the sampled kick is synthesized too
, so there's gotta be another reason for it punching more, can we agree on that? a real good synthesized kick would have a transient for character, a 'kick' for punch, and a decay for bottom. that said, the last kick i posted is not very punchy because its a simpler one - it has just a transient and a decay, it lacks the mid-part, but then again thats its charm - its meant to deliver a deeper, not so in-your-face track.a little theory (yeah i hear the "OMG, theorizing a kickdrum???"...): technically a real bassdrum doesnt have harmonics, it has overtones or partials, because its an unpitched instrument. why so? because its a cylinder of mass. a piano string is also a cylinder of mass. the thing about cylinders is that - the wider the cylinder diameter, the more inharmonic tone it produces. the mass matters too (air, metal, cat bowels u name it...), but the cylinder diameter is of prime importance. why is this important? i will try to explain, again with the risk of becoming the nerdy geeky jackass of the thread but oh well what do i care.
a 'middle' piano string is almost perfectly harmonic. but with the lower strings its different. going lower, the wider the string diameter becomes, and the more the tone approaches the lower border of human hear-ability - the more inharmonic it becomes! actually the lowest piano strings contain overtones that are very highly inharmonic. harmony is closely related to human hearing range - nature works so that we percieve sounds in the middle of our hearing range as harmonic, while the higher/lower the frequency goes away from that center - its naturally more inharmonic (to humans that is). highest sounds in a track - for example hihats/cymbals - inharmonic right? well the same goes for bass - the lower it goes, nature calls for it to be the more inharmonic.
a bass drum is of pretty big diameter compared to a string. do you start getting the point? it cannot sound realistic if its a harmonic waveform! it produces the lowest tones in a track so if it is to sound good, it has to have a certain amount of inharmonicity. i hope this points your thoughts to a useful direction. so much for theory.
man (AK), your decays are always sines... on your thoughts about the decay being the most important - yes i also think so, it is. but there are many ways to do that right. but what about the punch? the kick itself? that hits in higher frequencies, so according to the upper facts - it should be more harmonic. actually pretty harmonic. thats a bit harder to get right. and then theres the transient, the 'click' - also approaching the upper border of our hearing range, hence - highly inharmonic again. makes sense?
there are many ways to do it. what happens inside a real bassdrum when you hit the skin is very complex physics. so why should synthesizing it be easy? thats some serious wishful thinking from all of you here. really good synthesized kicks are very rare... but they exist and are made by people like you and me, humans. best thing about it though - i like best the 'not so perfect' ones, where you can actually hear its not exactly 'naturally' sounding, but its done right, therefore is authentic and with character. and theres plenty of those, in alot of today's released music, stuff that cant be achieved with a compressor.
is it all that matters for a good track? certainly not. but if thats not right, it cannot be a good track, imo.
