Ricardo Kick

[steevio]

Getting back to the topic. I can hear in Ricardo tracks his kicks never really hit at the same volume. It's like when people say to slightly change the velocity on the hihats the hihats to give a more live feel. I mean a drummer never hits the foot with the same exact punch. Have you tried doing this? What do you think?

yes ive tried this before, personally i dont like doing it to a 4/4 kick, it tends to lose its hypnotic effect.

it sometimes works to alternate the strength of the kick (1 and 3 slightly higher) but more often than not i go back to full velocity and find it more satisfying.

i always do it though when using 2 step rhythms.

ricardo's kicks might move slightly due to compression being inconsistent due to other factors ?

[AK]

Getting back to the topic. I can hear in Ricardo tracks his kicks never really hit at the same volume. It's like when people say to slightly change the velocity on the hihats the hihats to give a more live feel. I mean a drummer never hits the foot with the same exact punch. Have you tried doing this? What do you think?

Not if it disrupts the groove so as to lose impact. In fact no, not at all. I can't see any value in that unless you are just wanting to be different for the sake of being different. It might seem like the track is just losing something, there are many ways to create a lot of things but why start fucking about with the level of each kickdrum hit?

Maybe if you were synthesizing your own kicks you could alter small things like decay or whatever, either by an LFO or manually but I don't think there's anything deep and meaningful to editing the level of each kick in a four-to-the-floor rhythm. You can do a lot of level adjustments with the other elements within the groove, that's enough. I wouldn't want to start accenting upbeats or downbeats etc with the kick, I think I'd end up with a disco beat.

If you wanna do it, go ahead, I'm seriously not even contemplating the idea.

[tone-def]

with 4/4 kicks it works best when it's all hitting the same velocity. changing the decay times can work, it depends what your bass line is doing. sometime i have kicks that are between the 4 kicks in a bar and these are usually lower velocity.

[AK]

changing the decay times can work, it depends what your bass line is doing.

I do this a lot. It's also one of the reason why when I synthesize a kick and sample it off, I always leave a decent tail length, you get more sound to play with in your sampler but I like to use a selection of longer notes and staccato type bass notes in the bass pattern, sometimes when a short bass note has just gone, the following or preceeding kick can add a lot to the rhythm if the decay is altered. If it's tuned well, the effect here and there can be nice to add a slight variation to the groove but no, not the leves for me, never. I'm not even that interested in the reference to real drummers. I don't want to sound like a real drummer, if I did I'd buy BFD or Addictive Drums or whatever, the whole point of me being into electronic drums is that I can not sound like a real drummer. There's something about grooves and humanisation that is appealing but I don't go to the extent of trying to accurately reproduce human error. Groove is nice but I hate loose timing when it becomes noticeable and flams and sh!t are evident.

[loopdon]

that's cool about the additional tuning. that modular unit for $99 looks great as well. i thought the reason the 808 didn't have the tuning is because it underpins G# 51.4hz no matter what you do to the tone..

thats the 909, the 808 is around 57 Hz i think.

I spoke to Gur at Tiptop, and the bd909 will have a pitch control when it comes out YAY !!!

he also sent details of how to add a potentiometer to the bd808 for tuning the pitch, simple soldering job.

The 808 kick is around G1, mate. Wasn't exactly sure, so i checked it.
Samples, that is. As i am pretty much digital, the "PITCH TAILS" are pretty much irrelevant.
I can always add a different tail, anyhow.

[steevio]

that's cool about the additional tuning. that modular unit for $99 looks great as well. i thought the reason the 808 didn't have the tuning is because it underpins G# 51.4hz no matter what you do to the tone..

thats the 909, the 808 is around 57 Hz i think.

I spoke to Gur at Tiptop, and the bd909 will have a pitch control when it comes out YAY !!!

he also sent details of how to add a potentiometer to the bd808 for tuning the pitch, simple soldering job.

The 808 kick is around G1, mate. Wasn't exactly sure, so i checked it.
Samples, that is. As i am pretty much digital, the "PITCH TAILS" are pretty much irrelevant.
I can always add a different tail, anyhow.

i got the 57Hz info from a guy with a real 808, but i cant confirm it myself.

[AK]

that's cool about the additional tuning. that modular unit for $99 looks great as well. i thought the reason the 808 didn't have the tuning is because it underpins G# 51.4hz no matter what you do to the tone..

thats the 909, the 808 is around 57 Hz i think.

I spoke to Gur at Tiptop, and the bd909 will have a pitch control when it comes out YAY !!!

he also sent details of how to add a potentiometer to the bd808 for tuning the pitch, simple soldering job.

The 808 kick is around G1, mate. Wasn't exactly sure, so i checked it.
Samples, that is. As i am pretty much digital, the "PITCH TAILS" are pretty much irrelevant.
I can always add a different tail, anyhow.

i got the 57Hz info from a guy with a real 808, but i cant confirm it myself.

Hehe! Dunno how relevant this is, I like geeky stuff though. I have analysed the 808 kick before too. It's G in my book, at least on the tail end, if you want to check it with a sine bass note while listening to it that's the nearest note that sounds the same with it to my ears. FFT analysis gives me a highest peaking frequency of 43.1hz ( slightly flat of an F note ) but I'm not sure what the reading comes from with that, because if it's just reading the highest peaking frequency, it's not taking the lower decay into account. Incidently, my readings are taking off a raw 808 kick sample with no additional processing, there are some samples out there like the Goldbaby stuff where they have gone through tape, I'm not sure whether this type of distortion has an effect on pitch detection software or not though.

Wavelab says the pitch is 48.8hz - which is pretty much a G note. If you played an Ab followed by an F just below it and then a G in the octave below quite quickly over the duration of the decay of the kick, it sounds very harmonious. So to me, it's natural sound lies tied up in there somewhere. Wavelab isn't that great for pitch detection, you could divide the sample up into 40ms segments and get a different reading as you moved along the duration of the sample, much better to use your ears with this kinda thing IMO.

The natural tone harmonizes with the Fm scale and similar derivatives.

[loopdon]

I wonder why Roland chose those tunings?