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Bass Drum sounds wimpy...

  • 13 replies
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Topic Bass Drum sounds wimpy...
..well thats basically it. It sound a lot deeper and not as choppy when I am playing, but really sounds bad when recording. Do I need to have a hole in the drum? (i have often seen this but don't have one)

I am trying to record the bass drum with an sm57 onto cool edit.

Thanks for any help.
2
The 57 isn't exactly the mic of choice for bass drums, I would just eq it in cool edit.
3
a very mild reverb maybe?
4
Always start at the source.

Some questions to ask yourself...

- Does the kick drum already have a powerful, puncy sound in the room you're recording in? Is it tuned properly? Skins worn?

- Is the player at fault?

The SM-57 if anything, should pick up more of the "beater" sound and give you more attack, if placed properly. But I wouldn't just depend on this one mic to capture both low-end air, and punch.

EQ may work, but if you're just trying to cover bad mic placement, it'll do more harm than good.

What other mics do you have at your disposal?
Are you using compression?
Does the kit sound good in your room?
5
...and what are you recording too?

that will obviously decide what the sound quality is....
6
if you have mic up too loud pass the point of cracking, most mics will just make a skipping/muffled sound. If you have the intake volume too low, your mic will just pick up the top end and the drum will sound whimpy. You got to fing that sweet spot with the intake.
7
I used the equalizer this time, repositioned the mic, and turned up the volume a little. It sounds better than befre but I think it could be even better. How do I turn on compression?
8
Can anyone tell me how to turn on compression?
9
well you need a compressor first, or software that has some dynamics plugins...


obviously i can tell you dont have a hardware compressor, what software do yo use?
10
I am using cooledit Pro 2.0. I also have Acid Pro 3.0

I guess the fact that I have no hardware or other software would explain why I couldn't figure our how to turn it on. 8)
11
oh, i know cool edit pretty well, ok take the drum track that you want, and goto the "edit wave" section, where you zoom right in on one track

then under transform, choose amplitude, then pick dynamics processing, under that there are different compression ratios, try them and see what gives you the best results...
12
sweet thanks a lot for the help.
13
anytime
14
i'd usually do a real low cut on the bass drum eq and boost the lower mids/higher lows