Kick drum conundrum - please save me from my despair!

[davidpaulpaige]

There was a great compression track included. Sounded to me like EL8(Distessors) with a Brit mod in parallel.
The sound: I get a similar sound by finding the "whack", "smack" and "crush" sound from the program material. Then commit to one. Add some gating to clean up and isolate the attack, time the release, eq for "point", then send it to the comp I would describe the compressed track provided as "No Crush, with little "smack" mostly "whack". The result should be a very "in the speaker", whack/spank but in a good way. Kick and snare should stand up and be noticed and push/pull together. i.e. 4 on the floor. Albeit thinner but with a focused "point".
Medium/Fast Attack, while looking for the loudest tranies that need the most crush, w/Fast release Keeps it light and airy w/Slower release heavier more spank.The compressed release is much shorter than the overheads and slightly shorter than the spot mic.
I hope in some way this helped...
Doing this is not hard BUT Adjectives are my weak point.

[eko]

Sorry cant open that Wav

[BillSimpkins]

Here was my submission: Bill Simpkins's Pensado's Place Mixing Competition - Rock Submission - Indaba Music

On the kick: VCC plugin (Neve setting), Pultec HLF (HP @50 Hz), Distressor(6:1, medium attack), NIH Labs PE30 EQ (carved out 400 Hz, boost at 60 Hz and 4k, McDsp E606 plugin (carved out middle a little more).

snare: VCC plugin, Trident 9066, DBX 160x, Air Spring Reverb plugin (mono).

The drum buss was VCC (API setting) and Softube TL-100 plugin with parallel comp.

My advice is try not and copy an sound, but go for good sound that fits within your mix.

[garfieldmayor]

Hey guys thanks so much for the input as frustrating as this has been for me it's also been a great learning experience!

I definitely feel like gating has a role to play here... I generally avoid gates where uneccessary but I do find they can shape the envelope in a different way to other processors.

I think the main point i can take away is that the 'hardness' I'm trying to achieve is not really connected to the 40-60hz part of the kick drum it's higher than that... I think nearer 100hz but without testing on more kicks i won't make any final conclusions.

davidpaulpaige does this connect with any of your crush/whack/spank freqs? When you say commit to one you mean make one of them the focus and balance the others somewhere below? Interesting you boost before comp - I need to try that.

I've also had some success by increasing the attack of the upper freqs... I had also figured that the click (point?) was a short sound, but I found it actually goes on longer than I thought, and by shortening these freqs using a transient designer I could get a subjectively tighter/faster sound.


BillSimpkins I do agree with you on creating your own unique sound but it's about being ale to create the sound in my head... I feel like this sound is important because apart from it being a subjectively good sound - it retains all its qualities on smaller systems. I checked your mix congrats - you did notably better than me - but I still prefer my kick drum lol!

If you're interested my mix is Bill Simpkins's Pensado's Place Mixing Competition - Rock Submission - Indaba Music