Surprisingly, after tweaking a few settings and volume levels, I've managed to turn a cheap two dollar contact microphone into a bass drum mic.
It hasn't really occurred to me before this point that I've begun to ignite something that I've long thought and pondered and dreamed about. Perhaps I won't see this musical endeavor to its completion by January, but it is a very large stepping stone back onto a path of rediscovering what I've pursued since middle school. I hope I can keep this up for a while. Oh yeah... best fucking buy is a fucking rip off.