Here’s how I set up a kick drum on the X32 in a real worship mix, running two mics, checking phase, and using a couple of the effects on the board to add body. These are the settings I landed on, so use them as a starting point.
Set your gain and get a level first
I get all my drum inputs hitting around -18 to start, then set the kick level so it feels comfortable in the balance before I dive into the processing. Most of the time I lean on the kick in mic for the main sound, but here I’m running the kick in and the kick out together.
The gate and compressor
On the kick in, the gate is using the key filter set at 60 Hz, which is the fundamental of the drum, so that’s what triggers it to open. I keep the range around 20 dB instead of cutting it all the way off, so the gate sounds natural and doesn’t slam shut. The compressor is on a 4:1 ratio, attack at 15 milliseconds, release at 59, with 3 dB of makeup gain, knocking off between 3 and 6 dB.
Running two mics: check your phase
When you use two kick mics, you have to know whether they’re in phase. If the two mics aren’t hitting at the exact same time, their sound waves clash and you lose low end.
Quick way to check: flip the phase on one mic while both are playing. If you lose a bunch of low end, that’s actually a good sign, because it means it was more in phase the other way, so flip it back. When I did this and flipped the kick out, the low end dropped right out, and flipping it back brought all the body back. So the two mics were already close to in phase.
The Pultec low-end trick
Here’s the fun one. I’ve got a dual Pultec EQ inserted on the kick channel in the effects rack. On the kick in mic I do a low boost and a low attenuate at the same spot, 60 Hz. Boosting and cutting at the same frequency on this EQ creates a weird scooped-mid thing that adds extra body to the kick. I don’t know how much the digital emulation does compared to the real hardware, but it seems to do it a bit, and it’s fun to use. It adds body without much effort.
Bottom line
Get your level, gate on the fundamental, compress to control not crush, check your phase if you’re running two mics, and use the Pultec trick if you want a little extra body. That’s a solid, usable kick.
For the full deep-dive on kick drums from scratch, including a simple EQ formula for beginners, check out my complete X32 kick guide. And the presets are in my X32 preset packs.
