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[David Parker]

What mic are  you using?

D6

[David Parker]

That's life when you put acoustic instruments (drums) in the presence of significant stage wash.  If the bass and drum cover the same notes the bass will excite the drum.

This needs to dealt with by stage layout and in extreme cases drum gobo or shield.

JR

PS: Years ago I attended the PASSIC drum industry show. I paid for a booth in the "quiet" part of the hall, and demo'd my drum tuner on a real drum. Even with my tuner not making a peep, in the "quiet" section of the hall, I could read a significant signal coming back from my drum, sympathetically vibrating in response to hundreds of other drums being played in the same building.

I had an 18 in one of my subs start dragging audibly at a show years ago. I unplugged that sub, but it still kept dragging, the cone moving due to the sympathetic vibrations.

[Jason Glass]

I was having trouble with the bass guitar booming the other night. Started cutting lows out of everything on stage. When I turned the low frequencies down in the kick mic, the bass guitar cleaned up. Is it possible the kick mic was picking up the bass guitar! Bassist has a 4-10 cab onstage, not too far from the kick drum, but not right next to it either. I have a gate on the kick, but it might not be set tight enough. Everything sounded better so I left it like that.

Hi David,

One solution is to insert an EQ on the gate sidechain, notch out the troublesome bass guitar frequencies, and adjust your threshold to suit.

[Tommy TK Kennedy]

As a pro drummer that deals with this every night I get frustrated too. Most drummers like their drums 'live' and unwilling to deaden them. Most bass players play with as much lows as they can. To me an easy test to experience the amount of lows coming from the bass is to rest your hand on the floor tom and feel the vibrations. Even with a deadringer on top and 3 napkins w/ gaffers tape AND napkins w/ gaffers on bottom head the vibrations are extensive. My bass drum has a front head but the drum is deadened by 3 towels. My AKG D12 inside the drum pointed away form bass rig definitely picks up the bass guitar lows because I mic my drums in line thru mixer to powered speakers and can hear it. Yes room acoustics, resonant stage[that doesn't become an issue until it gets excited by louder bass], lows from vocal mics, and resonant drums are factors but how the BD mic picks up the bass guitar is always the main one for me.  [Similar issue to mixing around the cymbal bleed thru & the vocal mics]. I have not tried a second out of phase mic as a possibility but I think the best solution is below quote. thanks for letting me share :-) 

The kick drum mic will "pick up" the bass (through the resonance of the kick drum).  It's happened to me a lot.  I remedied the issue by putting a frequency tunable gate on the kick mic.

[David Parker]

As a pro drummer that deals with this every night I get frustrated too. Most drummers like their drums 'live' and unwilling to deaden them. Most bass players play with as much lows as they can. To me an easy test to experience the amount of lows coming from the bass is to rest your hand on the floor tom and feel the vibrations. Even with a deadringer on top and 3 napkins w/ gaffers tape AND napkins w/ gaffers on bottom head the vibrations are extensive. My bass drum has a front head but the drum is deadened by 3 towels. My AKG D12 inside the drum pointed away form bass rig definitely picks up the bass guitar lows because I mic my drums in line thru mixer to powered speakers and can hear it. Yes room acoustics, resonant stage[that doesn't become an issue until it gets excited by louder bass], lows from vocal mics, and resonant drums are factors but how the BD mic picks up the bass guitar is always the main one for me.  [Similar issue to mixing around the cymbal bleed thru & the vocal mics]. I have not tried a second out of phase mic as a possibility but I think the best solution is below quote. thanks for letting me share :-)

in my world, club land, I try to keep things as simple as possible. Now that I know the overly fat bass guitar is sometimes caused by the kick mic picking it up, and if taking some of the fat out of the kick fixes it, then I'm good. After my changes the other night, the kick actually had more attack and came through better, so everything was better. Just one of many possible problems I have to remember in my 59 year old brain! It's aggravating that sometimes I solve a problem and then an hour later remember having had that same problem 10 years ago, with the same fix.

[Marty Atias]

You'll also have the resonance of the stage and the cavity underneath. This can cause everything else on stage to vibrate- mic stands, drums, etc.
There are vibration absorbing pads for bass amps that will not only clean that up, it will tighten the sound of the bass. Pretty remarkable.

[Doug Fowler]

You'll also have the resonance of the stage and the cavity underneath. This can cause everything else on stage to vibrate- mic stands, drums, etc.
There are vibration absorbing pads for bass amps that will not only clean that up, it will tighten the sound of the bass. Pretty remarkable.

Read the rules, fix your display name.

Thank you for your cooperation. 

[Garry Wilson]

I was having trouble with the bass guitar booming the other night. Started cutting lows out of everything on stage. When I turned the low frequencies down in the kick mic, the bass guitar cleaned up. Is it possible the kick mic was picking up the bass guitar! Bassist has a 4-10 cab onstage, not too far from the kick drum, but not right next to it either. I have a gate on the kick, but it might not be set tight enough. Everything sounded better so I left it like that.

I've purchased one of these, which can help at times.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GreatGRAMMA/

[kel mcguire]

I've had this happen to me. Certain stages have dimensions that create modes at the kick drum.  was there bass in the drum wedge? Also if the system EQ was jacked up in combo with the bass player bumping up his EQ along with the bump of the D6..bam.

every so often i'll try the phase reverse.

[David Parker]

I've had this happen to me. Certain stages have dimensions that create modes at the kick drum.  was there bass in the drum wedge? Also if the system EQ was jacked up in combo with the bass player bumping up his EQ along with the bump of the D6..bam.

every so often i'll try the phase reverse.

drummer was on inears, no kick in any of the wedges.

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