DIY Kick Drum Speaker Sub Mic

[Victor CiampiniParticipant]

Hi, fun little EASY project. My drummer had a really old pair of standard consumer wooden enclosed hifi speakers about 6.5" in diameter and circa early 70s. Simply removed the speaker wires from the connections, stripped the proper end of an xlr cable and connected the 2 leads to the speaker, and voila kick drum sub speaker mic! The wooden enclosure lets you simply sit it in front of the kick on the floor and it works great. If you don't have one hanging around, just hit up a garage sale or thrift store to find something cheap.

Cheers,

Vic

[scott]

That's great!, You're on your way to making a hit record for under $1000.
I'll be posting some stuff soon. Again, it doesn't have to be expensive to be good!

[Steve AParticipant]

NS-10 need not apply, nice!

[Anonymous]

Nice, I'm not really sure how that works, but I am assuming it moves in the opposite way generating a signal.. is that right?

What would it sound like?

Thanks

Archie

[Victor CiampiniParticipant]

Hey Archie,

Yes exactly, it becomes a microphone. It picks up a lot of the sub kick frequencies, or bass cab or whatever else you think it might sound cool with. You wouldn't use it as the only kick mic, but in addition to a more traditional one. I think 6.5" to 8" diameter is considered ideal. There's numerous professional models on the market as well.

Cheers,

Vic

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Victor Ciampini.

[Victor CiampiniParticipant]

Thanks for the comments 3rdstone and Scott. Yah no ns10s here I wish! And totally with you Scott, it's nice to have good stuff but good doesn't always mean expensive. Look forward to seeing more of your diy stuff. Any DIY preamps?

[scott]

Vic, Regarding DIY preamps, It's easier for me to classify how I focus, and what I do as:

a. Work with new circuits or kits that copy the original circuits using new, used or NOS parts. (Good)
b. Get the original product (crazy expensive).
c. Get new products that copy the old, and add some new tricks (very expensive, but rock solid)
c. Get a broken unit and fix it. (still expensive)
d. Get broken studio products that no one pays attention to. (the very best)

So for me, it all started with the RCA handbook and the Neumann Bottle Mic used at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The point is, the answer to great recordings have been around for 70 years, and the circuits are simple and similar.
In my opinion, the cheapest, most used, most famous, and least well known is the preamp in the Scully 280. Banged-up these go for @$100. This is a combo tape mic pre that includes 4 or 5 transformers in the audio path. You'll need to strip the unit down and keep the playback amp card, the blue connector, and the transformers. If you get a good one intact your lucky, but you will need to rig a -22/+22volt power supply to get it to run. You can make a power supply out of 12v APC batteries which take the noise down to almost nothing. "This is" the preamp that was used on countless hit records and was inline after bill putnams mixer, and I think the teltronix la2a compressors at muscle shoals, but nooooo one pays attention to this. The sound of this preamp is rich and powerful, and can drive headphones, DAW, or a vintage amp into classic distortion. It has lots of color because that's what happens when you connect a guitar or mic(coils) to a multi-transformer based mic pre that has transformers so large, they can't even fit into what's out there today; Not to mention they're too expensive to make today.

I'll be posting more dirt-cheap DIY stuff in 30 to 60 days. Sorry for the delay, but I'm getting busy at my day job. Lastly, I don't buy anything that I can't turn right around and sell for close to what I payed for it.
--thx scotty--

[Nick D.Participant]

I built a sub kick a couple years ago. One thing I noticed is that a speaker with higher sensitivity works best, something that will move easier. I used a midbass driver and it sounded good, but i started trying different speakers i had laying around and there was better options. I also like to use them under toms too, depending on the genre.

[Guido tum SudenKeymaster]

One thing I noticed is that a speaker with higher sensitivity works best, something that will move easier.

I can translate this sentence but I cannot apply its meaning to speakers. Could you explain it in numbers, measurement and or models?

Guido

[Nick D.Participant]

Every speaker should have a sensitivity rating, in dB, its usually measured at 1 meter with one watt. So a speaker with a 90dB sensitivity rating requires twice the power of a speaker with a 93dB rating to get the same output. Typically speakers with higher sensitivity have less power handling vs. a similar sized speaker with low sensitivity. What this means is that higher sensitivity requires less power to move the speaker to its maximum output level. Since power relates to voltage the same principle is applied to a microphone diaphragm. Using a speaker as a mic it really is only reproducing the low end, so using it in applications generally needs something with low end or at least moving air. Bass cabs and kick drums are the typical application for using a speaker as a mic. so what you get with a higher sensitivity speaker is a quicker transient response and faster recovery between transients, where as a lower sensitive speaker doesn't have the same transient response with the same signal because it requires more air to move the cone enough to get the same output as the higher sensitive speaker. if you think about sensitivity for microphones it works the same way. Some mics have a quicker transient response than others. You will also need less preamp gain on a higher sensitive speaker because since it is moving more its voltage output is higher.

[todnixxParticipant]

I have no time to build good looking subkick, but i have plastic bottle and LF speaker) So here it is BOTTLESTEIN Subkick )))

[todnixxParticipant]

the face of it )

[Author]

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