Of course using a speaker as a low-frequency microphone is nothing new. When working on the Beatles' "Paperback Writer", Geoff Emerick in April 1966 at Abbey Road Studios recorded Paul McCartney's new Rickenbacker bass guitar and amp using a speaker for a microphone. It was placed right up and close on the bass amp's speaker cone. Engineer Ken Townsend came up with wiring a mic cable to this speaker and, lo and behold, that song's bass sound ended up being one its striking feature as I remember. However, management subsequently reprimanded Townsend for miss-matching impedances---hahaha! Speaker drivers are very low impedance compared to studio microphones.

Avantone's Kick enables this microphone technique easily by using a small 10-inch tom-tom mounted vertically on a regular drum stand. Instead of drumheads, there are (sonically) transparent mesh heads top and bottom used. Inside there is an 18-cm diameter low frequency driver that uses a single continuous press-formed cone. This is the same as used in Avantone's CLA-10 Reference two-way monitors.

The Kick is a moving coil dynamic microphone with a 50Hz to 2kHz frequency response, 6.3-ohm output impedance, and a figure-of-eight polar pickup pattern. I liked the male XLR connector is mounted out of the way on the bottom side of the mic's birch plywood drum shell. Kick comes with a stage-ready, fully adjustable double-braced drum stand and drum key. I found this chromed stand nice looking and it will match any drum kit. I did want Kick to go and adjust a little lower down to the exact center of the bass drum. In addition, I found that I had to use a sandbag on the stand's base to counter-balance the weight of Kick for stability--it is a little precarious on its own.

Avantone Pro Kick Microphone--Side Facing The Kick

I placed Kick exactly in front and center on a 1967 Ludwig 22 X 18-inch kick drum that had no front head. We used a Danmar wood beater. Inside the drum were various cartage blankets and sandbags and also an AKG D112 MKII kick drum mic located also in the same center of the kick drum's diameter and about 8-inches in front of the Avantone Kick. I recorded each mic on separate tracks for separate evaluation.

Because of the difference in distance, the Avantone Kick was slightly late (in time) compared to the closer in D112. In Pro Tools, I tried moving them even closer together and liked that sound as well. The Avantone Kick sounds mostly tonal and very consistent in level and that is a good thing and makes this mic an excellent mixing element to blend along with the D112.

Playing this particular bass drum not hard, I heard much more subsonic deep kick tone--like an 808 sample. And that was what I was looking from the drummer for this track.

But actually many different great sounds are possible with the Avantone Kick microphone and next I will try it on a good-sounding bass guitar amp soon!

Avantone Kick sells for $349 MAP and is a fast, reliable, and most importantly, a great way to record low frequency instruments.