Didgeridoo BASS GENERATION Part 1- Some questions about „kick- didge“

This is the introductory chapter of new didgeridoo generation of sounds, starting with didgeridoo bass generation of „kick-didge“. Didgeridoo players are very welcome to fill in the poll and leave the comment below about the tests presented here.

The Great Motivation…

After recording Kosmopterix many new questions about playing, making didgeridoos and recording didgeridoo arose. Even more so after recording Dronas as my knowledge has somewhat expanded. Now that I consider recording a new album these questions have become very crucial in my didgeridoo evolution.

The Story of Orchestra…

The story goes like this; Now all or most contemporary didgeridoo players that have certain experience in didgeridoo playing and sound will agree on the statement that „didgeridoo is a whole orchestra“. Especially if we apply the principles of parallel playing. But what does it mean? Is it just a fairytale and are we all children who need to grow up? What does it mean in practice? We are obviously speaking with certain dose of metaphor. We do not have to discuss if didgeridoo sounds exactly like string quartet or rock band. It does not. So again and again there is this crucial question „What does whole orchestra mean?“.  What does it mean sound-wise and music-wise?

Intro into the BASS-ics…

This  is a story difficult to unfold as it is difficult to find an anchor to start from. I chose to approach it firstly and primarily sound-wise, while having the playing & technique overview in the background. Since we have to start from the bass-ics, we will start from the famous didgeridoo bass sound.  I was in Kramasonik studio last week and did a few hours of tests about generation of didgeridoo bass,  with special emphasis on the search of the bass drum or kick drum in didgeridoo.  Called the „kick-didge“ 😉

An example of didge-bass waveform

About the test…

The concept of the test was to take four different didgeridoos and four different techniques that have bass drum feeling to some extent. Record and compare  these sixteen combinations. I did not put special effort into miking the didgeridoos. I used two microphones, Royer R122V and vintage AKG C12, both going through Forsell SMP-2 preamp and PrismSound converter. First three recordings were done at 4cm distance,the fourth at 8 cm distance as it made more sense. I would not elaborate about the didgeridoos and techniques, as I do not want you to make any mental conclusions, only listening.

The test with 4 different didgeridoos and 4 different bass drum techniques

About the result…

I will give my comparison observations and conclusions in next chapter, as again, I don’t want to influence you at this point. Now I only give you recordings and kindly ask to fill the holes in the polles below this. Different sounds within every recording are called A, B ,C, D and each sound is played twice.

Didgeridoo Bass drum test – Didgeridoo 1 – Sounds A B C D

Didgeridoo Bass drum test – Didgeridoo 2 – Sounds A B C D

Didgeridoo Bass drum test – Didgeridoo 3 – Sounds A B C D

Didgeridoo Bass drum test – Didgeridoo 4 – Sounds A B C D

Overall biggest bass didgeridoo

Please feel free to drop your comment about anything you have noticed in the recordings. I would especially appreciate if you elaborate a little bit on which sound you find most/least harmonious, most/least powerful, most/least interesting… or whatever comes to your mind.

You will find out which didgeridoo is which, which technique is which, and how they compare to the real kick drum in the next chapter. Soon. Only on the channel of… www.lapaine.com 😉

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