[Methlab]

I wanted to make a thread that is a little more deep into kick drum sound design. I think most of us know by now that you need a great sample, what frequencies are best and sidechain compression is key..etc, but there are other things that factor in.

I am going to post a few kicks later that illustrate (IMO) some cool techniques that I would like to get better at.

The first thing is sample tails. Say you use a kick sample for your main body attack and punch. I notice that some of these samples are left with tails that suck in to the next beat. I was wondering a few things on this one..is most of this done in something like Battery where you just use the ADSR and shape the tail, or is this a little more advanced where you would maybe cut the tail out and reverse it? It adds a lot of movement to a beat.

The second thiing is I notice a lot of producers will open with the first kick and then when the track kicks in, they drop another deep layer under it. Obviously you can use an 808 or 909 for this, but I have heard some subs that are a lot darker and not only add weight, but also stay deep and focused without getting too boomy. Basically they make the track sound heavier and harder. I can find these sounds in my sample libraries I am sure, but there is cool processing also. It sounds like there may be some reverb in there, soo..


I also was wondering the best way to sidechain reverb to a kick..what is a good reverb setting to try this with (I'm guessing it would be a pretty short reverb tail) and how do you route it? I think there is a reverse reveb in RenVerb, but I need to double check. I sidechain my kicks, but I would like to see how far I can take it. If it is simply setting up a reverb channel and sending it to the sidechain compressor channel, then that's cool, but I'd like to make sure I am doing it right.

Finally, say you have a drum sound you made or sampled, and want shape it more and also line it up with a lower drum so the phase is right and they blend. I always used battery for this, but I was wondering if there was a better app for this that I did not know about.

Anyway, other good tips/sample library reccomendations or synths are welcome, I just wanted to address a few things I have heard in analyzing tracks. The punchiness of the top kick without getting too clicky and narrow is not easy, and getting your lower kick to not only add depth but also character to a track is not super easy either.