Lessons

Lesson Info

Tuning the Kick Drum

For the kick drum for this particular project. Tommy, we wanted a big drum sound and will, you know, he came in with a drum that was tuned, you know, he had a big drum that was really big. It wasn't him his his bigger creek. Yeah, they had a twenty four inch. Whatever. You know, it's, the bigger the drum, the bigger sounds. You know, I have kids to come to record to me all the time, and they're like, hey, I want my drums sound huge and they have these tiny custom kids and, you know, I mean, you khun to him down and get up sound decent, large but bigger drum sound bigger and usually so, um, so I recommend if you want a big drum sandy's, big rooms uh uh, like said for this particular project, we wanted a big kick sound so basically went with the drumhead itself has a bit of muffling on it. Uh, we've got ah in evans q pillow inside. Just touch the front head so they kill the residents in the noise in the front head. And this drum is to really low. I mean you can see usually where I start ...

with drums like I said if you wanted a pitch out of the kick drum like what tom's you could do that same process where you actually get the lowest you know purely resonant pitch but I usually like to go even lower than that with a kick drum so again with a kid's room you have seven hansan some kids that it it's like paper literally it just flats yeah yeah and that's you know that's the thing with metal I think that's a more metal thing yeah exactly you know like I was saying earlier lower the lower detaining more low end in them or attack you get the last natural midrange and obviously for a medal type you have a lot of attack you want a lot of lows or whatever you you know you wanted this kind of a scoop to me a type of thing so yeah for middle like literally for metal I would use you know really popular head for medal is the remote power struck three one of my favorite that matter is actually single ply so you get a lot of national attack but use a power strip three and maybe those remote flam uh kevlar patches to keep keep you keep your you know mallet from burning through but literally like for medal I just thie batter head I'll just literally just barely finger tied on the on the tension I mean it's really low and a lot of the metal players that triggered stuff don't like that because you know when you're doing a lot of fast double bass and things of that nature you know it's got a lot of bounce back and play in the head so it doesn't feel it's good obviously for trigger it doesn't matter what the kick sounds like in reality so you can tune it up to make it more like a trigger pad or something like that if you're whatever is more natural exactly whatever feels good where it helps you perform better but if you want the sound acoustically than you know the low pitches his ideal for rock sound I usually come up a little bit like settles I'll start just a finger tight and I'm only doing these two lugs whatever demonstration purposes but I'll go all the way around and do the whole thing but I would do you know maybe a couple turns on each which I've already done with these um just just enoughto like said t give give it some that natural sine wave this produce when you hit the kidsroom um there's you know a lot of different up you know approaches and you know get different kick drum sounds you know like obviously we wanted a big sound the biggest possible sand so well this is tuned and muffled for for residents we've got a little bit of residents going on you know, sometimes I've asked with blake or whatever he likes him or you know, he said smaller kicks he likes punchy, more defined type of sound we actually use a pillow in his kick or whatever I was going to ask about that I mean, I know it's for muffling purpose is it just to get that ring out even more? The pillow completely eliminates, you know, that's the time yes, it was a time honored type of thing for kick drums is not as popular these days, but it really completely eliminates the residence so you get nothing but put you know, you still get you can still turn the cake low, you get nothing to punch it makes it a lot, you know? Is that a better in between because I mean obviously with between a very to me blake does a lot of there's like rock moments for melo moments and metal moment, so yeah, so like, is that a kind of a good in between it's a lot of classic rock bands used pillows back in the day if you listen to step from the seventies and into the eighties, I mean pillow was promotion standard type of thing, you know, and you know they don't they didn't there wasn't desire to have a big booming resident kick they wanted to hear clearly through the mix and, uh you know, you know, it's essential back then I would say, like, if you got a lot of double bass stuff pillow in the clinic kick really helps because you know it, it reduces the play of the head itself. So you get a really insisted you gonna consistent feel it honestly? Ah, and like said and it makes it, you know, for recording and for live, you know, it makes the kick drum or clear, you can hear the notes more distinctly like with this type of opportunity if you did, like obviously I don't think there's any double bass in the song is but if you did a lot of double bass of this type attorney, it will get money because the kick drums kind of flopping around the sine wave big sign, what is being produced, whatever any kind of just smears out the sound like safe when you use a pillow, it eliminates the big low in resident sine wave and so you get a more distinct punch that you've been usually feel, you know, in the recording or whatever and obviously there's some people khun you, khun tune it up like this and take a sample and actually use a sample of this sound which a lot of what you hear nowadays, you know, these big huge kick drums with double bass they're you know they're actually using samples is not the performance in the mix you know, like with bt bam it's one hundred percent natural so you know the pillow is the best option, but if we like said he wanted the big boom, the sound would probably have to use a sample so to be clear in the mix, you know, to my experience anyway, I mean there's maybe some engineers out there, you know, some other tricks or whatever, but that's typically like said, I mean, that's it's pretty much a simple type of thing like said what they all say about the beaters and this this room has ah, this pedal has unique beater a lot of the beaters you can reverse, like a lot of meters have, like, felt side for a softer attack, obviously for rock I mean, this is kind of a soft whatever this rubber material is here, it's kind of it's going to give us a little bit softer attacking for tommy's rock record, we don't need a lot of articulate, you know, high in, you know, a clicking sound really, I've even seen guys put like, metal pieces on yeah, for metal that's what is going to say you want to just literally sounds like yeah, like a click you want to switch these beaters around and use the hard side a lot of the modern drums come come from the factor they'll have a hard side you could switch to get the attack and like tommy said, some people put like, you know, the whole pantera thing we use a silver dollars something like that behind us and just get a lot of national attack or whatever that you know, you know, reduces the amount of high end you have to do the acoustic. The drum acoustically is really articulated with that stuff. And, like said the remo filan's, they accentuate the attack a little bit also there's a kevlar pieces, but that would be the difference between rock and metal there but for tommy sound like say, we use the soft side, so I'm going to switch this back on some songs you are you're all over the place unpredictable. Um, but yeah, like said and like say, we left it open, we didn't do anything, you know, there's no crazy double bass who wanted a big sound, so we left it open. I said, if you're doing metal, used the pillow um but yeah, if you wanted more of a jazz type of sound, obviously jazz usually they go for more of an open sound you want to tune in the drums up higher um you know, for jackson or hip hop r and b, those styles, whatever. Like I said, you tune the drum up, you get more mids, more of a bump type sound, whatever you know, um, you know, like I said, I don't record a lot of hip hop r and b, you know, other styles of music like that this is pretty much what I do, you know, the four for rock or metal. They said there just might be a difference in head selection and gets up that maybe we can waken work on maybe providing a list of some of the drum heads, so I've had your students asked me all the time. Why haywood drumhead, how do you know what's trump has used and it's from to me, it's just sheer experience, you know? We'll say like said, I mean, don't go to your local music store and ask the guy in the drum department like, what head you need for what? Sound? Because they're going to tell you something crazy, whatever it is that they like, we're you know, with their bosses told him, hey, we're overstocked on this move this, you know, I've had kids come in studio, and they have the absolute wrong drumhead for the sale that they want we're joking around about that last night exactly yeah I mean it's such an expensive thing to like trawling air yeah, you know so if something doesn't work you like I spend all this money on it so yeah, I mean people get you megan literally email me or you know what? We can provide a list of recommended drum drum headed I recommend for specific sounds um so we're getting some questions about the mikes as people are seeing the kid and watching you tune this stuff so once once we get tones what's the next step the next step is ah like said obviously we were you know, mike's election preempts election we'll definitely talk about that. Um um but yeah that's basically you know well, we need to get some drum samples after we get you know, the mikes and premiums and like, you know, I've mentioned before that all this stuff is kind of like educated guesses, you know, that's aa aa lot of people of you know, it is tough to know exactly what's gonna work, you know, and it's just one of things where you just you know, with with practice and just repetition that's the only way you do this craft yeah, I feel like as an engineer is just like being a musician where, when you start, you're just kind of figured everything out you're you're trying to emulate kind of some sound you like, you know, as a guitar as you do the same thing, I think that's what's, that's, what's interesting to me, a ce faras your work, you know, yeah, just developing, you just kind of started. I talked to just have a mental database of, like, what yield? What sounds that kind of thing, you know, and this is just all guessing. So, uh, you know, it's, just, you know, I've had a lot of trial and error to determine what works for me. And, you know, and you know how, you know a lot of personal research to find out what what other engineers that I respect or doing, also. And what I do is really similar toe a lot of people I do, but there's, some things. They're different. I'll talk about that.