Drummer Cafe Community Forum

My man's been recording my kit back home with his newfangled drum mic set and it all sounds fabulous (even the pinstripes on the toms, almost enough resonance), but compared to the rest of the set the bass drum just thuds. Everything is open ended (bar the snare of course) and I'd like to keep it that way for cost, packing and travelling reasons so I was wondering if there was any way to achieve a more resonant open ended bass drum sound.

Perhaps skins, perhaps tuning, perhaps not bury the beater, but being a loud heel up kind o' guy I can't see that happening for any length of time. It's a 22" of a Pearl Forum kit with a Powerstroke 3 skin. My initial thoughts are to try a straight Emporer skin on it with maybe a little higher tuning, which for the Emporer should keep a good note still, but any thoughts or suggestions here are welcome. Including heartfelt plea's for me to just get a freakin' reso head, it may be what I've always wanted, but don't want.

You can get plenty of "openness" with the Aquarian SuperKick 1 on the batter and an Ambassador sans mic hole on the front.  Don't muffle the kick and don't bury the beater.  That's about as open as you can get.  That's what I use and I love the sound.

Just one other word.....
The bass drum can be one of the most difficult drums to record well.
Try and get your set up right for your own ears. If it still doesn't sound right after recording, you might need to adjust your set up, or look again at the recording method.
Sometimes a bass drum'll sound bad in a certain room, no matter what heads you use, or how well it's recorded.

Not remotely a heartfelt plea, but a recomendation.  Yes, get a resonant side head.   At least for recording.

The Powerstroke batter should be fine as long as its in ok shape.  

And you're right, burying the beater isnt helping.  You might want to consider tightening your pedal springs and moving your bass an inch or two forward.  By having your bass a little ahead of you, your foot will move further back on the footboard of the pedal.  That and the tighter springs will make it easier to allow the beater to come back.

Hmmm, for sure, that's what I do for playing really light stuff (brushes light). But if you wanna play Good Times Bad Times at 300dB, how do you do that without makin' it a giant warbling fart? Practise, practise and more practise I spose. Nuts.

Good stuff though, I especially like the idea of a recording reso. Cheers guys.