Advanced Kick drum tip thread

[Methlab]

Ok, my DAW is back and I have an example of a kick I made. See what you think, if you like it, Ill tell you how I did it.

[XAXAU]

Originally Posted by Methlab

Ok, my DAW is back and I have an example of a kick I made. See what you think, if you like it, Ill tell you how I did it.

Sorry but saturation on bassdrums puts me off big time. The subs get all fuzzy and it sounds broken when it should be round and full, soft and fluffy and punchy like hell with some snap.

Try my trick again. Look for bassdrums that are clean and single layer and preferably unprocessed. Then chop up at zero crossings and normalize. You seriously don´t have to do anything else to it except some EQ maybe. It will be banging.

[Methlab]

Originally Posted by XAXAU

Sorry but saturation on bassdrums puts me off big time. The subs get all fuzzy and it sounds broken when it should be round and full, soft and fluffy and punchy like hell with some snap.

Try my trick again. Look for bassdrums that are clean and single layer and preferably unprocessed. Then chop up at zero crossings and normalize. You seriously don´t have to do anything else to it except some EQ maybe. It will be banging.

What saturation are you talking about? I guess that is the low layer you are hearing, and it may be too loud. I could just take that sub layer off.

[Methlab]

I just listened again on my studio monitors, and it was indeed the bazzism layer that is causing that low end breakup.

I do like how yours is louder, but I don't hear a huge difference in tone...maybe thats just me but I am crushing it on headphones right now.

Here is it tweaked up with all 3 layers and no bazzism. Personally, I like heavy kicks like this.

[XAXAU]

I dunno, this one sounds even more broken to me. It would be fine for some experimental stuff but I wouldn´t try and put that in a house track.

Try mine.

[mekohler]

Originally Posted by Methlab

I just listened again on my studio monitors, and it was indeed the bazzism layer that is causing that low end breakup.

I do like how yours is louder, but I don't hear a huge difference in tone...maybe thats just me but I am crushing it on headphones right now.

Here is it tweaked up with all 3 layers and no bazzism. Personally, I like heavy kicks like this.

Yeah I like dirty ones like that. XAXAU's is way too clicky for me

[Perj]

Originally Posted by XAXAU

I always test at MOS, and usually the bass is off due to my crappy room but the bassdrum is a bomb with a short bang

So by MOS do you mean Ministry of Sound?

[anabolique]

Originally Posted by Methlab

I think most of us know by now that you need a great sample, what frequencies are best and sidechain compression is key..

About frequencies, can you explain that, just to be sure that I am not missing something

[Perj]

I want to play!

Here's my sample for you guys, I am using:

1. A gate to clean up the end of the kick sample
2. Ableton's Multiband Comp
3. EQ

5. Limiter
_________

[steffensen]

I like the old trick, where u duplicate the kick, and reverse it. Pitch it like 3 notes up, or keep it on the same note if u please. And make it a bit shorter to not get the "swift-klick" in the end. Can cause some heavy bass-tones.

[Perj]

Originally Posted by steffensen

I like the old trick, where u duplicate the kick, and reverse it. Pitch it like 3 notes up, or keep it on the same note if u please. And make it a bit shorter to not get the "swift-klick" in the end. Can cause some heavy bass-tones.

So I am trying to do what you are saying an I think I got it. I dont hear a swift click though? I have made the reversed one it to kinda fill in the release of the original alittle bit making it more full. Is this what you r talking about?

I like your music btw

[steffensen]

Originally Posted by Perj

So I am trying to do what you are saying an I think I got it. I dont hear a swift click though? I have made the reversed one it to kinda fill in the release of the original alittle bit making it more full. Is this what you r talking about?

I like your music btw

Sometimes the attack of the reversed kick can cause a swifty klick in the end, sometimes not. I think u got it tho, its one of those easy but yet powerful trix on almost any source.

Thanks for listening!

[Methlab]

Originally Posted by XAXAU

I dunno, this one sounds even more broken to me. It would be fine for some experimental stuff but I wouldn´t try and put that in a house track.

Try mine.

Mine is not really dry and pillowy like a lot of current house stuff is but I dont want to sound like that . Yours sounds too clicky to me..personally I like a little heavier and distorted bass, but I am thinking of trying your trick on mine to see what it does.

I am using cubase..are you making 3 slices for top bottom and body when you chop the kick sample or more?

[XAXAU]

Originally Posted by Perj

So by MOS do you mean Ministry of Sound?

Yeah, Kuala Lumpur. Also Zouk.

[XAXAU]

Originally Posted by Methlab

Mine is not really dry and pillowy like a lot of current house stuff is but I dont want to sound like that . Yours sounds too clicky to me..personally I like a little heavier and distorted bass, but I am thinking of trying your trick on mine to see what it does.

I am using cubase..are you making 3 slices for top bottom and body when you chop the kick sample or more?

Well, mine works like a charm if you want to layer. Just eq out the highs and you´ll have a huge bottom with lots of punch to stack on top of.

The latest kick is not layered. It is two kicks that are glued together, not overlapping, but I took the first snappy part from one kick and the the subby and boomy part from another. I just zoom in max in Cubase and move them together. I do this a lot. They get so loud that you can pull down the kick 2dB for "some" headroom to layer. This way you´ll only have it damaged by a limiter on the mixbus, which usually only needs a maximum of 3dB for the whole track to be at industry standard.

[Jackofall]

Dude there's nothing "Nerdy" about it. But there is something "LAZY" about not doing it.

The right way IS the right way... Not the only way , of course not... But still the right/And True/First in the chain" way.

"ALL" Kicks Started from the Right way'(before being sampled and played with).... Think about that. If its rock or hip hop, its less important cause in the real world drums arnt tuned to every track. So why would you do it when producing/engineering etc.

But if its "Dance Music"(electronic)... You most Certainly want your kick in tune with your Bass. This is a engineering revelation that has come thru time. Im not gonna get into the (chapter in a book's worth) reason's why....to busy taking the time to mold this kick

But 2 say its Nerdy??? haha C'mon man..... Might as well say if you 'Organize' then your a neat freak.....??? Just cause you dont like to Organize. (metaphorically speaking...)

And this is all from someone that used to do it the other way.

J

[lucianop]

my rules:
1) there is no definitvie rule and exceprions sometimes becomes the rule.
2) our ears judge always kick & bass togheter, at the same time. So, there is no great kick individually.
3) 90% of the job is to choose the good sample, spend 90% of your time is to find the right one.
4) If you are increasing monitor volume to make your kick sound better, probably you are in the wrong way. Great kick sounds good at low earing monitor volume.
5) 90% of the times compressor destroy a good kick. Better to work with eq.
6) Brutal lowpass filter on kick, in my experience, sometimes is a great solution on mixes with a lot of audio material.

[ozzlanda]

What I would REALLY like to know.. (from someone who has a lot of experience in creating their own kicks hopefully)

Are digital synths good enough for creating kicks? If so which ones? Why?

Do you need a synth that allows you to produce a sine-wave constantly at the beginning of its wave cycle for greatest impact?

I would be very gratefull if someone could fill me in with this info..

Regards,

Oscar.

[lucianop]

Originally Posted by ozzlanda

What I would REALLY like to know.. (from someone who has a lot of experience in creating their own kicks hopefully)

Are digital synths good enough for creating kicks? If so which ones? Why?

Do you need a synth that allows you to produce a sine-wave constantly at the beginning of its wave cycle for greatest impact?

I would be very gratefull if someone could fill me in with this info..

Regards,

Oscar.

In my experience DKS software drum synth is a good one. The reason is that it has good audio quality and can create complex sound. Actually a kick drum is very complex sound(that evolves in a very short time).

Sine wave is the simpler type of wave(no harmonics), so also the cheapest virtual synth could work, in theory. But in my experience I found that the preset sine wave from my akai s900 has some hidden musicality that could not be explained in theory... but it is for me.

[fuzulu]

sorry for the stupid question ... but when you say .. tune the kick with the bass ... do u mean that both should play in E for example ? (the note of the bass on E while the fund frequency of the kick is tuned to E)

[beatflux]

I worked on trying to get a kick drum as loud and punch as stoneface and terminal's "This Moment." The track starts out with an unprocessed kick drum and by the end of the song its much more beefed up.

I took a sample that had a good sounding sub, and layered it with a closed hat with its transient shaved off, and 3 or 4 snares with their tails and transients reduced to give the kick a nice mid and high punch. The snares gives a little bit of that punch to the lower mids that separates a sub only kick, to something a little more full on.

The kick didn't come out sounding like the one I was trying to emulate, but it was sounding just as punchy.

[ltjohnrambo]

A few people mentioned layering multiple kicks, i.e. one for the low-end and one for the punchier high-end. Sometimes it helps me to think of mulitband compression/processing in the same way.

For example if you're using a 3 band compressor, you're effectively splitting 1 kick into a sub kick, a mid punch kick, and a high-click. Then you're going to compress each band to bring out their transients or whatever you're looking to do.

You can do the same thing with multiple busses and some kind of eq on each band to carve out the low, mid, and high freqs. This way I can apply saturation or other effects to a single band. Either way it helps me to think of each band as a separate sound.

A lot of times with normal compression you can get a punchy and crisp mid to upper range, but if you solo the low-end it has no real dynamics (just a big lump of a sine wave). If you apply an expander or transient shaper to the low end you can retain the sub freqs but you get more of a punchy tone.

[Karloff70]

Blatant self plug coming.......Slappers&Fluffers. Fat arses. Kicks. Sorry, today was the day for a fat, shameless plug......

[StringBean]

Originally Posted by mullet

Hey Methlab - check out this video of Ian Carey.. his whole video tutorial on drums, is on layering two kicks.. picking one with a good high end and one with a good bottom end and eq'ing them and gating and all that jazz to make them work..

In The Studio with Ian Carey - Arrangement

Best 50 minutes money can buy.

[wcb123]

Don't need to layer, use sine wav,two different kicks.. you don't need any of that.

One decent original soundsource.. Ish hot EQ box such as Flux Epure.. multiple instances of Parallel Comp used subtly each time... and reverse reverb sends for swing.

No limiting whatsoever.

Best thing anyone can master is how AR work with a compressor. Perfect that and its game on.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Gearslutz.com App

[mirror symmetry]

Sample a kick you like from a record!
Job done!

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

Blatant self plug coming.......Slappers&Fluffers. Fat arses. Kicks. Sorry, today was the day for a fat, shameless plug......

This is really good! Thanks!

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...m-toolkit.html

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by Simonator

This is really good! Thanks!

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...m-toolkit.html

Pleasure! Dem gal a wee bit fat, dem? Glad you like it!

[Estin]

Originally Posted by mekohler

I am never satisfied with my kick and snare. I have yet to find a single kick sample that satisfied me (with processing). :(

same problem here. especially with snares. I've resorted to just smashing and cutting up loops because i can't program drums.