I have it set up in the band context... which won't be until at least Tuesday, and maybe Friday if I'm sharing a kit this Tuesday (charity show, no clue of the details).

[picker13]

If after everything you try it still doesn't work, maybe you need to upgrade to these. Much more ft-lbs of power -- They were initially built for military applications. Sound like they are very nice, and they have a load of references for users. http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=300-864

[Zeromus-X]

Ha... $404 each? They'd better come with sexual favors.

[bigmike216]

 

Ha... $404 each? They'd better come with sexual favors.

 

 

It IS a giant vibrator....

[Jess]

Ha... $404 each? They'd better come with sexual favors.

 

LOL......

[moody]

 

After reading through your review over in the drum forum, it's pretty clear (as I'm sure you know) that until you properly hook your mic up to a proper mic preamp, you won't get any reasonable gauge of it's performance.

 

 

Am I right in assuming that there is a graphic eq being used as a preamp?

 

I did that with a bass rig for two years, it can get a pretty decent sound but unfortunately the volume levels will generally not be high enough if you leave the faders flat - and raising any brings all sorts of sound problems.

 

Get yourself a proper preamp if you can.

[Zeromus-X]

Ok, followup --

 

Had a chance to use it at a gig last night. Two hours, country, nothing too loud... perfect chance. Bought a nice beefy 12ga cable and hooked it up... works great when the band is playing! It definitely adds a lot to playing.

 

Until about 45 minutes into the set, when it completely stopped responding. Stuck my hand on it and it felt hot enough to burn you. My other monitor was still working running off the other side of the poweramp; I swapped channels and same thing, the Buttkicker did nothing but my other monitor worked... was only pushing 1000W max (and nowhere near that) to the device, poweramp running in stereo mode. Kept coming back on, presumably after it had time to cool off a bit.

 

[Gregidon]

I imagine you were tripping a thermal protect... but you know that already. I'm just imagining 1000 watts into such a small device. 1000 watts is a lot of power to dissipate in such a small device. Maybe you need another to share the load and keep this one from going into protect?

[Zeromus-X]

The paperwork says it handles up to 1500 watts. That said, the ammeter on my power strip wasn't reading anything above 6A, and that was when I was playing it pretty steadily on the kick drum. 700W shouldn't be too much for that device!

 

Specifications from their site:

 

ButtKicker Concert Specifications

Dimensions: 5.375" high x 5.5" wide, oval

Frequency Response: 5 - 200 Hz

Weight: 12 lbs., 5.45 kg.

Nominal Impedance: 2 ohms

Power Handling: 400 watts min. / 1500 watts max.

 

I was running the setup through a crossover set at 150 Hz, and sending the highs to another cabinet that was working just fine. The Yamaha poweramp was very barely peaking (red LED on that channel would blink on a hard hit). Audio sounded fine out the PA so I don't think it was distorting at the board or anything.

[Jess]

 

The paperwork says it handles up to 1500 watts. That said, the ammeter on my power strip wasn't reading anything above 6A, and that was when I was playing it pretty steadily on the kick drum. 700W shouldn't be too much for that device! Specifications from their site: ButtKicker Concert Specifications Dimensions: 5.375" high x 5.5" wide, oval Frequency Response: 5 - 200 Hz Weight: 12 lbs., 5.45 kg. Nominal Impedance: 2 ohms Power Handling: 400 watts min. / 1500 watts max. I was running the setup through a crossover set at 150 Hz, and sending the highs to another cabinet that was working just fine. The Yamaha poweramp was very barely peaking (red LED on that channel would blink on a hard hit). Audio sounded fine out the PA so I don't think it was distorting at the board or anything.

 

 

Yeah , The mini will do that to...I ended up running a fan almost directly behind me pointing up under my throne, and this seemed to keep it going, although even with the fan on it sometimes if it was pushed a little it would still go into thermo.The max it says it can handle is 250 watts but i run it with a home theater sub amp that is rated at 180 watts. These kickers really need to be re-rated if you ask me.

[Zeromus-X]

I'm shooting them over an email now. If this is a "common occurrence" it would be nice to know.

 

EDIT: Their own Buttkicker amp is said to provide 1900W @ 2 ohms. Ouch.

[Jess]

I'm shooting them over an email now. If this is a "common occurrence" it would be nice to know. EDIT: Their own Buttkicker amp is said to provide 1900W @ 2 ohms. Ouch.

 

Please let us know what they say.....1900 watts into 2 ohms?????????????????????????????????????? I wonder if they supply complementary fire extinguishers? or eggs and a flipper,,Lol...

Jess.

[Zeromus-X]

Yeah, that seemed a bit unreasonable. Why sell an amp that puts out enough power to blast one of these things into orbit?

 

We don't have any HPFs on our vocal channels, and one of our mic stands fell down while we were all standing around... I swear, my drum throne jumped two inches off the ground.