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Hole off center or on center?


portnoyfan84

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Originally posted by portnoyfan84

Which is better if you want more volume out off your bassdrum ?

 

 

 

For maximum volume,, you don't want to have a hole in the resonant head of your kick drum,, but,,,,

 

 

if you put the hole in the center of the resonant head of your kick drum,, it will sound pretty much like you don't even have a head on it...

 

so cut the hole off center,, and the general rule of thumb is to keep it small as possible(5" or so) and still be able to get your mic in there... the larger the hole,, the less resonance your bass drum will have...

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no offence, but thats wrong, the more hole you have in the bassdrum the more air will be able to be displaced from the drum with the initial strike of the beater on the head, therefor the louder sound you will be able to achieve.

 

Putting the hole in the center of the drum will allow for better mic'ing capabilities and more mic positions, not many people that I know of do this, but it is true. This way you don't have to angle the mic as much to get it into the drum and pointing centered, and from this you will get a better sound when recording.

 

I play with a 10" hole in the direct center of the drum, this makes my drums very loud and 'big' sounding, I've played this way for years, and doubt that I will change it.

 

Just try it out for yourselves, and tell me what you think.

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Originally posted by dave_noosence

no offence, but thats wrong, the more hole you have in the bassdrum the more air will be able to be displaced from the drum with the initial strike of the beater on the head, therefor the louder sound you will be able to achieve.


Putting the hole in the center of the drum will allow for better mic'ing capabilities and more mic positions, not many people that I know of do this, but it is true. This way you don't have to angle the mic as much to get it into the drum and pointing centered, and from this you will get a better sound when recording.


I play with a 10" hole in the direct center of the drum, this makes my drums very loud and 'big' sounding, I've played this way for years, and doubt that I will change it.


Just try it out for yourselves, and tell me what you think.

 

 

a bass drum with only one head will never play as loud as a drum with BOTH heads,,, intact...

 

putting a mic hole in the reso head reduces it's capacity to add sympathetic resonance(aka VOLUME), and putting the mic hole dead center kills the physical vibrations of the reso head in every direction... which is WHY the mic hole is placed OFF CENTER,,, most folks WANT the tone that the resonant head offers,,

 

it's been tried a million times,,, you just can't re-write the simple laws of physics...

 

 

for a deeper discussion of this,,, search

 

www.drumweb.com

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Originally posted by MoosBros




a bass drum with only one head will never play as loud as a drum with BOTH heads,,, intact...


putting a mic hole in the reso head reduces it's capacity to add sympathetic resonance(aka VOLUME), and putting the mic hole dead center kills the physical vibrations of the reso head in every direction... which is WHY the mic hole is placed OFF CENTER,,, most folks WANT the tone that the resonant head offers,,


it's been tried a million times,,, you just can't re-write the simple laws of physics...



for a deeper discussion of this,,, search


www.drumweb.com

 

I second this. I have a very small hole off center. Just big enough to get the mic inside.

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Originally posted by Sir Enrico Buttcock



I second this. I have a very small hole off center. Just big enough to get the mic inside.

 

 

do you use a bass drum mic that sits in the drum or a mic on a stand?

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Originally posted by WTF



do you use a bass drum mic that sits in the drum or a mic on a stand?

 

 

I dont own a bd mic so I'll go with whatever is available at any given time. Besides I don't have experience with the sitting version. So far the engineers have always had stands so I can't really tell which is better.

 

edit: of course the stand isn't gong to be put inside the drum. Just the mic(and a bit of the stand's "arm").

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I don't have any hole in my bass drum head,,, we use a CAD E100 and mic from the batter side,,, we put the mic on a short floor stand, aprox 8-10" away from the head, about halfway between the edge and center of the head,, pointed towards the beater contact area....

 

the last time I did a recording session,, the engineer used an AKG D112, and put it on the floor about 5 FEET in front of the drum... I'm no big fan of the D112, but I have to admit,, it DID sound pretty good.....:D

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This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately - and I've seen it come-up on the boards quite often in one form or another.

 

The way I look at it, there's only two elements to a drum's tone: attack and sustain. The bass drum functions almost like a large tom - the attack is generated on the batter-side and the sustain is generated on the resonant-side (toms are a bit different because a small amount of sustain/resonance is generated by the batter). Think of the old "concert toms" - without a resonant side head, these toms sound throaty, boxy and have a lot of attack with short sustain.

 

Cutting a hole in a bass drum's resonant head will reduce it's ability to vibrate freely - therefore reducing the sustain of the drum, which translates into more "thud" and less "boom". Cutting any size hole in the center of the resonant head will almost cancel all vibration - might as well take it off. A hole about 5" in diameter cut about 3" from the edge will reduce resonance, but the access and flexability of mic placement is worth it.

 

If you're not micing your kick - I'd leave the resonant head intact.

 

If you are micing the kick - you've got options. With a ported kick, you have the convenience of an ISOLATED micing situation - the bass mic will be "shielded" from other ambient noise. The closer to the batter head the mic is placed, the more attack - the further away, more resonance. In my thirteen years of playing live and recording, ported micing is the quickest and most versatile method of getting quality kick sounds.

 

if you want to leave the resonant head intact - you'll have to go with a dual mic approach, micing both the batter and resonant heads. This will give you the blend of attack and sustain present in good kick sounds. This method is the "purist" approach - the drum's physics haven't been altered. However, you're now taking up two channels in the board, you need two mics, most soundmen aren't comfortable with the technique and your mics are exposed to ambient noise - not such a big deal in the studio ... a huge deal live.

 

I'm using a 22"x 16" Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute kick with a ported resonant head. I have a Remo Powerstroke III on the batter-side and I'm using an AKG D112. There's no dampening in the drum. I consistently get good kick sounds and the ported resonant head allows me to adjust mic placement according to the venue.

 

Hope my ramblings are useful to some.

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Originally posted by MoosBros


a bass drum with only one head will never play as loud as a drum with BOTH heads,,, intact...


putting a mic hole in the reso head reduces it's capacity to add sympathetic resonance(aka VOLUME), and putting the mic hole dead center kills the physical vibrations of the reso head in every direction... which is WHY the mic hole is placed OFF CENTER,,, most folks WANT the tone that the resonant head offers,,


it's been tried a million times,,, you just can't re-write the simple laws of physics...

 

He showed you, hehe. :p The minute after i cut a hole in mine, I instantly knew a difference. It wasn't as "boomy", and i could compare it; I had just cut one bass head and went behind the kit to test it out. I hit my right (cut), and it was a "thud", more dead than the boomy right (not cut) bass.

 

Like I found out, the placement and size of the hole matters, a lot. I ended up with a 5" hole in each, and I'm pretty happy with the sound now.

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Originally posted by HulkBlood01



He showed you, hehe.
:p
The minute after i cut a hole in mine, I instantly knew a difference. It wasn't as "boomy", and i could compare it; I had just cut one bass head and went behind the kit to test it out. I hit my right (cut), and it was a "thud", more dead than the boomy right (not cut) bass.


Like I found out, the placement and size of the hole matters, a lot. I ended up with a 5" hole in each, and I'm pretty happy with the sound now.

 

 

I really wasnt trying to "show him" in a bad way or anything like that..

 

 

I just wanted to make sure we all were on the same page and were talking about the same thing.. so we could all understand more of what was being discussed.....:D

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