Massive Low Frequency Kick Drum

This technique is really neat. It just sorta came to me like all my ideas. I don't know if other people have thought of this one or not. It works because of the same reason you only hear the low frequencies when one of those big-super stereo hip hop playing cars drives by.

For natural rock and roll a mic in the kick drum just sounds unreal to me. So I use one mic on the beater side of the kick to get the 2k part of the sound. Then I leave the room the band is playing in (it cannot be soundproof), shut the door and down the hall a bit I place a condenser mic. Most of the mids and highs are blocked by the room. Only the lows escape and develop over a distance into some huge massive low waves. You then mix the two mics and can try a gate and compression on that big lows mic so it does not rip the speakers out on playback.

Gives great low boom on a rock album without sounding like some sort of fake synth-rap thing.

Sincerely,
Sol Marquardt - Sol.Marquardt@PSS.Boeing.com