kick drum mic bleed

[3JDamon]

Arrg! I loathe this notion that the drums kit is one instrument. They are separate instruments used together to make a coherent presentation. Not one instrument, an ENSEMBLE. Just like an orchestra, you wouldn't record one without a set of room mics (aka overheads) to capture the overall presentation as-is, but typically the recording benefits from recording each instrument individually to augment that presentation. The comparison to a guitar is grossly inaccurate.

That being said, there is plenty of interaction between instruments captured in the overheads (ie snare shots making toms ring), so the use of bleed in the direct mics is rather dubious unless you're trying for a trashy sound. Bleeding does not reinforce the intended presentation of the ensemble. Even if you're going for trash, it's better to add some mics in unnatural places (like between the tom shells) to better isolate those interactions rather than depend on inadvertent by-products of traditional methods.

Another issue that blows my mind is that some techs think that time-aligning the direct mics with the overheads is "unnatural".

[lemix]

3JDamon,
in reply to your excellent post :
I've said "some leakage" in mine ! All the little rings and rumbles from another track is part of the sonic print of that kit.
I follow a very simple, old and tried rule..put your console faders up. Can you feel and hear a groove ?
If yes..some tweaking with gates, EQs, dynamic tools will enhance the results even more .
If not...something else has gone wrong.

take care
a

[JFreak]

i don't really like the AKG D112, I have heard great things about the Audix D6 but have not gotten to use one yet, but I can get a really good sound with my Shure Beta52

IMO, if you cannot get these mics to work the way you like, there are other problems than the mic. Have you tried different preamps? Different gain levels? Different mic placements? Different _kit_ placements in the room? Using a room mic too?

D112 sounds decent and B52 sounds good. D6 is nothing too special either. The key to a great kick sound is a kick that sounds great acoustically! Tune the kick and perhaps it'll work better for you.

[Third Eye Studios]

I think it's improtant to keep some spare drum heads around, especially a few kick drum heads that have holes in them. It's pretty quick to do an a/b with the drummer. Record a track with his heads, replace the front head with one of yours that has a hole in it and record another take. Then you can ask them which one they prefer, and unless they like the sound of a bouncing basketball for their kick drum, they will most likely pick the one recorded with your kick drum head. Keeping spares at your studio is more professional, and you don't have to cut up somebody's drum head.

If I was recording a jazz combo (which I don't really-mostly rock and metal here), I would leave the front head on and make it work. Most of the times they are not looking for the close miked tone that a rock drummer would.

I have most of the tried and true kick mics here including AKG D112 and an AKG D12e, Shure Beta 52 and Beta 91, Audix D6, Sennheiser 421, Beyer M88, and a Yamaha Sub Kick. If I had to use just one, hands down the best single kick mic IMO is the Audix D6. It is the closest to a finished sounding kick drum then all of the other mics. It requires much less eq and is tighter sounding in the low end than the Beta 52. Now when I track, I use three kick mics; Beta 91 inside, D6 right in the hole, and the Sub Kick really close to the head. It's a perfect combination IMO.

[LadyElectrikStudios]

ok great so far but let me be more clear. I am getting alot of snare bleed from the kick mic now I would guess there is a 4 8 db difference between a kick hit on the mic and a snare hit and with some styles of music a gate just isn't the awnser. I am using a tunnel method and placing my mic about 2 to 3 inches from the skin pointing it away from the snare, at the beater , angled down , angled up, but I find its all the same in the end. Sure, I can eq out some high end freq but then I lose the natural sound of the kick drum(attack). So in my opinion I am going to rent some kick drum mics for a weekend and see what works better..
Peace all and lemix let me know when your available I can show ya the place and see what ya think as far as the room goes we can have a xmas drink hehe.
later all

[JonnyGinese]

The Mics i prefer to use are a Senn. MD421 inside and an RE-20 on the edge of the port... For Non ported... Anythign taht will tack a signal.. because its getting replaced...

[GothicV]

My favourite kick mic - Audix D6.

The Apex mics are not too special, but they are fully capable of getting the job done. If the bleed is unbearable I suggest going in with your friend tab-to-transient or stripsilence and then pulling out the snare hits, do some batch fade-ins and outs and be done with it.

If you just can't get a sound that works with the song, and don't have soundreplacer and can't afford it, I suggest putting a midi track next to your kick track and tab-to-transient all the kick hits and then pasting a midi note. I have done this many times with great success - then you just load up a softsynth, load in a good sample set and either blend or completely replace the original kick. If you are completely replacing the kick then I also suggest using a highpass filter on the overheads so that there is less of the original kick sound in there - I may suggest that anyway if everything is miced up and there is lots of muddyness.

[3JDamon]

lemix:
All the little rings and rumbles from another track is part of the sonic print of that kit.

Just to expand on that point, yes, the rings and rumbles caused by drums being close to others being struck are the interactive "sound print" of the kit, but bleed (sounds picked up because direct mics are close to other drums/cymbals being struck) is unnatural and generally undesired.

All drum recording techniques are unavoidably compromised, and IMO bleed is the most common and audible flaw. Getting the most of the kit's acoustic interactions while minimizing bleed is IMO the difference between a great natural kit sound and one that's begging for sample replacement.

Part of positioning overheads entails getting as much or as little of that interactivity as you desire. Relying on direct mics to get that will introduce too much bleed every single time.

Just had a wild thought... holy crap, of course! I've never tried this, but I'm certain it will work: set up the kit in a very dead room, put a pair of overheads up, fire a starter's pistol, record the impulse response of the kit's resonances, and use it in a convolution reverb to add as much of those tones as you want. That would literally isolate the sound print of the kit so you could enhance it at will.

I should probably keep that idea to myself, but hey, it's Christmas!

[NickH]

set up the kit in a very dead room, put a pair of overheads up, fire a starter's pistol, record the impulse response of the kit's resonances, and use it in a convolution reverb to add as much of those tones as you want.

That is such a spectacularly good idea, [Just the kind of sideways thinking that appeals to me ] I am going to try it on the next album I work on (I do hope the kit is not a POS…) could be good fun… (I use a sweep tone for my impulses though!)

To the original poster; You are mic’ing the kick from the outside if the kit right? (silly question but I just has to check)

I always bring spare heads to sessions too, but failing that I would try the Auralex Aural Expander set or the SE reflection filter, if one if those don’t fix it something is seriously wrong with that mic or the source…

Cheers

N

[albee1952]

My 2 cents only, don't like the D112 but I have to say that almost any mic mentioned can give good results IF the drum is tuned and damped right. Any mic will sound bad on a bad drum. Assuming the drum sounded good, I would record a few hits of the bass drum all by itself and use those snippets on a duplicate track with SoundReplacer. Or you could try using SR on a duplicate track and use any kick sample. By mixing the original track and a SR/sample track, you can mantain the air of the original while cutting the leakage by about half.