Please Help Me Make A Proper Trance Kick Drum

TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Production Studio
-- Please Help Me Make A Proper Trance Kick Drum
Pages (2): « 1 [2]

Posted by Derivative on Mar-05-2007 13:38:

I confess - I absolutely love the sound of the bassdrum in Suburban Train and I have been trying to clone it for a long time now. I have not had much success. I have also been trying to clone the bassdrum from the ISOS remix of Silence. Both of these bassdrums seem to have certain things in common - if the sound is created from one machine (doubtful) then they both came from the same machine. If they are composites of several different bassdrums then they were constructed in a similar way.

I have ascertained:

1) The bassdrum for ISOS Silence is definitely a composite of several different sounds although you can tell the decay phase of the drum comes from a 909. That part is unmistakable. You can tell its a composite because if you open it in a wave editor you can see where the sine wave 'breaks' part way through and you get a peak/trough that is pronged.

2) The bassdrum for Suburban Train undoubtedly has a decay phase from a 909 but there are no pronged peaks which made me think initially that it all came from a 909. The attack phase sounds alot like a 909 BD with the attack very low (1 or 0) tuned way down but with the pitch up a little bit.

I have managed to clone the attack and decay parts of the drum almost perfectly. The first half of the drum I used to think came from a 909 but now I have doubts as I have been unable to clone a part of it. I can clone the click part of the drum and its reminiscent of the original click but its not perfect. The rest I just don't know what it is and I have been unable to clone it.

3) I have not been able to get a clean sample of just the bassdrum for either track as there is always part of a previous sound bleeding into it. These actually contribute to the way it sounds and makes it even more complicated to clone. Basically, if you were to top and tail these drums, remove the hats in the background and the closed hat that appears to strike slightly off the drum - they are quite ordinary bassdrum sounds - they come alive in the mix. In both tracks there is always some sort of reverberated ride/offhat triggering in the background and this changes the timbre of the attack phase of the drum for instance.

Either way, I have been unable to clone the closed hat that strikes close to the attack phase of either drum and I have no idea where to start. Its absolutely not a 909 CH and I have doubts that its even a hihat at all. More like some sort of bitty noise (?) or bleed from another instrument or something. Hell, if someone knows something about the construction of these BDs that I don't I would love you to peices but I guess its on with the study.

Also, I've played around with a 909 (not mine unfortunately) and there are a few things that are different to the D16 Drumazon clone.

1) A real 909 is actually quite noisy. This suprised me alot but theres a low level bitty noise that accompanies the decay phase (its not a clip). I can't get rid of this without rerecording the drum and I no longer have access to a 909. I thought perhaps this was an issue of RF interference but then I bagged some 909 samples off the net with a pack by Deepsky and a number of those bassdrums have the same or similar noise.

2) The attack phase on a real 909 is really inconsistant. On D16 its always the same.

3) This is purely my opinion but with low attack and low pitch, a real 909 sounds slightly 'rubbery.' I hate using adjectives like that but thats what springs to mind. The D16 clone doesn't sound like that.

4) Other than that, at least on the strength of the bassdrum and mid/low toms, the D16 clone is actually really close to a real 909 sans the bitty noise.

5) I have been unable to clone the bassdrum for Suburban Train and ISOS Silence successfully using either samples from a real 909 or the D16 clone. And I haven't had too much success mixing composites of both.

Part of this I think is that mixing waveforms is really clumsy in Soundforge 7.0 and in FL Studio 7.0. I wonder if anyone knows of a program that makes mixing waveforms easier.

Posted by mysticalninja on Mar-05-2007 14:55:

cubase!!

I took a shot at it, I mixed the attack part of the SubUrbanTrain kick, what I could get of it before the offbeat hihat comes in, and crossfaded it with an 808 i pitched down alittle bit. The 808 pitch is sliiiightly off, but it's damn close.

http://download.yousendit.com/DD81B7E333A208F7

Edit: This one is closer to the same pitch, and also goes alittle longer but decays faster, more like the original.

http://download.yousendit.com/22591FED7BEB3DDD

Edit Edit: Heres a Silence one, made using the same technique. Not from the ISOS mix though, will try to find that.

http://download.yousendit.com/354C7C8B6F72E761

now go make a fatty choon wit em.

Posted by Derivative on Mar-05-2007 16:36:

I was actually thinking about how to build them from scratch. As in using a 909/808 emu and/or synthesizing it from sine waves. It would probably take a combination of both.

Ill upload the 909 decay phase as I think I got that part spot on. But there is 'noise' on the sample which I can't get rid of.

Wouldn't mind examing your handywork though to see whats going on. I think its a good academic exercise. Point is these bassdrums are not straight 909 samples.

Pages (2): « 1 [2]