I can't hear my bass drum when playing live

palo

Senior Member
Excuse the newbie question but ,miked or not, I have problems hearing my own bass drum when I gig (not when I practice) .I mostly play "by the feel",I know I have hit it because I feel it in my foot and leg,not because I hear the sound I have produced .This is really compromising my playing,since most of my fills incorporate bass drum notes that can really mess me up if I cant hear them...
 
Palo, a few questions:

What size kick?

Do you port?

Do you muffle?

Do you bury the beater or rebound?

In my experience, to get the most from a bass drum... full front head, zero muffling, and rebound the beater to pull out all the sweet bass tones. Really important here is the velocity of the strike, plus the attitude that your bass drum is the very core of your sound. The most important factor by far... for volume.... is the velocity of the strike and the quickness of the rebound.

A weak bass drum foot, with no rebound, coupled with a ported and muffled bass drum....would explain things.
 
Palo, a few questions:

What size kick?

Do you port?

Do you muffle?

Do you bury the beater or rebound?

In my experience, to get the most from a bass drum... full front head, zero muffling, and rebound the beater to pull out all the sweet bass tones. Really important here is the velocity of the strike, plus the attitude that your bass drum is the very core of your sound. The most important factor by far... for volume.... is the velocity of the strike and the quickness of the rebound.

A weak bass drum foot, with no rebound, coupled with a ported and muffled bass drum....would explain things.

18" ,small hole on front head (just enough for mic to go in).no muffling.kit is a yamaha hip gig Al Foster,with which I play rock and hardish funk.any tips for tuning such a small bass?never got a full bodied sound out of it,must be doing something wrong because people swear by it...
 
18" ,small hole on front head (just enough for mic to go in).no muffling.kit is a yamaha hip gig Al Foster,with which I play rock and hardish funk.any tips for tuning such a small bass?never got a full bodied sound out of it,must be doing something wrong because people swear by it...

Tune up higher than you are now. Reso quite tight, batter looser but still high enough to produce a full tone. Try to get a pleasing interval between the two heads so you don't have power-robbing phase cancellation issues. I would lose the port. These small drums sound fine mic'ed without a port.
 
I always make sure that the guitarist's and bassist's amps are forward a bit, so that the speaker is slightly in front of my ear level. This always helps so that I can hear, and feel, my bass drum.
 
18" ,small hole on front head (just enough for mic to go in).no muffling.kit is a yamaha hip gig Al Foster,with which I play rock and hardish funk.any tips for tuning such a small bass?never got a full bodied sound out of it,must be doing something wrong because people swear by it...



Get a real bass drum.

I'd recommend a 14" X 22' at least, with no dampening, no ported heads, no heavily dampened manufactured heads.

They are drums, not cardboard boxes.
 
If you're playing any type of 'hard' or loud music, an 18" kick probably isnt' going to cut it. If you're playing funk as well, I'd probably opt for a 20". They can sound surprisingly big and loud if you tune them well.
 
sorry ,I dont quite get what this means ...could you explain?thanks

In simplest terms, it means tune the two heads to notes that compliment one another, with the batter being a lower note than the reso. If they aren't tuned to notes that sound good together, you'll get a less full, pleasing sound.
 
Sounds like a monitoring issue to me.. even with a small kick; if it's mic'd properly and you have a monitor pointing at you - and a sound guy that adjusts the levels for you .. you should hear it fine. If not ask the sound guy to turn it up in your mix...but never get your monitor mix too loud as you'll end up with an opposite but similar problem; not being able to hear it clearly.

I hate monitor mixes that overpower the room sound.. ideally it should sound on stage the same way it sounds when you are practicing with your band in your practice room... and when the sound guy asks "what do you want in your mix' don't say a 'little bit of everything' as you'll end up with mush.
 
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