Smaller Drums In Front Of The Kick Drum???

Tony Trout

Tony Trout

Senior Member
I was watching, "The Dance", DVD by Fleetwood Mac and also browsing through the drummers listed here on the site (Tommy Aldridge) & one thing that I just began to notice is that there is what looks to me like a couple of smaller drums (like a snare drum) laid up against the front of the kick drum/kick drums (if it's a double-bass setup).

Until now, I hadn't taken any notice of it so, naturally, I've gotten curious. What is the purpose of the smaller drums on the kick drums??

Can anybody enlighten me??

Thanks, my fellow drummer friends!

Take Care,
Tony T.
 
They are sub woofer pick ups/microphones for capturing more low end.
They are speakers which are transducers and work as microphones.
 
green glass drum said:
They are sub woofer pick ups/microphones for capturing more low end.
They are speakers which are transducers and work as microphones.
Click to expand...

What? Huh? They are snare drums, picking up resonance and for what reason I don't know.

I need enlightenment as well. It's looks cool and it's yet another drum you can hump in and out of venue.

What's up with this?
 

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green glass drum said:
They are sub woofer pick ups/microphones for capturing more low end.
They are speakers which are transducers and work as microphones.
Click to expand...

You can also just wire a larger speaker backwards and it has practically the same capabilities. We recently took an old 12" guitar speaker and a 15" bass speaker and did this. The sound is awful by itself, but really adds body to the bass drum. Internal mic's usually just can't pick up that much low end.

I personally use the Audix D6 and place it right on the mic port on the reso head and then use some sort of subkick system on the outside sitting infront. Great combo for a huge sounding kick!
 
I appreciate the response, fellas!! Now, I know what they are!! Thanks for enlightening me. Love this place!!!
 
The drum has a speaker inside.

Microphones use a piece of paper that acts like a sail on a boat that gets moved by sound (vibrating air). The "sail" is glued to a magnet that pushes around electrons in a copper wire, creating an electrical signal (vibrating electrons). The amplifier amplifies the size of the signal and the speaker works in reverse: The electrical signal pushes around a magnet that is glued to a sail that pushes around the air.

You can turn a microphone into a speaker, but it won't be very loud. You can turn a speaker into a microphone, but because of the size of the "sail" (a.k.a. speaker cone) it requires very loud and very low sounds to activate it at all - but it does this very well. Because most mics are physically small, they suck at this, so it can really work well to pair these with a good bass mic.

You will need a great sound system in order to reproduce what is picked up by these reverse wired speaker/microphones, though!







GeoB said:
What? Huh? They are snare drums, picking up resonance and for what reason I don't know.

I need enlightenment as well. It's looks cool and it's yet another drum you can hump in and out of venue.

What's up with this?
Click to expand...
 
I've had one experience with a SubKick and wasn't impressed. Did one of those engineering school recording sessions at a proper studio where they bring in students and you get a free recording out of the deal. Used the house Yamaha Oak custom kit and they put a million high end mics around it. I got the ProTools sessions to take home and mix down for our band to get demo's from. The house engineer/teacher went to great pains to to time align the 4 mics on the kick. Of the 4, the SubKick was useless. Just a dull thud. The D6 in the hole sounded like I expected. The U67 in front of the batter head sounded good, and the Coles ribbon a couple feet out in front had the most useful sound in the mix. Mostly I balanced those two depending on the song and maybe brought in a little of the D6 if I wanted a bit more clicky articulation instead of eq'ing the 67.
 
What is going on with the bass drum???
 

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They work pretty dang well actually. Great way to boost bottom end kick sound. I almost always see them used in conjunction with other more standard kick mics. Mixing the two mic sources gets the best results.
 
I read the thread, bro

So I missed something? Wouldn't it just be easier to give an answer instead of getting snarky?

CvTHqSX.gif
 
Re: I read the thread, bro

MasterBlaster said:
So I missed something? Wouldn't it just be easier to give an answer instead of getting snarky?

CvTHqSX.gif
Click to expand...
Yeah, maybe. But also maybe my snark has been cultivated by your habit of resurrecting long dead topics without offering anything to them.

Hint: the answer is in the same post you quoted the picture from.
 
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