Question about kicks

nicogrubert · Post by **nicogrubert** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 9:45 am

My tuning tips for kicks:

- have a good sample library for kicks
- use some good EQs (I use UAD Neve 1073, UAD Cambridge)
- my ultimate secret weapon for forming my kicks is the waves C4 multiband compressor. it's quite expensive, but its every single cent worth!
- good kicks sometimes result from the whole context (proper mixing of all other sounds in your track is very important / sidechaining, if necessary)

hydrogen · Post by **hydrogen** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:23 am

nicogrubert wrote:- my ultimate secret weapon for forming my kicks is the waves C4 multiband compressor. it's quite expensive, but its every single cent worth!

nice one... i just recently started subgrouping my bass and kick along with using multiband compression. Amazing results because you can time the transients of each frequency range.

Sure you could synthesize it and be all "legit" but this way it just gets the job done and sounds pretty damn good with very little effort. Which is exactly why the tool was invented in the first place.

s.k. · Post by **s.k.** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:52 am

both the kick's main parts contain frequencies all over the spectrum, its just they happen at different times, so they can 'lock'.

for all you motherfuckers, here is the harder-to-make part alone. needless to say, fully synthesized and ofcourse no compression.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/rlzdtl

easy

Phase Ghost · Post by **Phase Ghost** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:08 pm

I make all my house kicks from sine waves and a pitch envelope. I never went back to 909's since I started making them. Although it took a lot of experimenting to get the formula right. Anyways. I'll start a kick around 60, pitch it up at the beginning for the punch and layer a sampled kick over it. I'm trying to make a library of sampled kicks to layer because they're not real easy to find.

As others have said tuning is essential. Especially for a sampled real kick over your synthesized kick.

Finally, if I feel like a sub is needed, I'll make a sine or use the exs24 with no instruments loaded for a low sub note. Since I know my kick is 60 and up and assuming the sampled kick is eq'd or hp'd, I know where my sub has to sit.

Torque · Post by **Torque** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:08 am

omnipresence wrote:Sometimes it can be difficult to tell what the exact pitch of the kick drum is. I often use a distortion unit (temporarily) to add more overtones which makes the pitch easier to distinguish. Combined with this, transposing it up an octave or two and back, and playing different pitches while you fine tune can sometimes help.

Here's another clue to some of you why your kicks may sound quiet. If you can't tell what the note of the kickdrum is then it's not a good one. Bass isn't bass if you can't hear the actual note, it's just rumble. If you need distortion to hear it then you should just scrap the kick.

Yet another clue. You can never get the low end right in your mix if your mixdown monitors are not tuned to the room. Sometimes what you're hearing is not really there or is being phase canceled by bouncing off the walls wrong. Sometimes your kick could be weak because you're just not hearing it right in the studio. It's worth the money to go buy a box of Auralex and good external eq for your monitor setup.

omnipresence · Post by **omnipresence** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 11:52 am

I've never worked in an acoustically treated room so I can't say any of this for sure. In my experience even if you play an unprocessed sine wave in a low register sometimes it can be hard to tell the exact pitch (I'm not talking low / inaudible rumble). I think volume can affect the perception too... Perhaps this is to do with the acoustics of the listening space but I thought it ties in with psychoacoustics as well.

AK · Post by AK » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:10 pm

hydrogen wrote:
omnipresence wrote:Sometimes it can be difficult to tell what the exact pitch of the kick drum is. I often use a distortion unit (temporarily) to add more overtones which makes the pitch easier to distinguish. Combined with this, transposing it up an octave or two and back, and playing different pitches while you fine tune can sometimes help.
fantastic advice.

+2.

I have always knocked it up an 8ve to get a better sense of pitch ( talking sampled kicks ) but never thought of adding distortion too. I tried it and you do get a lot more of the pitch coming though. Nice tip, even better if you just adjust the sample start time to just after the initial transient so you get more of a tone and no punch. You can definitely pinpoint it.

Torque · Post by **Torque** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:13 am

omnipresence wrote:I've never worked in an acoustically treated room so I can't say any of this for sure. In my experience even if you play an unprocessed sine wave in a low register sometimes it can be hard to tell the exact pitch (I'm not talking low / inaudible rumble). I think volume can affect the perception too... Perhaps this is to do with the acoustics of the listening space but I thought it ties in with psychoacoustics as well.

You should be able to distinguish the tone down to 40 htz. Anything below that you can't really hear anyways.

Anyhoo....
Tuning a bass drum is easy. If a bass drum is hard to tun then most likely its a pile of sh!t anyways and you should dump it. If all else fails there are plenty of kick drum samples that don't totally suck.