Turtlerock Forum

Anyone using one of these? Store-bought or home-made?

I made up one using a 10" guitar cab speaker I bought new... not the best choice nor the best sound I have to say. It's EXTREMELY sensitive to anything, the lows it picks up are a bit too low for any reasonable use and it has a small crackle at the transient that drives me bonkers.. I need to pull that thing back out and mess with it a bit.

I think that Yammie uses the same speaker as is in their NS10's so I'm thinking a smaller, less-stiff coned speaker might suit me better.

Suggestions anyone?

Yep, NS10 is the way to go.

i have seen alot of yamaha ones but never used one myself

what about that extra bigpassive radiator dw have that sits in front of a bass drum
looks like another drum
anybody had experience with them ?

rick wrote:i have seen alot of yamaha ones but never used one myself

what about that extra bigpassive radiator dw have that sits in front of a bass drum
looks like another drum
anybody had experience with them ?

Sympathetic vibrations I think.. Never used one and to my way of thinking they seem more of a gimmick than anything.. Kind of like their 23" kicks... Nice in theory, but I'd hate to try and find a head for it in Podunk, NSW in a hurry.

looks cool though. Just mount a mic in the big kit for live stuff.. more drums is always cool! Too bad we seem to have gotten away from that..

For sub kick i use an old rola 12 inch from time to time

Yes the DW thing is a little gimmicky.
It does work. You can do the same by placing a second bass drum in front of the one you're recording.
It acts a bit like a tunnel, but you need less damping to get that low rumble.

I got one of the first Yamaha subkiks when they were originally released - about 6 years ago.
I used it heaps for a while, but now it sits lonely in the corner.......
I keep thinking that If I cant get a nice low end using mic's then I should give up.
I have not used it for about 3 years and I've never missed it.

I have recently used an NS-10 speaker as a supplementary to my usual mic setup and it worked well for one album and sucked for the other. I think it really depends on the kick and of course the style of music. I've also found there can also be nasty transient distortion and a pad is imperative.

What are the advantage/disadvantages of using a sub-kick mic over rhythmic gating?

Lee - do you mean gating a tone from the kik?
If so - there is a lot more dynamics and tonal changes from a played kick drum than a gated tone.
A hard hit kik is different in pitch to a gently hit kik (like all drums).
I also used to do the tone trick - but a subkick is much more real sounding.

Yer Chris that's what I meant. I'm glad I asked that question (and that you answered it). It seems that certain productions would benefit from either method. There is another tool in the belt, Thanks Chris.

Its definitely a cool thing to use in electronic music.
That's when tuning the kik tone to the song really works.

I just read the yamaha subkick manual and it has a 50Hz to 2000Hz frequency response. I haven't listened to one yet. How much of that signal do you find you use? ie, scooping the mids or filtering?

We used a sub-kik type approach (actually rewired speaker) on the last two projects.
All it really does is add a low tone you can blend with your main bass drum sound.
KInda like adding a sine wave, except as someone said it's more dynamic and tied naturally to the bass drum being played.
I'm the drummer not the engineer, but I think we crept the sub-kik tone in just so it was apparent, not really recognisable. If you get great bass drum tones with your regular set up, a sub-kik is a luxury..... but why not?
It's more useful if you suffer from lack of low end, or struggle to achieve bigness.

I have both Yamaha subkick and ns10 speaker setup. I use one on the kick and one on the bass amp.
As Chris mentioned just using a small amount will give the kick some of that nice big body to the sound.
I tend to always gate the subkick... not because of spill.... but to tighten the sound up and shorten the length of the wave. Fits like a glove whenever I do this.

As an alternative to a subkick I've been triggering an orchestral bass drum sample to fill out the BD bottom end a bit more - using a 2nd trigger on my converted a-kit (yikes yes - 2 triggers on each BD) - there's more than one way to skin a cat (drum)

I've got a homemade NS10 subkick - it's moderately useful but I think the official Yamaha subkicks have more tone, a subkick made from a woofer is extremely subby, like up to 45Hz or so. You don't need a pre either, just send it straight into a compressor like a 160.

I don't think they're that great because you can get just as much sub from a good microphone, and the mic signal then is infinitely more useful. If you want subs from the kick, you just wind in 63Hz (and cut 45... ).

What a subkick is really useful for is triggering kick samples, as it has virtually no bleed from other drums.

Just my 2c. If anyone is in the inner west of Sydney and wants to try out a subkick, you're more than welcome to borrow it.

Chris