Recording a VERY softly played kick

[azulay]

Hey,

I'm currently tracking a beautiful folk/rock album,
(something in between Beck's Sea Change and Bright Eyes Wide awake..)
and on one of the tracks we wanted to capture a nice, round bassdrum
sound, on which the drummer barely touched the pedal.

The thing is, I couldn't get a good sound no matter what I did.
I tried various mics (D112, U87, Royer R121, MD421, Rode NT1000, 414)
through almost each one of my preamps (API 312, Great River, UA610,
my D&R console pre), but everything yielded the same result:
A great sound when the volume is low, but cranking it up just a bit
introduces a huge deal of distortion.

The waves look fine, my lynx converters aren't clipping,
the pre looks fine and yet when I turn the volume up, it sounds distorted.

I monitor through JBLs (LSR 6inch) and NS10s.
The JBLs have a really nice low-end, playing some R&B tracks...

What is it? why is everything freaking out when playing really quietly?
What am I doing wrong? I looked at the wave with a frequency analyzer
and it looks like a nice healthy kick sound... I tried compressing, cutting
some lows, mids, everything I could think of.

Any ideas?

[santacore]

You might have picked up a little snare rattle on the track. At low levels that could sound like distortion, on top of your clean kick signal. Just a thought.

[d_fu]

Originally Posted by azulay

A great sound when the volume is low, but cranking it up just a bit

Where exactly...?

introduces a huge deal of distortion.

Where exactly...?

[azulay]

It isn't the snare... It doesn't sound like this kind of distortion
it sounds more like the monitors' amp is totally overloading
or the speaker itself is under a terrible weight.
The whole thing just get heavily squashed and nosy.

I'm talking about turning the monitor levels up,
not the console fader or the pro tools faders,
just the master level.

[LX3]

Just a thought, but I've found that sometimes a softly-played kick drum can contain a surprising amount of sub-bass... which becomes especially obvious when you crank the kick up to what feels like the right level.

Could it be sub-bass eating up all your headroom?

Maybe try an HPF on it, at about 30-40Hz?

If that doesn't work, it's clearly something else

[azulay]

well, actually thats what I was thinking,
I tried rolling off some lows, but it only works if I cut
a really great deal of low end (a 24db slope at 150Hz)
which fixes the distortion problem, but leaves me with
a useless highmid used-to-be-kick-drum.

Maybe I'll upload some of my experiments with it
then you can listen and tell me where you think
the problem is.

[John Suitcase]

Maybe try a multiband compressor, to get the lows under control. you don't want to cut all of the lows, just get them under control.

[wheatus]

Have you considered using the reversed speaker as a mic setup?...You know, cut a hole in the head the size of a 12 " speaker and run that speaker into a pre...I'm certain there is a company that makes this thing stock but I love the idea of ripping out some old Realistic speakers and micerizing them.

Might make it more of a factor less of a tractor...I have a friend who records almost exclusively folk and acoustic records and he swears this is the only way to do it right.

Much Luck,
brendan b brown
wheatus.com