To Front Skin or Not To Front Skin......

[ScumBum]

So I'm gonna try the Fletcher 3 mic drum technique , capture the drums with a natural sound and use the least amount of EQ as possible .

The room is pretty big and live .

The kick mic is gonna be a few feet in front of the kick , a front of "kit" mic .

Should the front kick skin be on , or off ?

What have you found to be better in this situation ?

[Mike Caffrey]

Id depends on the sound you want.

With that method your kick is going ot sound like a cannon, and I kind of doubt you want it very ringy, so either front head off or stuff/muffle it.

Do you like the sound of toms with a single head? If not, muffle rather than remove.


If you want it really pointy, which you might need from a few feet away, remove it rather than muffle.

[Kiwiburger]

What does it sound like to you? My personal preference goes to taking the front skin off, because I prefer dull, thuddy, damped kicks with no resonance - letting the room sound provide the resonance.

But there are so many musical styles and valid kick sounds to suit them all - there is no correct answer. A couple of practical points I might make are:

1 - if you don't take the front off, how will you damp the skins (should you want/need to?). There are methods - like gaffa taping chuncks of foam - onto the skins. But personally, I prefer being able to place a pillow inside the kick. But then I usually also want a close mic too.

2 - if you do take the front off, beware of rattling lugs. It takes a bit of extra work to remove all the lugs. Also beware of the kick going out of round if you leave the front rim off. A better approach might be to cut a large hole in the front skin, so you can keep the rim on, and tension the remaining skin up so it stops the lugs from rattling. Beyond about a 6" hole, the size doesn't make much difference.

[u b k]

40's-60's loose ringy ba-BOOM ba-BOOM: full front head, no hole, little or no damping on either head.

70's tight dry ba-DIP DIP: no front head, pillow against batter head, felt dot glued to center where beater strikes.

80's-90's wet oatmeal THIP THAP: front head with small hole off center or larger hole dead center, small pillow inside drum lightly touching both heads.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

[Igotsoul4u]

I'm a front head off guy. Every time I record a kik with the front head on it sounds like the drum is smaller, muddier, and less defined. If there is a giant hole cut out then its much better and thats as far as I can go personally. I have used a couple kits with the hole offset from the center and its only marginally different from head with no hole. At least I can get something on the beater, but my outside mic usually leaves me unsatisfied and reaching for sound replacer. With the head totally off I can get the best of both worlds. I get a defined sub impact with a nice click from the beater nestled in the middle. I also find I don't need to EQ when the head is off. When its on I need to do some work in the 200-600hz mud range. Anyway. Just an opinion.

[Igotsoul4u]

I realized I glossed over the first post. I was thinking it was a general question. With the situation you described I would 100% take the head off. I use the same method all the time and with the head on its not even close. With the head off I feel like the sound of the drum fills the room better and remains powerful at farther distances. With the kik 3 feet off you will get plenty of smack and thud without proximity effect/muddy buildup. With it on I feel the click suffers and muddiness prevails unless you add a mic on the beater and EQ to the outside mic.

[Batchainpuller78]

Ditto on the what style and sound do you want.
with the three mic technique i prefer closed skins, and a drummer that plays in balance.
as I'm going for a natural sound there.

I for one am glad that most bands that come in these days have a closed skin and two toms.
Maybe It's because I tell the bands with the Lars ulrich behind the kit that i'm full :D

nobody experimenting with recording the beaterside of the bassdrum?
I find very pleasing results there as well, if the drummer has a quiet pedal. and I can't get enough attack from a closed bass drum.

UBK gave a nice sum up.

[warhead]

Originally Posted by ScumBum

So I'm gonna try the Fletcher 3 mic drum technique , capture the drums with a natural sound and use the least amount of EQ as possible .

What is the Fletcher technique?

ubk nailed the kick drum description!

War

[JQ127]

I've been going with a front head with a 6" hole off center. Re20 inside and M147 out. Sounds like shite. Always having to tweak it in the mix and it just ain't cutting it. I wanna try your method here.So do you use 2 mics? Do you put a pillow inside too? Just curious about your mic placement. Thanks-

Originally Posted by Igotsoul4u

I realized I glossed over the first post. I was thinking it was a general question. With the situation you described I would 100% take the head off. I use the same method all the time and with the head on its not even close. With the head off I feel like the sound of the drum fills the room better and remains powerful at farther distances. With the kik 3 feet off you will get plenty of smack and thud without proximity effect/muddy buildup. With it on I feel the click suffers and muddiness prevails unless you add a mic on the beater and EQ to the outside mic.

[BLueROom]

How are you tuning the kick. IMHO that will more of a difference than anything.

[ScumBum]

Originally Posted by warhead

What is the Fletcher technique?

ubk nailed the kick drum description!

War

Heres the link , I'm gonna try recording a band following this method .

Mercenary Audio - Three Microphone Drum Stuff by Fletcher from the rec.audio.pro Usenet Group

[ScumBum]

Originally Posted by u b k

40's-60's loose ringy ba-BOOM ba-BOOM: full front head, no hole, little or no damping on either head.

70's tight dry ba-DIP DIP: no front head, pillow against batter head, felt dot glued to center where beater strikes.

80's-90's wet oatmeal THIP THAP: front head with small hole off center or larger hole dead center, small pillow inside drum lightly touching both heads.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

Haha , that made me laugh you nailed it !

The sound we're after is late 70's early 80's punk rock , Buzzcocks , Ramones....

A natural drum sound , with enough click from the kick to cut through the guitars but not dominate the kick like todays punk , and not to use loads of 3K-5K EQ .

[ScumBum]

Originally Posted by Igotsoul4u

I realized I glossed over the first post. I was thinking it was a general question. With the situation you described I would 100% take the head off. I use the same method all the time and with the head on its not even close. With the head off I feel like the sound of the drum fills the room better and remains powerful at farther distances. With the kik 3 feet off you will get plenty of smack and thud without proximity effect/muddy buildup. With it on I feel the click suffers and muddiness prevails unless you add a mic on the beater and EQ to the outside mic.

Thanks guys ,

It looks like front head off is the way to go .

Now thats one less thing to figure out while setting up the mics ,

[Igotsoul4u]

Originally Posted by JQ127

I've been going with a front head with a 6" hole off center. Re20 inside and M147 out. Sounds like shite. Always having to tweak it in the mix and it just ain't cutting it. I wanna try your method here.So do you use 2 mics? Do you put a pillow inside too? Just curious about your mic placement. Thanks-

I use 2 mics and a little pillow. I center a beta 52 just a little bit inside the shell pointed at the beater. I put an telefunken ak47 about 3 feet of the the front of the kik pointed up towards the drummers chest. The far mic actually gives me a perfect mono snap shot of the kit providing the foundation for a good roomy sound. I can bring the beta 52 and other spot mic up in the mix to increase the presence. I find it gets me enough click in the sound, but you can go one step further and put a 57 on the beater skin for super click. If I was home I would post some sound clips and pics but Im up in your neck of the woods in Plymouth, NH.

[ScumBum]

Originally Posted by Igotsoul4u

I use 2 mics and a little pillow. I center a beta 52 just a little bit inside the shell pointed at the beater. I put an telefunken ak47 about 3 feet of the the front of the kik pointed up towards the drummers chest. The far mic actually gives me a perfect mono snap shot of the kit providing the foundation for a good roomy sound. I can bring the beta 52 and other spot mic up in the mix to increase the presence. I find it gets me enough click in the sound, but you can go one step further and put a 57 on the beater skin for super click. If I was home I would post some sound clips and pics but Im up in your neck of the woods in Plymouth, NH.

That sounds nice ,

thats my goal with the front mic , get a nice snap shot of the kit and eliminate the need to close mic , keep it simple .

I'm gonna try an SM7 - api 512 combo .

Flecter said a 421 works good but I don't have one right now .

[JQ127]

Originally Posted by Igotsoul4u

I use 2 mics and a little pillow. I center a beta 52 just a little bit inside the shell pointed at the beater. I put an telefunken ak47 about 3 feet of the the front of the kik pointed up towards the drummers chest. The far mic actually gives me a perfect mono snap shot of the kit providing the foundation for a good roomy sound. I can bring the beta 52 and other spot mic up in the mix to increase the presence. I find it gets me enough click in the sound, but you can go one step further and put a 57 on the beater skin for super click. If I was home I would post some sound clips and pics but Im up in your neck of the woods in Plymouth, NH.

Awesome. I'm gonna try this out next session. Welcome to Cow Hampshire by the way.

Thanks.

[drastic]

Originally Posted by Igotsoul4u

I use 2 mics and a little pillow. I center a beta 52 just a little bit inside the shell pointed at the beater. I put an telefunken ak47 about 3 feet of the the front of the kik pointed up towards the drummers chest. The far mic actually gives me a perfect mono snap shot of the kit providing the foundation for a good roomy sound. I can bring the beta 52 and other spot mic up in the mix to increase the presence. I find it gets me enough click in the sound, but you can go one step further and put a 57 on the beater skin for super click. If I was home I would post some sound clips and pics but Im up in your neck of the woods in Plymouth, NH.

Yeah, I'm using a similar technique on kick nowadays. Only I'm using a D6 inside for the click and a MA-200 on the outside head. Although I tried a 414 the other day on the outside head, and it didn't sound too bad. Proper tuning is also a must.thumbsup