speaker as microphone for kick drum

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tim-burns

Active member
Joined
Oct 30, 2005
Messages
31
Location
London
any one tried a speaker as mic for kick drum?
yamaha make one but it sounds to me like an ideal DIY thing. i'm sure thats how it started...

would you be able to just plug the coil wires straight in to a mic pre and go, or would you need some sort of transformer?

cheers
T
[/b]
 
out of interest how did you mount it? i seen them done in old snare shells... what about shock mounting for the 'capsule'
 
I just use heavy duty rubber bands looped through the speaker mounting holes and attached to the front lugs of the kick. (But that may not work with a 15" speaker)
 
What i usually do:
I've got a spare NS-10 woofer, a normal K&M stand fits thru the mounting hole filts perfectly then i screw on the disctance-ring on the mic-stand..
that holds the speaker in place just fine and you can place it anywhere you want.., wired up to pins 2&3 and it works perfectly...
I also use it in live-situations avery once in a while..

Greetz
Remco
 
Ns10 woofers work awesome for that application. I've been trying to find one for a decent price, but ebay has made those things sell for ridiculous prices.
 
Mine is a Radio Shack 8" 'full range' speaker that I got for $8 when they discontinued their speaker parts. I put the leads of the speaker through half the windings of a transformer from a DOD passive direct box (very cheap), in reverse for step-up.

I don't know what the ratio is of this transformer, as I can find no info on it, however I'm guessing it's at least an 8:1 or maybe 10 or 12:1. There was a center tap, so I just used half the windings.

It sounds phenomenal layered with a second, internal mic.

To mount it just used the box it came in.... cut a hole and used screws to mount the speaker. I punched another hole and put an XLR connector on it, so I can plug it in just like a regular old mic.

I don't know if the transformer was necessary, but I had it already, and it sounded better this way, so I used it.

I actually think one of the reasons it sounds better through the transformer is probably because it is so cheap. I'm sure there is all kinds of phasing going on in the low frequencies, which would make them a bit more noticable without the need for eq (that is only my assumption based on the idea of the BBE sonic maximizers, which alter LF phasing to make them more pronounced without having to increase level). That is my guess anyway.

In any event, it's cheap and sounds great. I love to watch the faces of clients when I show them the difference of the kick sound with and without it. By itself the thing sounds like absolute poop, but when you remove it from the overall mix, the weight and solidity of the kick just disappears. If you haven't built one of these, you really need to. WELL worth the effort!

JC
 
I made one using an NS-10 speaker & it's super duper :green:

It really needs NO EQ & is VERY tight & compressed sounding because it takes a lot to get the speaker moving. Bleed thru doesn't seem to be a problem either. The frequency sits somewhere around 80hz on mine but I think that would/could change with different speakers. I'd like to see mine closer to 60 to 65hz but it's cool. I usually place it about 1-2 inches from the head & off center, towards one side. It definitly needs a pad. I put a pot on line with mine to adjust it but I'd like to know if there is a better method.


Kevin


EDIT: I should have read the above post better... maybe a transformer is the way to go to knock this thing down, it's way too hot for a mic input.

Please comment if you have a better method for doing this.
 
What would happen if you made a subkick speaker out of a 2-way speaker (like a car stereo speaker for example)? Would the crossover pass both the high and low frequencies the same way in reverse? Would the high and low frequencies mix properly on the other side of the crossover? Maybe rip out the crossover and then add a 2x1 passive mixer to sum the woofer and tweeter signals? Just thinking out loud.

-Chris
 
Well, not high per say, but perhaps a bit more of the click than you might get with just a woofer. I need to mention, I've never used a speaker for a kick mic, but what I gather from reading in the forums is that they are very low without any top end and that they need an additional internal mic to give the definition. Perhaps a more realistic config would be a 3-way speaker with the woofer and midrange doing the work. No, I'm not looking for any 16K on my kick :green:
 
Well, mine is a 'full-range' speaker that is spec'd up to 18kHz (according to the box). However, I think it is simply incapable, from a practical perspective, of picking up anything significantly higher than LF, I guess because of the sheer mass of the thing.

I don't use hardly any eq at all... none most of the time, and I don't get any HF with it, despite its 'full-range' design.

Even with radical eq it is absolutely necessary to use a second mic.... it just sounds terrible by itself. But in tandem with an internal mic......

mmmmmmmmm.........

:green:

JC
 
I think the idea here is to eq your kick so what goes in goes out, thats why so many people like the ns-10 here.
Maybe a cheap jeep trunk woofer would be a good choice.
If you're recording kick with a 6 inch woofer, the 6 inch woofer will move air just about the same on playback. you aren't trying to push ultra low frequency that makes the 6 inch woofer scream and cry. :cool:

it's definately going to roll off hard once the waves start getting small... just not enough air moving, so tweeters won't do much good.

kelly
 
[quote author="Emperor-TK"]So how does a 1" driver differ that much from a dynamic microphone?[/quote]

I'd think the magnet would be the first difference... Impedence, output gain etc...

Hey, I like your"note to self" :green:
 
I don't think using a 2way speaker system for this is a good idea when you've got loads of good mic's lying around. The woofer is a large membrane setup that can do something most dynamic mic's cannot becaus it has a lower resonant frequency than most dynamics. If you want to pick up additional high frequency "click" you're better off using something like an MD421 (my favorite for kick) alongside the woofer. You'll have to play around with some eq and switching phase to get it right.
 
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