Built a homemade "SubKick" this morning.

[Prages]

Talk about an easy project. Took me less than 10 minutes.

 

I used an old Peavey Scorpion 12" speaker that has been laying around the studio for years. That, an unused mic clip, and a spare mic cable were all I used.

 

The directions talked about the signal being really hot (which it is) and needing to build in an attenuator using a few resistors, but I was able to keep the signal from clipping by just turning down the level on the preamp.

 

So, basically, I wired the + from the speaker to pin two of the XLR, and the - from the speaker to pin 3 of the XLR. I had to drill a new hole in the speaker frame closer to the edge of the frame so the clip would fit, but that was easy enough.

 

 

 

Here's the clip with the "Subkick" muted. I did put compression and panning on everything, but no EQ of any kind. I used an Audix D6 in the kick drum, SM57s on the snare and toms, and AT2020s as overheads.

 

Without Subkick

 

With Subkick

 

It really fattened the kick up A LOT. I think I'll be using this thing when recording from now on.