that techno kick..

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alexbarbu
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that techno kick..

Post by alexbarbu »

Hello everyone.I´m trying to learn to produce techno and the the problem I always had was the kick.I recently listened to the new track of Dubfire and Miss Kittin "Exit"

..and I´m sure that it has the most AWESOME kick I ever heard.That dark underground vibe kick with a big low end.I am no professional,as I told you,so I don´t have a good pair of monitors,right now I have two speakers from a Sony Audio System (CMT-HP7) ,in my room it sound pretty well.I´ve realized that when I try to make a techno kick,it sounds good with the volume up to 20%-40% even up to 50% on my speakers,but when I pass more than 50% all my room starts to vibrate but in the "bad way",the kick sounds start to distortion and it sounds like hell.In the track above I´ve turned the volume up to 90-95% and it sounds AWESOME,that kick doesn´t distort,it blows my chest as it should do a kick.I don´t know how to explain this but as the volume goes up the kick start to sound bigger and better,not like mine it distort.I don´t understand.

Sorry for my bad english. :)
AK
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Re: that techno kick..

Post by AK »

The volume & distortion thing is a bit strange and I'm not sure exactly what you mean. You could try HP filtering the kick, that usually allows you more volume
alexbarbu
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Re: that techno kick..

Post by alexbarbu »

I mean the more volume I get I realize that the kick sounds less good.On low volume sounds great,on high volume sounds like sh*t haha.Don´t know if it´s because of eq´ing or it´s the sample.
Toloache
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Re: that techno kick..

Post by Toloache »

If the track you like sounds good, it probably means there are way more subs in your synth kick that makes the room rattle.

Various ways to solve/reduce the problem:

If you synthesize:

1) start synthesizing the kick at a higher frequency. Use from G# to C and you should be off to a good start.

2) If you use the classic way of starting from a sine, maybe you can add harmonics to make it reproduce in a better way on small systems. Throw it through a saturator or your favorite distortion unit, adjust to taste.

If you use samples:

1) throw them in a spectrum analyzer and watch for peaks under 30hz. If there are peaks eq, or even better change kick. If a sample is designed to work at D or E in many cases it will sound sh!t if you remove the low frequencies. If you eq don't use an hp on the kick. Notch out the peaks or use a tight low shelf. In general, they sound better if you don't hp them.

2) Put smexoscope in the kick track and watch your waveform. Open the kick you like and watch its waveform. Now use compression, eq, saturation to make the shape similar in your kick (better to start off with a kick that sound already similar). In general: medium attack slow release for more punch/snap and less tail. Fast attack medium/fast release for bigger tails and bass kicks.

3) Watch out for peaks that accours at the same time with the kick, for example snares or percussion that hits at the same time. They could cause a big overlapping transient that eat your headroom and make your sistem distort. In general i have first and third kick of a bar hit full force, and second and fourth with a little bit less velocity and equed to work with the snare/clap/wathever you put over it. You can also nudge the overlapping sample a little bit forward or backward or play with it's attack time. Pay attention to overall level and how the transient behave in smexoscope (on your master channel or drum subgroup) when you do this.

4) Watch out for dissonances caused by an off key underneath bass.

5) Fast offbeat kick hits can cause unwanted level fluctuations if you don't put them in a choke group and/or reduce the number of voices in your sampler (ableton sampler for example default at 4. What happens is that the end of the offbeat kick overlap with the onbeat kick transient. Change it to 1).

General:

1) If you have the money, treat your room.
2) If you don't have the money, at minimum you should invest in a good pair of headphones to check bass, and then you can use the monitors to check pan and other things.
3) don't limit yourself to techno sample packs! A lot of the heavier techno kicks i have comes from deep house samples packs or old drum machines.. so don't let a sample pack name mislead you. When you acquire a new one, listen to it, dissect it, and categorize it according to your method of production and workflow. You will get a lot of more use out of it this way.

In the end it seems difficult , but it all really comes down to find a kick sample you like and mixing the song around it.

Hope this helps!
Toloache
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Re: that techno kick..

Post by Toloache »

I just listened to the song. The kick is an A# (58hz) So it's not very subby to begin with. Also, it's not even the main element of the song, so it's not mixed to hit full force. It also doesn't sound a lot like techno to me. My idea of a techno kick is a completely different one honestly. Something on these lines:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmCmW1EYuo0

However, mix your kick a little bit lower, remove subs, use a punchy sample in A# and you should get something similar!
alexbarbu
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Re: that techno kick..

Post by alexbarbu »

Thank you all for the answers.It´s true that the kick has to fit right in the track,if not,it sounds like sh*t :D
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