The FET design of the Bomblet works to give a musical balance of thud, snap, and weight to the kick resulting in a nice chesty attack that cuts through a mix in almost a “pre-mixed” way. The Bomblet is simply a natural pairing here as it delivers a thick low-end push without getting lost in pillowy transients. While a mic inside the kick drum can accentuate the click and attack of the beater, the outside mic can capture an organic and rounded representation of the drum itself and can be the glue in your kit with its solid low-end. When looking for a full-bodied and realistic tone, placing a mic outside the bass drum is the perfect way to make the kick both heard and felt. If it sounds too dead, make sure nothing is inside of the kick drum or try tuning it to sound better in your space. If your kick sounds too boomy in the room, try putting a pillow inside of it that touches the resonant head.

That could be a few inches away or a few feet away depending on the sound that you’re trying to capture. The first rule is to listen to the kick in the room. Every spot is going to give a significantly different sound. You can place your mic a few inches away or a few feet away. You can put the mic inside of the porthole, outside of the porthole, to the side on the resonant head, or pointing towards the beater. There are tons of different ways to mic a kick drum. Sculpting just this part of your drum tone has a big impact on how the overall song is felt and perceived. The Kick drum can be the driving force of power, rhythm, and movement in your production.

And it has a natural midrange to grab the meet of your kick. It starts rolling off at 15kHz which allows it to capture the perfect amount of top-end while ignoring pesky cymbal bleed. The Bomblet was tailor-made to record the kick drum sound that you want to hear. Most kick drum microphones capture some lows, scoop out most of the mids, and boost the top end to give an exaggerated clicky sound. There is a reason the kick drum was originally called the bass drum and the Bomblet helps it live up to its name. The Bomblet was designed with a significant bump at 100Hz– the exact frequencies that give your kick drum the oomph and feel you’re always looking for. To make matters more complicated, there are not many single microphones that can capture all of the details that a kick drum produces– which is exactly why the Bomblet was created. Not only does a kick drum cover the whole frequency spectrum in great detail, but their sound also changes drastically depending on where you’re standing in a room. How many times have you put up a microphone to find that your recording sounds nothing at all like the sound you’re hearing in the room? It has the lowest of the lows, a thick midrange, and often, a bitey top end. Kick drum is one of the most difficult instruments to record.

How to make a bass drum