Recording the bass drum

[alcohol_]

This is really a question about bass drum technique. I'm relatively new to recording live bands. Lately I've noticed this problem. It might be with the pedal itself or the drummer, or his technique.

 

I'm recording the bas derum with a Sure Beta 52, placed to in the front skin hole to get both the beater and the drum resonance. I also have a 12" speaker in front of the drum. The beta 52 is picking up the beater well but I notice this problem - the beater is slapping back about 50% of the time, almost like a flam.

 

The last recording I made I had to replace about 50% of the drum kicks to remove this flam.

 

I'm not a drummer, but it's my drumset in my house. It's a DW 7000 pedal. So I sat behind the drums and tired it out. I'm also wondering if the drum head is too loose. Anyway, if I buty the head I occasionaly get the problem, but if I let the pedal bounce back there's no trouble at all.

 

Question, the drummer who I have this problem with buries the head almost all the time. He's self taught, Is this technique wrong?

 

The recordng I had this trouble on can be accessed from my sig. I did tak out all the offending drum kicks in Pro Tools.

[Siberian]

I have the same problem. I sometimes have a tendency to let the beater bounce off the head, resulting in a second and more subtle ghost note. It's almost completly inaudible when I record and mix, but it's there nonetheless.

 

I guess you could say it's a technique problem. I never really noticed it in my playing until I started recording. Funny how much you can learn about yourself when you listen to your own playing from a recording. Over time I have learned to control it a little better. You just have to be concious of your feet and the beater position.

 

I suppose you could also try adjusting the pedal a little, but I don't know if that's going to do much.

[Muddy Run]

One of my favorite tricks is the old "oscillator" trick where you take an oscillator at around 50hz and gate it on another track letting the kick drum trigger open the gate....then mix in the oscillator track in to fatten that kick right up...

[Dwarf]

It's a problem that often happens when the drummer buries the beater. You can try loosening the tension on the pedal to stop it pulling back as hard, or have the drummer try to be aware of the pedal a little more. If it doesn't screw up the bass drum sound too much you can also try loosening the batter head a little bit. If the drum is unmuffled you might try a bit of something up against the batter to tame the head a little.

 

--

Rob

[alcohol_]

So, the best technique for a drummer would be not to bury the head?

 

Is that standard technique, not to bury the head? Only bury the head for occassional effect?

[Dwarf]

Originally posted by alcohol_:

So, the best technique for a drummer would be not to bury the head?

 

Is that standard technique, not to bury the head? Only bury the head for occassional effect?

Burying the beater muffles the drum and stops it from achieving full bass response. This is more noticeable on an unmuffled drum.

 

As for standard technique - whatever works is right. Not burying the beater is considered the proper way but there are a lot of guys who bury the beater with good results.

 

--

Rob