I'm in quest of a good bass drum sound and I'm having a devil of a time.

I've got a 22" BD with a punchy sound. I think it sounds pretty good.

I've added some muffling inside by way of a blanket. Front end has a port.

Mics are AKG D112 and a Heil PR40.

I've tried all manner of mic placement, checked phase, etc., etc., and between these two mics, either together or seperate, I am shocked at how anemic the sound is. Fab Filter Pro Q shows a lot of low end but I'm not hearing it. There's a weird resonance that probably suggests a tuning change.

It occurs to me I have no example of what a good starting BD drum sound is. I realize there are different colors but... I feel I am having to process my kick sound now way too much to get a decent sound and it's still not what I want - full and punchy with a little click. Maybe it just is what it is with what I have to work with but, geez, even if the given mics don't match the BD perfectly, I'd expect a better result. Maybe my expectations are not realistic.

I've read a crapload of articles and I guess I just have to keep fiddling. But if you know of a secret sauce, lay it on us!

I like creating a midi track from the audio track and enhancing the kick with an synth kick.

These guys have some good videos on eq'ing kicks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRi01OZ7LIM

Thanks. Had already watched it!
MIDI is one way to go but by golly I'd like to ballpark this thing the aulde skool way.

digi2ns


I like creating a midi track from the audio track and enhancing the kick with an synth kick.

These guys have some good videos on eq'ing kicks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRi01OZ7LIM

Im with ya on the Old School,  Nice to get it as close as you can recording first. 

Wasnt sure if the rest would help ya out as well.  Im running a D112 recording back through a Yamaha mixer. One thing I have done if yu dont have an extra body is postition your mic's on the kick, record it, loop it back through the board and EQ it out off the loop.  Gives ya plenty of time to get it the way ya want it as far as EQ goes.

Another thing is possibly using a Transient shaper to tone down ringing. Danny just posted a real good video on it also.

What is causing that click?  Are your mics picking up the drum pedal?  Is any of the hardware on the kick drum loose?  I'm sure you've thought of all these already.

I've had drummers add more blankets, or replace the blankets with pillows.  Years ago at a drummer's house, as soon as the drummer warmed up, his cat ran out of the port!

Click was probably a poor choice of word. Click is the spikey attack of the beater. Not a bad thing but for what I am doing, don't need much.

Close micing is only a partial answer. You'd be surprised how much overheads and room mics come into play for shaping the overall tone of a drum kit. Depends on the sound you're shooting for to some degree, but one or two mics in just the right spot in a room can sound much better than a whole slew of close mics. A good sounding room to work with is very beneficial.

I still think that a lot of the resultant sound you get is in how the bass drum really sounds in real life. Also when you say it sounds punchy etc it might sound like that up higher where the drummer is but get your head right down in front of the hole and have a listen there, it is often a different story.

It is hard but you can kneel down there and operate the beater by hand while listening close to where the mic is. Both heads effect the sound a lot. Also the damping inside also has a big impact. It should be touching the edges of the heads to a certain extent but not kill the sound either. I often put a small brick on the damping to keep it in place.

The front head can still effect the sound too. The batter head obviously has a big impact on the sound. Tension etc, pitch etc. What type of head is the batter head? There are some clever batter bass drum heads that have an extra ring around the edge to control unwanted rings etc..

I am lucky because I play a Sonor kit and really those drums are better than nearly everything else on the planet. I say that because even if my bass drum is poorly tuned it still sounds killer. That must say something. (I can put an SM58 in there and still get a killer sound) If I spend time tuning it sounds ridiculous! So get the drum sounding as best as you possibly can after all if that is not right nothing will help you from that point on. You should be able to get a killer recorded sound with no processing virtually. It can be done.

As far as the mic is concerned I am not a great fan of the AKG D112 either. Sure it is a good mic but I find a Shure B52 sounds quite different and better. Not sure about the Heil mic. We have an Audix D6 at work where I teach and I have used that and it is also great. I also have the Antares Mic Modeler plugin and I find that it is quite excellent at changing the sound from the recorded mic in pretty much anything you want to hear! That plug works!!!

Rimshot mentions below to put the mic in front of the hole. Try that for sure. I put the mic right inside the hole inside the bass drum. That is where I get the better sound for me anyway. You don't need to isoloate the bass drum with any covers. But saying that I have also got great results buy putting a large piece of heavy carpet right around the bass drum to form a cannon like extension in front of it and put the mic outside the hole but still inside the tunnel obviously. If you do that you need to block the end of the tunnel somehow as well to keep the isolation.

Getting older drummer here...
1.  Does the kick sound good on its own in the room?  If not, you may need to tune it.  That's another topic.
2.  If it does sound good, use one mike to start with at the hole and about 2 inches away from it. 
3.  Cover the entire kick and mike with a heavy blanket to cut down on sound leakage. 
4.  At the board, cut at 350 hz (or so) by 6-10 db to get rid of the flub lower mid bulge (sounds like me). 
5.  Boost at 60 at 2-3 db and 3K at the same to get some of the click from the beater. 

Try all that and let me know if it helps.  I think it will.  Alot.

Rimshot

I got some advice from a very well known drummer once, he said to aim the mike to the point where the head meets the wood.

I never looked back, but I use a mike aiming to the beater too(from the back side of the kick).