making kicks

[AK]

Yeah, really good posts so far on this sort of stuff. I dropped a bollock by wording that I 'hate' sidechaining. It was a wrong thing to say because I am open to all techniques. In fact, even knowing the techniques and having tried them is a good thing. I wouldn't say I dislike something if I had never even tried it.

Sidechaining stuff doesn't quite fit in with what I'm currently into and yeah, I know it can be used gently, I am fully aware of the technique and honestly, I have explored it in depth. The last time I was really into music and that, a mate had just put out a tune which did really well ( Matt Goddard AKA Dopamine - tune was called 'Hold You' ) it was a breakbeat tune with a sustained sawtooth wave for the bass. The whole track was written on a Yammy RS7000 - and it was a big hit at Breakspoll. But then, sidechaining came along as a mix 'thing'.

Well, it was new at the time for our scene. On TCR and Title Fight, all of a sudden, you 'HAD' to sidechain, it was 'THE' thing to do and became part of the Breaks scene. That ended up being wrong...

Send a demo and if it weren't sidechain kick/bass, you 'weren't getting the new thing'. Seriously, I am telling how it was.


I was in touch with a guy on MSN a lot at the time from a duo called 'Diverted' ( also releasing on Thursday Club Recordings ) who wanted to do the sidechain mix on Matts track. I heard it via MSN and thought it was awful. Honestly, it really was. Then on Title Fight everything had to be sidechained and now klaus doesn't have a Label as far as i know. Anyway, the whole genre and label went fuckin electro house/Jack Funk and I just wasn't into that at all and didn't like where it was going, which was that sidechained sound. Suck/pull thing.

I loved Breaks. real breaks...

[AK]

I'm a bit drunk on this sat night, sorry. Mate cme back from a Nile cruise, couldn't get into egypt but the weed is damp, DAMP I mean sorry. Scary man.

[loopdon]

Funny thing - with all these choices we have today - most are still mostly worried of not fitting in. Technology might have come a long way but have we as humans moved at the same pace?
The basic laws of physics shouldn't have changed to much either during the last few thousand years

[steevio]

i think that one of the reasons that i might come across as a luddite when talking about some production techniques, is that i come from a background of live music, being in a band and being a sound engineer, and the problem i have with some (not all) electronic music these days is that it can be a bit sterile and over engineered, the opposite of live.

you wouldnt get a bass player pulling back from a downbeat and playing it quieter to get an extra 2 dB in the mix, infact he'll do the exact opposite, he/she will emphasize it, because thats what feels right to a live musician, he's not sitting in front of a computer screen, worrying about what it will sound like on Beatport, he's in the moment, and he knows instinctively to emphasize notes that drive the tune along. Dynamics !

and with engineering a live band, you dont have time to get anal over a kickdrum, you EQ it in 10 seconds, i know its a different situation, but the priciples are similar, get the tone, the punch, the attack right, no messing about.. if you're taking hours and hours to get the kick to fit, you're doing something wrong.

[hydrogen]

and with engineering a live band, you dont have time to get anal over a kickdrum, you EQ it in 10 seconds, i know its a different situation, but the priciples are similar, get the tone, the punch, the attack right, no messing about.. if you're taking hours and hours to get the kick to fit, you're doing something wrong.

like either starting with a bad sound or whatever... i think this is usually the case. bad sound means more time to work it in and fix the issue.

The other side to that... is that when you are setting up a live set you can do those moves quickly. You've probably got a decent sounding kick to begin with (unless the drummers sh!t sux).... so all you are doing is selecting mic (probably a goto mic, so its not even a thought) and using an onboard eq... of course you will spend 10 seconds on it. what else are you going to do? ask the drummer to get a new kick drum?

Also, does anybody experience problems when layering a kick sample over a real analogue kick?... i've been finding there is a way too much transient beating going on. its like the transients slip around and the front end sounds weird flamming type sh!t. happens when i use a linndrum/DMX sample and mbase together.

we've also covered this subject a hundred times before. never gets old i guess.

[steevio]

The other side to that... is that when you are setting up a live set you can do those moves quickly. You've probably got a decent sounding kick to begin with (unless the drummers sh!t sux).... so all you are doing is selecting mic (probably a goto mic, so its not even a thought) and using an onboard eq... of course you will spend 10 seconds on it. what else are you going to do? ask the drummer to get a new kick drum?

my experience is that real kick drums nearly always sound sh!t.

so yes you are effectively asking the drummer to get a new kick drum, tune the heads better, use more padding, gaffer some bearmats to deaden, or coins to the batter head to get a better click, position the mic right, it's an art but when you know what you're doing its quick and easy.

i think my point was that you dont have time for procrastination in a live band setting, its a different mindset to sitting in front of a computer, but theres no real reason why its much different really.
one of my best friends and an awesome producer, works just as quick on software, he's lightening fast, and just does everything effortlessly, no messing about. its a good habit to adopt. personally i'm a procrastinator when in front of a screen, thats why i moved on.

[Stomper]

hmm i would compare the situations with a mixing engineer that is trying out a few eq modules to decide which sounds better for this and that.
its also depends on the mindset of that person. if someone sits for hours on a kick and over process it in the sake of processing and its sound bad than yeah, hes doing something wrong.
if its about experimenting and learning, than its always good. even if you learn that way is bad.
dont get me wrong, i can make killer kicks with 3 layers in matter of minutes when starting from scratch. but they always a bit too bright. but if ill ever go for a genre that need brighter kick like electro/tech house i think this method get far better results.

[AK]

I haven't layered a kick for a while, I think I'm just sh!t at doing that. I still use kick samples as well as synthesized but in terms of the samples thing, some of my favourite kicks have been made by the attack and tail swapping in an audio editor. If your using samples it can be another way to either get more milage out of them or to just come up with new sounds.