Surprisingly great kick mics

susbemol

Following the thread about the £25 condenser from Argos, are you guys aware of any similarly dirt cheap but good sounding kick drum mics that are worth checking out?

Winny_Pooh

RCA 44BX w a pop shield FOK

Winny_Pooh

Or an Audix

susbemol

Winny_Pooh said:

RCA 44BX w a pop shield FOK

You and I seem to have quite a different take on "dirt cheap", if these are anything to go by!

https://reverb.com/uk/p/rca-44-bx-ribbon-microphone

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/186219882207

robinbowes

susbemol said:

Following the thread about the £25 condenser from Argos, are you guys aware of any similarly dirt cheap but good sounding kick drum mics that are worth checking out?

Van Halen II was recorded with the following mics on the kit:

Kick (x2): Shure 546
Snare: top and bottom - Shure 546
Overheads (x3): AKG 414 EB
Toms: top - Sennheiser 421, bottom - Shure SM57
Room mic: Neumann U87

Try using what you've got and see how it works.

John_P

The behringer BA19A is a blatant copy and super cheap but actually sounds great inside a kick.  

Winny_Pooh

susbemol said:

Winny_Pooh said:

RCA 44BX w a pop shield FOK

You and I seem to have quite a different take on "dirt cheap", if these are anything to go by!

https://reverb.com/uk/p/rca-44-bx-ribbon-microphone

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/186219882207

Yes it was not a serious post, but the Audix recommendation is. 

AntonHunter

I've got one of these https://www.red5audio.com/product/rvd1-kick-drum-microphone/ that I've used a bunch with no complaints. Usually jazz though, so and I take the main sound from the overheads, so just mix in a little direct mic to taste. 

I did a rough comparison years ago and the drummer picked that one as his favourite from the bunch...  although these days I prefer a Beyer M88

mike257

John_P said:

The behringer BA19A is a blatant copy and super cheap but actually sounds great inside a kick.  

This was my first thought for a cheap effort. I've not spent much time with one (I've got a real 91A in my mic box and they're great) but a few friends with good ears have raved about them and use them regularly. 

Danny1969

I've used the Samson drum mic kits many times inc the kick mic. The whole sets used to be about £140 for all 8 mics. The clamps cam break if someone moves them without undoing them first, which is annoying but fantastic value for money

Making a sub kick  mic is well within most peoples DIY skills. You don't need an NS10 driver, a similar sized driver out of an old Hi Fi  speaker  will suffice.  Make a simple pad to get the signal down and use that in conjunction with a cheap dynamic mic.

octatonic

Do you want kick in or kick out?

Some of my favourite kick mics: (cheap stuff in bold).

Kick In:

Audio-Technica ATM25 - criminally under-rated, to the point of almost being unknown.
You can pick these up for around £100. They give you a true representation of the kick drum sound. I use them as a kick in mic- they have less click than a Beta 91, less woof than an RE20, less hype than an Audix D6. Good for bass drums where you want to hear the pitch of the BD as well as the wallop.

Audix D6- modern, pre-EQ'ed, 

Shure Beta 91a- classic- flat, and fast.

SM57- WHAT? No wait, seriously. These can be great, especially if you have a great sounding bass drum already and don't want to change it much.

Sennheiser E609: often used as a guitar mic but it works well as a kick in if paired with a good, bottom focussed kick out.

CAD KM‑212: cheap mic that does a decent job. I wouldn't go for it over any of the above but you can get them for £25-50.

Beyer M88: Not the cheapest but has a really nice detailed midrange. Great on bass amps, guitar amps or even snare.

Kick Out:

RE20- the benchmark. Can be woofy but easy to EQ and just sounds great.

AEA R84a- warm, massive and cinematic. The room matters quite a lot and I only user them on drummers with excellent dynamic control. 

AKG D12- expensive now, I almost certainly wouldn't pay vintage prices, but I didn't.

Audio Technica ATM25- Works surprisingly well outside too- controlled low end, no hype.

What I don't like- AKG D112. It is a classic case of sounds big isolated but smaller in the context of a band. Maybe I am crap at using them but whenever I hate mixing a kick drum it was recorded with a D112. Anything made by Behringer.

On the subkick question. I record them but a lot of the time I will not use them in the final mix as of late.
I've been using the SSL Subgen plugin which is much more controllable.
I take a copy of one of the kick mics, usually inside, then I strip silence or gate it and put subgen across it.
It does everything you want a subkick to do without any spill.

susbemol

Thanks for that, lots of useful info.

Stuckfast

Wise words from @octatonic especially regarding the ATR25. I think the secret is out on that mic now though. And yes the D112 is horrible.

My favourite bass drum mic by miles is the Earthworks DM6, but it's not super cheap by any means.

From a technical point of view the subkick is not really a microphone. It's a resonator that is triggered by the bass drum. In other words its output doesn't actually have any resemblance to the sound of the bass drum, it just rocks back and forth when there's a loud transient and puts out a low-frequency signal. So as far as I can see there's no real reason to use a real one rather than something like the Subgen plug-in if that's what you want.

Danny1969

Stuckfast said:

Wise words from @octatonic especially regarding the ATR25. I think the secret is out on that mic now though. And yes the D112 is horrible.

My favourite bass drum mic by miles is the Earthworks DM6, but it's not super cheap by any means.

From a technical point of view the subkick is not really a microphone. It's a resonator that is triggered by the bass drum. In other words its output doesn't actually have any resemblance to the sound of the bass drum, it just rocks back and forth when there's a loud transient and puts out a low-frequency signal. So as far as I can see there's no real reason to use a real one rather than something like the Subgen plug-in if that's what you want.

A speaker and a  dynamic microphone are essentially the same things. You can use any speaker as a microphone, back in the day before lo fi plugins we used to simulate bad audio phone effects by using headphones as microphones. You can use an SM58 or similar as a very bad speaker if you want to ... both a dynamic microphone and speaker both operate on exactly the same principle of moving a coil of wire attached to a  diaphragm that can move in a fixed magnetic field.  That creates an AC audio current that's modulated by the changing air pressure of the audio.

So yeah, the speakers output isn't just a pulse, it moves according to the frequency of the bass drum. But, due to the size of weight of the cone it's only effective at capturing the very low end.