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To Port or Not To Port

Started by Jay Northrop, April 13, 2014, 09:43 PM

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Jay Northrop

I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts are about not porting the front bass drum head. For my live kits I leave a port hole for the ease of miking the kit at shows. For the practice kit in the band room I have the Kelly Shu internal mic mount in my bass. My issue is my guitar player ( who also does the sound ) seems to insist that I " need " a port hole and not having one is incorrect. What do you all think?

Bart Elliott

The port in the Kick/Bass drum is really for getting the mic inside the drum, to capture that particular sound. However, one does NOT have to port the drum in order to mic it. Numerous professional drummers do not port their Kick/Bass drum ... and even mic it from the front resonant head (not inside).

There's no "right" way with respect to porting or not porting. It all comes down to the sound that YOU want and like.

Another item worth mentioning is that porting the drum will make it less resonant. The bigger the port hole, the more air escapes; less surface area on the resonant head for the air to push against. For the fullest sound, don't port the Kick/Bass drum.

I would encourage you to search the forum here at Drummer Cafe for past threads and discussions on this topic. You'll be able to glean the opinion and insight from others as well.

Matthew Warwick

Bart hit the nail on the head with the idea that there's no "right" way. Just like with tuning, setup, head choices, etc., porting is mostly subjective.

I personally like a small hole (for a 22" bass drum, no bigger than 5"), and I like it offset. While a larger hole will dry up the drum quite a bit, putting the hole in the center can have a similar effect, since the air escapes in direct line with the beater. And although there are different micing techniques, I've heard that due to the pattern of sound in the drum, most prefer not to mic the drum directly in line with the beater.

All I can say is, experiment until you find what fits best for you, and don't be afraid to test out things you normally wouldn't. You might find those things work best for you!  :)

Chip Donaho

I usually put a 4" hole off center. I've experimented and it's usually 4" to 6'' from the edge.  :-\

JeepnDrummer

I like both ported and non-ported, but use ported on all my gigging drums because it's better at cutting through the mix (rock & country).  About 90% of my gigs don't require mics.  One thing I don't like about using non-ported heads is I must tune the batter head differently (much looser) to avoid pedal beater slap-back.