Bass drum examples. Anyone got some?

Posted on Feb 09, 2006 09:19 am
Bryan316
Member Since: Sep 23, 2005

Okay. If you're familiar with Dream Theater, you'll probably agree that Mike Portnoy has one helluva sound to his drums, and his bass drums are what I'm really interested in probing.

I've heard plenty of albums with very different sounding bass drums. Examples: Dave Lombardo's very quick yet booming kicks in Slayer. Bob Daisley's subdued and deep kicks with Ozzy's first two solo albums. Lars Ulrich's sharp attack and twappy punch on MetallicA's ...And Justice For All. Ray Herrera's tight-as-all-getout kicks in Fear Factory (yeah I know they're digital in the studio). Most modern power metal drums like Manticora or Iced Earth or Dragonforce with their very high-pitched attack and lotsa low end underneath, which helps with ultra-fast playing so you can actually hear their attack.

But of all the kick drums I've heard through the years, Mike Portnoy's sounds so damn perfect. They sound booming strong slow and steady for a basic rock beat, and accurate and tight for speed metal style playing and fast triplet fills. Don't have an example handy, but there's a Google Video of some video game that has John Petrucci's solo material as a soundtrack, and it's the best example of Portnoy's drums that I can find online right now. Listen to how precise and quick, yet deep and heavy his kicks sound during his improv fills in the intro.






I wanna learn a bit more about the differences between a before and after example. What does a natural properly setup and tuned bass drum with good quality heads and good pedal beaters sound like. What does a compressed, gated, EQ'ed, cleaned up final product sound like.

Does anyone have any examples? Can someone do up an example? It's one thing to talk about frequencies, and compression settings, and mix levels, but to hear the actual before and after sound samples is something I've never been able to compare. I think it'll be far more helpful that way. Cuz you can probably follow the changes when you hear the actual results from beginning to end.

Who's with me on this one?

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