making kicks

[hNRk]

the most important thing with a kick for me is its tuning.

can you describe a little more in detail?

[AK]

steevio, what about the 909. I thought you always used that? In regard to tuning, are you then forced to work in a limited amount of keys?

[steevio]

the most important thing with a kick for me is its tuning.

can you describe a little more in detail?

i think there was a thread about this which went into lots of detail, i'll try to find it

[steevio]

steevio, what about the 909. I thought you always used that? In regard to tuning, are you then forced to work in a limited amount of keys?

not always, i mostly use an mbase01 at the moment. everything ive ever released is a 909 apart from my latest release and coming ones which are all the mbase.

the 909 is G# and you're stuck with it, it forced me to work in complimentary keys or have such a short decay it didnt matter, its the main reason i switched to the mbase a few years ago, and i'm about to move onto a tiptop bd909 which will be a tuneable 909 clone when it comes out.

the thing with kicks that maybe beginners dont realise, is that what you're hearing in your little nearfields in your studio bears no relation to what comes out of a big sound system. you really notice the tuning of the kick through a big rig, and if its dischordant with the bass in your track, it will sound sh!t. but also for techno the kick tuning is the core of the track, its the hyponotic pulse in the music, it has to be tuned right

[AK]

Absolutely, I'm all for keeping the decay in check myself as well as the tuning. To me, kicks with long decays sound iffy on big systems, the whole bottom end just comes over as one big continuous drone and there's no space in the mix to feel the rhythm. - Not always I guess but I think a lot of the time, people just have too much decay on their kicks , you just don't need it most of the time.

That might just be a personal thing but tuning certainly isn't. Absolutely critical for me now, I don't even use my ears like I used to. If I was using a sampled kick, I'd just knock it up an 8ve to get the sense of pitch, tune it and knock it back down again. It wasn't until I started looking at them in analyzers that I realised I was fairly out, sharp/flat and even a few semitones at times. Like I say, I tend to use short decays on kicks so maybe it wasn't that bad an error but I have my eye on that now.

If I'm making kicks, tuning is easy and I'll just do that as it plays using the decay as a guide for the tonality, where it gets tricky is when you are starting with a fundamental and pitch enveloping it, much harder to maintain a tuning process with any degree of accuracy.

[kdgh]

My favorite tool to shape some nice pounding kicks

[AK]

My favorite tool to shape some nice pounding kicks

I mentioned that before but nobody took it seriously because it was software. But it's really bloody good. By far the best software kick generator I have come accross anyway. Much better kicks than my Machinedrum and they can have an almost MBase sound with certain settings.

[steevio]

Absolutely, I'm all for keeping the decay in check myself as well as the tuning. To me, kicks with long decays sound iffy on big systems, the whole bottom end just comes over as one big continuous drone and there's no space in the mix to feel the rhythm. - Not always I guess but I think a lot of the time, people just have too much decay on their kicks , you just don't need it most of the time.

it totally depends on the tune, my own particular preference is to use the kick as part of the bass in the track, i usually have no bass notes where there are kicks, and the kick is forming a riff with the bass, sort of pushing and pulling with it to get the groove, short decays dont always work in that scenario.

i dont always do it that way, but its something ive been doing for a while now, its just a creative decision