I use a ported head about half the time. I cut it myself in about the same spot you did about 15 years ago. I used one of those adhesive rings and just hacked it with a razor knife. Ha! Your way is much better, but my jagged little port has held up.
I have a DDrum Dios Edition Kit. The kick came with two port holes beside each other just below the middle of the reso head.. Never really understood why until I saw a few drummers using a moon mic or sub kick on the other port hole at some performances. But it sounds pretty awesome
Excellent video. I use an aquarian regulator with a 7in center cut hole. I recently switched to the larger hole in hopes of getting less sustain and more punch, and this video confirms that; great work guys!
Had a house kit with an 18” bass. The sound engineers wanted to put a hole in the reso for better mic isolation. 😲 I was able to talk them out if it, explaining that what little low end the drum had would be gone with a port. We ended up mounting the mic inside with a shu mount and then drilling a hole on the side of the drum to mount an XLR jack. Got all the low end possible and excellent mic isolation-plus perfectly consistent mic placement!
I don’t play drums but I’m the worship and tech director at our church. You guys have quickly become my favorite place for learning about other instruments (drums here) that I don’t play. Keep up the awesome content!
Glad to hear it, Bradley! Please consider joining our Patreon to support our efforts so that we may continue to create insightful and actionable content for the drumming community: www.patreon.com/soundslikeadrum
My Japanese wife is an ER nurse. She is great with her hands. She cut a 5-inch hole for me on my Pearl logo 24-inch smooth white Ambassador head. Perfection! I then put a Gibraltar chrome ring on it. Beautiful! It's a 1978 Pearl kit. 24, 18, 16, 14, 13, and 12. I highly recommend a Japanese nurse. Haha! True story. Great video once again! So glad to not hear about stupid heated soup cans.
I have a theory as an audio engineer about kick reso head port. So essentially the port acts like throat of a CD(Converging-Diverging) nozzle, which means air pressure is converted to velocity of air molecule at the port location. But since there’s no nozzle flare after this point unlike rocket engines, the velocity will instantly decrease right after the port. This can explain perfectly placed dynamic mics near the port will capture great bass frequency response with nice efficiency, because Cardioid/Fig8 dynamic mics are basically sensitive to air molecules’ velocity. Most condenser mics are more sensitive to air pressure, so these kinds of mics tend to sound thinner near the port. To maximize this CD effect, you need to have reasonably small port, and having the port off-center makes the note more defined. Think about timpani. You need to hit off-center to get well-defined pitched sound. Having the off-centered start of a membrane’s vibration creates this well defined fundamental tone. So the key to record well-defined kick sound is having reasonably small off-centered port and a perfectly placed close dynamic mic. Note that port size needs to be adjusted according to kick's internal volume, and the mic has to be at pressure-velocity conversion point.
I "cut" my holes by heating up a metal can on the stove and melting it through. creates a bit of a bead on the edge, which holds up pretty good, I've had blade-cut holes rip before.
I personally do not like porting a front head but it has a great advantage in the recording setting for sure. I have stock ported heads that I use at a practice space from time to time but yeah. physically I prefer when the bass drum is punching and kicking the air towards me when I play through solid front head :)
You know you've answered a question that has perplexed me ever since purchasing an unported kick. (sonor SQ1). Thanks so much, very grateful and please keep the reviews rolling.
One of my favorite topics! I used to be a little to no reso guy but lately I've been enjoying the extra tone of a ported reso. I've tried again and again every few years and I just don't get into the no Port reso sound and feel. I don't always bury the beater but I like the option and always miss the punch with no port. I was an Emad fan until I found the eq4, favorite bass head so far.
You can buy plastic reinforcement rings that you stick to the inside of the reso head and then you can use the plastic ring itself as your template for cutting the hole with a razor blade or exacto blade. Its fast and easy and helps the head last longer.
Perfect timing! I just purchased a new Evans Emad reso head with a 4” port...which is a little too small to accommodate my Kickport. Good to see I still have options!
I'm watching a lot of your great videos at the moment whilst I am experimenting with the sound of my Natal acrylic kit. It's a 22" x 18" bass drum, with a Remo UT batter head with a damping ring, and a clear Natal logo non branded reso head, which feels like a 10ml single ply with no damping ring. I have cut a 6" port in it myself bottom left. With both heads tuned quite low I'm getting a reasonable amount of slam out of the drum with no internal damping at all. Putting a small pillow inside the head even with minimal contact to the reso head completely kills the drum! However, with no internal muffling there is a slight ring to the reso head which I have found I can completely eliminate with a small moon gel pad placed close to the reso hole, leaving an extremely powerful punchy controlled sound. One question that would be nice to have seen answered, is, would a stick on reinforcing ring (generally foam backed) achieve this same result without the need for unsightly moon gel pads?
Great advice guys. I use an old set of engineers dividers sharpened up to cut ports in my reso heads. 5" port hole seems to work for me. I'm currently using Powerstroke 3 Batter and Reso on my 22" × 18" Bass Drum and it sounds awesome. No internal muffling . Also on my 22" × 16" shells. I'll be trying the Emads next time around. Heard some good things about them. Great work 👍
I use unported reso heads. It's all in the tuning. My Sonor force 2007 birch 18x17.5 kick drum sounds like a punchy, ported 20" kick drum. Same thing for my 20x14 vintage Star (pre Tama) bass drum. Powerstroke 3 clears and ebony reso all around. Then again, I'm playing bars and clubs, not theaters or larger places, which would require some more control. Once again, Great demo guys !👍💪
I've got a 10" hole in my 20" kick clear 1 ply reso with the circumference just barely skirting where the head hits the bearing edge. makes it really easy to bring things in and out of the bass drum. it also allows a cool sound by putting an 8" diy subkick right in so the cone is parallel to the surface of the head with a smaller mic inside to get the click.
I'm a jazz player and prefer 20" bass drums. I've found the Acquarian ported head, with the muffling ring around the port to give me a good compromise between a rich full low end, that is still articulate enough to allow the precise syncopation I play on the bass drum. It's a 7" port , dead center which gives what has been described to me as a "woofy" sound in the near field. Perfect live unmiked and makes mike adjustments (I place it inside the drum) very easy. Never had a problem in the studio with this setup.
I use ported bass drums for the most part, some precut and some cut afterwords, I would just recommend that you be careful with a manually ported (or any ported bass drum head really) because there can be sharp edges involved when you're reaching around to adjust a blanket or other muffling system. (if you use them) Just a thought.
I use an 18” kick drum with an emad batter and a ported Remo Smoke reso. Thinking about using a non ported to get some deep end. No muffling needed because of my switch to the emad.
I stick the Aquarian ring to the inside of the head and cut around it with an Exacto knife. The ring is way tougher than the head so I can sort of ride the blade on it if I don’t push too hard using a sort of “paring knife” grip. I’ve found my 20” Sonor SQ2 thick shell Beech bass with no muffling rings on the perimeter of either head likes a port. Super punchy with only a rolled up towel touching each head to kill “pingy” overtones. My 18” Sonor SQ2 “vintage” (medium weight round bearing edge beech shell with reinforcing rings) hates ported reso heads. It does rather like 1/8” holes punched about 2.5 inches in from each lug. Same deal with a little bit of towel muffling. Leather punches are useful little things.
4" port with a plastic hole protector at about the 4'oclock position, stock pearl reso head with out band logo, also use a pillow . love your channel! really like that you show guys its ok to have some tone!! duck tape & cotex pads are the worst LOL
I was wondering for a couple oficial days before this vídeo how a port could affects to a floor Tom reso head. I think it would be an interesting experiment. Congrats for your channel from Spain
As a sound Tech had a drummer ones who drilled a port in de side of the shell. Made mic placement easy but can't remember if the sound was any good. Was 20 odd years ago, never seen that after.
I think I've seen all your vids. If you have gotten into the way you record, that would really be interesting. Your vids have been super helpful to my sound.
I use ported. No port, for me, is too boomy, hard to adjust muffling (though I like minimal muffling), and I don't think the mic'd sound is as good. I like a nice, round THUMP with a little sustain, lots of punch and good low end, but not a rumble per se. So I LOVE EMAD batters with minimal damping inside, and an EQ4 or similar reso with a port. I think my 22" has an old EMAD reso, very similar to the EQ4, with a 4.5" port. My 18" Gretsch, which I also use for pop-rock, needs to be as low as possible. I left the logo head unported for a while, but for the reasons mentioned eventually cut a 4" hole and installed a HOLZ ring to protect the edge. Sounds great.
In my opinion if you port the head yourself make the port on the top half of the head instead of the down half. Its easier like that to get a mic inside closer to the batter head as you dont need the mic stand to go super low, so the boom of the mic stand can go in at almost a 90 degree angle.
That’s certainly something to consider if you’re going to be booming a mic all the way into the drum and want to keep the logo at the bottom (rather than just rotating the head as needed). -Ben
made a 6in port on my 26in eq3 reso head to the lower right of the head, or lower left if you are sitting behind the kit. Coated emad on the batter with a narrow muffle ring and felt strip on the reso. Nothing else. Sounds great. I think I might need to some more internal muffling when recording just for a tighter kick. I guess that all depends on what sound u are going for.
Here's a question, when tuning a ported head, how do you guys do it? Do you need to compensate for the "short" side of the head where the hole is to prevent excess overtones?
An odd question but one I'm sure you fellow drummers would know about. I have a kick drum that is internally mic'ed, it's a 24x24 with the mic about 2 inches or maybe less from the batter head, and both heads are completely intact, no port. Where the mic in this case is positioned almost exclusively for attack, would there be any point at all in porting the reso acoustically? The only reason I'm interested is to change the feel (a 24x24 is basically like trying to throw your foot into a pillow), but I didn't know if there's any kind of acoustic advantage to it at this point. Also, if I can spare myself from buying a new head after a failed experiment that would be great...Would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this! Love the channel as always!
Thanks for your support, Elijah! Please double check to make sure that your Patreon account is all set- we don’t have you listed as a patron of Sounds Like a Drum at this time.
Hey guys! What’s the difference between a Center port and an off Center port? I’m wanting to experiment with a Center port but don’t wanna ruin a good head :/ thoughts?? Ps. Love your show! Thanks for all the great tips :)
I'm getting ready to record so I'm going to port my Evans calftone, I'm doing a 4" hole and its a 16x15" Sonor AQ2 safari kick drum. Where is the best placement for this size? The great folks from evans sent me a 4" emad porthole piece!
Have you guys come across the Sonitus Kicker? More in line with your kick drum muffling episodes, but I was really surprised by how effective it was... Looks like it should utterly kill your resonance, but it somehow has hit the balance of bloom & attack.
I've seen this online a couple of times but have never had the chance to experiment with it in person but it makes perfect sense as it's a commercial product version of the concept of installing acoustic foam inside a bass drum. This will often help with that "basketball-like sound" that can be a menace with some drums. -Ben
These instructionals are really helpful... you guys are awesome! I just wanna ask, coz i've been using a 16" kick, will i also get the same result if i ported a hole on my reso head? I'm using ludwig breakbeats by questlove and rhe stock heads are remo that already has dampener rings inside them. Ever since i got the kit, i notice there's this annoying bounce i get from the kick whenever i bury my beater. And that's how i really play. I'm really used to burying the beater. As i've watched some tutorials, i discovered that it might be because the reso head might not be ported and the air inside the drum might be the cause of that. Will i be able to eliminate that issue by doing this? Thanks so much! God bless!
Hey there! Yes this will have a similar effect but be careful about the size of the port if you do it and make a relatively small one, a small breakbeat style kit is going to need all the help it can get generating low-end. Luckily 16" heads aren't super expensive so experimenting won't be a huge cost if you end up needing to try a couple different heads. Good luck! -Cody
@@SoundsLikeADrum Thanks cody... what about the annoying rebound i get when i bury the beater? Does having a port hole eliminate that issue? Coz i've been used to burying the beater when i play. Thanks in advance!
eventually i started using a so called 'kick-port' as it resembles a port like in a sub-woofer. then for dramatic effect started using a port that replaces the front-reso-head altogether that is shaped like a trumpet with a port that is at least 8 inches. forgot the name,,megaport or so. i kid myself it sounds great, a lot of punch for sure. anyone else an opinion?? i have bungeed a mike in there with a kelly-shu bracket for easy hookup too. i remember the drum sounding great with none of these modifications too, but when gigging it was just too difficult to get it 'adapted' to each room.
4” holz somewhere between the 4 and 5 o’clock position on all bass drums 22 inches and up. My 18 and 20 inch bass drums get no port with the mics permanently mounted inside.
At some point I read on the internet that a port bigger than 6" is just like having no reso head and that a port smaller than 3" is like not having a port at all, is this true ??
Having a larger port will get you closer to the sound of not having a reso but hard and fast "rules" like this are rarely true. There's likely a law of diminishing returns o either end of the spectrum but if this statement were true with regards to ports smaller than 3", then why would drum builders bother to add a small grommet in the shell? The smallest modification can still have great impact. Allowing air to escape (especially if that's where a mic is being placed) will always impact the sound to some degree. -Ben
Totally functional and potentially easier to tune due to the symmetry. Not necessarily the same benefits as far as easy access to the interior or miking but another great option to consider. -Ben
I’ve done it several times. You have a o get the can nice and hot to do it cleanly. Oh, and good luck finding a metal coffee can these days. FWIW, I was an audio engineer/instrument tech and not a drummer. I’ve done the stick on guide style too. I’m interested in trying the circle cutter. Nice hole without the weight of the reinforcement ring. I think in a decade plus of live audio I tore 1 unreinforced resonant head with a Mic stand.
@@mikeslay3294 I’ve seen too many torn heads (because of careless drummers/techs) to not put reinforcement rings in them. I have the Gibraltar cutting jig and it works fantastic. I use it in every head I own and for the drum I build for other people.
I have a 20 inch bass drum reso (ludwig). want to apply/cut porthole to easily put in (and remove) muffling. what size do you recommend? is 4 inch too small for that?
Have't used the product before so we can't speak from experience. As far as the patches for the batter side, those are for protecting the batter head as well as (in some cases) intentionally altering the tone of the drum (typically for more attack). -Ben
Sounds Like A Drum oh great. Thanks! I’ve always been told by the powers that be that you shouldn’t cut port holes bigger than 5” in 22” bass drum heads. But it seems to work and sound great in your video. I guess they were wrong?
Sounds Like A Drum just checking: can you still get the reso head to play a part in the sound mix with a 6” port hole cut into it? Always been told you shouldn’t go bigger than 5”. Thank you for you time 🙏🏿
Hey Sam! Thanks so much. There are a few reasons that we choose to stick with Evans heads exclusively for our Tuesday Tutorials: 1. We simply like them. We appreciate the design elements that make them unique along with the quality control and find that they do a excellent job of providing the experience we're looking for. 2. Ben used to work for the company and knows the products inside and out, which makes for a unique degree of expertise that few other people can offer (one of the elements that makes this channel unique is professionals speaking with expertise from experience). 3. Evans/D'Addario expressed their support for what we were doing literally from day one. They've provided the heads we've used throughout Season Two and for that we are incredibly grateful. They're easy to work with and we're able to get heads delivered the next day every time we place an order. That being said, most of the methods covered in these tutorials can be applied to any brand and no one should feel deterred because they're not using the same model/brand of drumhead(s) though there are certainly elements that may vary based on the gear you're using. We've spoken with representatives from both Remo and Aquarian in the past and, while they've expressed an initial interest in getting involved with some of other videos outside of the Tuesday series, we haven't received responses to follow up communication. Hopefully something can happen in the future. If you're interested in seeing alternative options in our other videos, we recommend contacting those companies and expressing an interest directly. Cheers!
"We'd like to thank our presenting sponsor, D'Addario." D'Addario owns the Evans and Pro-Mark marques, so they're kind of restricted to using those products instead those made by the sponsor's competition.
@Raymond Kingston- To be clear, Promark is the Presenting Sponsor for the Tuesday Tutorials (not D'Addario as a whole). This is separate from our Production Partnership arrangement with Evans, even though the two brands are under the same parent company. Evans does not provide any monetary support. -Ben
I believe that laying the head on a piece of plywood would be much more comfortable and might also give you a better results. The pin in the wood will set there more stiff and the head wouldn't go up and down as you cut through it.
+soundslikeadrum *I've a situation that needs heavy heads both sides of the kick.* At OMS Japanese Christian, the YAMAHA® BD922Y (part of an RY2T4 kit) has an integrally edge damped AQUARIAN® batter (a previous rehead), and I pressed a pre-L360 EVANS®/D'Addario® BD22GB3 batter into resonant service; I've an overprojection problem to solve The 'GB3 packs dual damping rings on the bearing-edge side, unlike most EVANS® kick resonants (e.g. the BD22RCBG-NP and BD22REMAD shown this vid).
Tube lugs have less contact with the shell but also tend to transfer more energy from the batter hoop to the reso hoop. These often have less mass overall but may not necessarily transfer as much energy to the shell from hoop vibration. There are all sorts of other little differences depending on the particular design and circumstance but these are all very subtle effects. -Ben
A studio is my area does that with their kick and it records super nice, lots of attack and punch. The guy who owns the place also uses the classic D112 + FET 47 combo
A classic option! We love the sound of the 5” port on the Evans EQ3 Coates White Reso. Further comparisons with such other port products will likely be reserved for Patreon exclusive content.
This is THE tool for cutting a hole into a bass drum front head: www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HOLECUTTER--bass-drum-os-hole-cutter-for-bass-drumheads
That seems like an excellent option! Have't tried it ourselves but if you're looking for a dedicated tool for cutting ports, that looks like a super inexpensive solution.
Try micing the batter head for more attack. Or even microporting the centre of the reso head. If you can see the contact point of the beater, you can point a mic at it. Stop listening to lazy engineers....
