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Big Kicks

I am looking for any and for all advise on making producer quality kicks in Logic Studio. I am not a newb, however I am looking for ideas or suggestions to get the huge sound I am looking for. My downmixing is good, and my frequencies seem to be right or close to it. Ratio's-knee-thresholds....all that good shit you know.

Thanks,

I'll stack a metric-fuck-ton of kick drum samples and/or synthetic analogue plug-in on the same trigger note in my sequencer, shelve the bass freqs, using a parametric EQ, with a low Q to INF at 30-40Hz, and (about) halve the 150Hz with a low Q. I turn the track(s - more often than not I'm using about 3 to get a solid kick) fader up.

I don't use Logic Studio but the principles should be the same.

Do you want to know the easy way with samples or the hard way with fm synthesis??

Both answers reside in Ultrabeat.

here's an excerpt of the easy way:

Take a kick sample in ultrabeat on C1, I mean a 909 kick or something similar. Copy this c1 sound to c2 (click on its keyboard key, hold alt pressed), and on C2 raise the pitch to +48 or more if possible. Lower the volume. There you go. You can go further and put a slight sample delay to the c1 kick

the hard way is a lot more fun but it's not easy at all. You have to make a pitch modulated sine, and you must modulate it again with an fm oscillator for a very short time (1 to 15 ms depending on your needs). To do this in Ultrabeat, the lower osc is the main one, and the higher one is the fm modulator. Use Env1 to modulate the pitch of the lower oscillator, use ENV4 for the amp envelope, and use Env2 to modulate the fm depth, assuming that you set the oscillators properly. There's an explanation of this inside the Logic manual...

On a sidenote, I read your post again, and it seems that you make use of compressors on your kick drums. To be honest, I don't think this is a very good idea. But it's only my opinion, and if you're happy with the results...

L.

Re: Big Kicks

quote:

Originally posted by badapple@trance I am looking for any and for all advise on making producer quality kicks in Logic Studio.

Do you mean creating the actual kicks or getting the kick samples you already have to sound a certain way?

If you have quality samples, you shouldn't have to process them very much, if at all. Getting them to sit right is all about choosing sounds which fit well together and setting appropriate levels. The mix should sound pretty good before you start processing the sounds with EQ, compression or other processors.

yea thats fuckin awesome adivise...i really dig the ultrabeat stuff. Only thing is, like my sound at the end of the day is always halfway to what a fully mastered studio track is. Am i meant to believe that i cannot create this sound unless i have the best equipment?

yea thats fuckin awesome adivise...i really dig the ultrabeat stuff. Only thing is, like my sound at the end of the day is always halfway to what a fully mastered studio track is. Am i meant to believe that i cannot create this sound unless i have the best equipment?

Good equipment does help

You're missing a very important point in my opinion...

If you think when running Logic pro that you don't have enough power in your tracks, that's because you don't train frequently enough. Do you think that Kobe Bryant got to the top of the NBA with only a few good shots? Do you think that Jamie Oliver was born as the best british cook (although I must admit that his skills are quite limited compared to some french cooks'). It looks like you want to run while you can't walk properly yet. Don't hate me if I'm wrong, it's just a first sight on your situation.

Music production is just like any other skill. You can do anything you want, but you must train, again again and again!!!

I takes me days and days of training in a year to achieve stuff I thought I wouldn't be capable of, and still I think I'm not that good at all. Just like you, I'm using Logic, or Live, and I have no outboard gear at all (no Virus Ti, no big desk, nothing) because I have no money. So you want to get over the top? achieve great things? Be tough, hard, violent, picky with yourself and you will be able to make it :-)

You can get totally professional results using just Logic, but it is going to take at least 5 years of practice and hard work. Same with hardware or anything else. Learning to produce is like learning to play instruments. It takes years and years of practice.

quote:

Originally posted by Zild You can get totally professional results using just Logic, but it is going to take at least 5 years of practice and hard work. Same with hardware or anything else. Learning to produce is like learning to play instruments. It takes years and years of practice.

I say bs to that. 5 years is a ridiculously long time. When you live and breathe this stuff it just comes far easier. Everything is very simple and technical if you allow it to be. If you allow yourself to get in too deep or extend yourself into something you aren't ready for or don't need/understand yet, well then it's a lot harder.

You have to take your present skill set and take 100% advantage of it on a daily basis. Over time your skill set will continue to increase as will the quality of your tracks and producing.

Kicks are honestly the part of my song I'm most picky about and suck at the most.
I think about of maybe 4 or 500 different unfinished tracks on my computer, only 2 of them actually have kicks I'm satisfied with.

Lately though for some reason I'm starting to think synths make better kick drums than actual samples. At least the ones from sylenth and fruity kick have this very different feel than the average woody kick samples.

I still vote oompa loompa as the best kick drum ever made. I just love that kick drum.

Ok, I made a quick preset file for ultrabeat with 24 synth kicks. Tell me if this is more what you are looking for...



AWKicks.pst

quote:

Originally posted by mfitterer1 I say bs to that. 5 years is a ridiculously long time. When you live and breathe this stuff it just comes far easier. Everything is very simple and technical if you allow it to be. If you allow yourself to get in too deep or extend yourself into something you aren't ready for or don't need/understand yet, well then it's a lot harder. You have to take your present skill set and take 100% advantage of it on a daily basis. Over time your skill set will continue to increase as will the quality of your tracks and producing.

I'm not quite sure what you're on about but in my experience everyone I know who is a really good musician or producer has been at it for much longer than five years. More like 15-20 years.

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo You're missing a very important point in my opinion... If you think when running Logic pro that you don't have enough power in your tracks, that's because you don't train frequently enough. Do you think that Kobe Bryant got to the top of the NBA with only a few good shots? Do you think that Jamie Oliver was born as the best british cook (although I must admit that his skills are quite limited compared to some french cooks'). It looks like you want to run while you can't walk properly yet. Don't hate me if I'm wrong, it's just a first sight on your situation. Music production is just like any other skill. You can do anything you want, but you must train, again again and again!!! I takes me days and days of training in a year to achieve stuff I thought I wouldn't be capable of, and still I think I'm not that good at all. Just like you, I'm using Logic, or Live, and I have no outboard gear at all (no Virus Ti, no big desk, nothing) because I have no money. So you want to get over the top? achieve great things? Be tough, hard, violent, picky with yourself and you will be able to make it :-)

Dude, you are an inspiration.

Depressing though that someone of your stature still struggles to fund his craft.

And please made a joke track called Lolo - LOL or ROFL or PMSL or summet.

thanks a bunch guys, maybe if someone has myspace you can look at my page and maybe take a listen to my stuff- www.myspace.com/badapple1984 . Obviously, it's guna sound a little different, the quality seems to get a little weird when i upload on there, but for the most part it sounds similar. also, whoever posted a link, i am unable to read it cuz I believe since I am on a mac it cannot figure out the code....thanks

For me, it's mostly a matter of choosing the right sample (or two), and making sure nothing drowns it out. (Make sure the bassline freqs don't interfere... apply some subtle ducking, if necessary, and make sure the rest of the mix isn't too loud.)

Hey Laurent, just wanted to say thanks for doing the preset!

BadApple - I had a very quick listen and your tracks aren't in that bad shape. On Dark, you can hear the kickhas an after hiss, which is either the sample itself or the result of bad compression.

The key is to layer a couple of kicks like lolo explained - you can even just do them as individual samples on two (or more) tracks. One with nice bottom end and one pitched up or more "clicky" to give it attack.

A while back everyone was banging on about compression on kicks and compressing one this wy and the other that way then compressing them both etc.

I could not understand it - just get a decent kick sound in the sample and don't fuck about with all that compression. Compression won't make a bad sample sound good.

Also a way easier way is to find a track with a kick you really like and use that. Yes' you will have to do a little work to make the other elements sit with it but you have to do that anyway....

Personally the best kick I've ever found and this is to my tastes is the one of my Xbase 888. I don't really even process it. I'm hoping to pick up an Mbase 01 when I can in the future. I say just find something you like and then use it.

Where did my post go?
Well anyway. I got lucky with my kicks maybe a month or 2 after I bought these headphones (not flat, they're boss brand actually).

I didn't buy them for music, but learned they color sound better than anything in the world for translating kicks. If you turn a kick up to 0db under my regular speakers it kills the sound with an overload of bass to the woofer.

On these headphones when I find a GOOD kick sample, its a GOOD sample. They just have this wierd property where they make bouncy kicks glow, and woody kicks (that aren't easy to hear as trash) sound like wood trashy kicks.
My kicks instantly went from shit to extremely good after getting these headphones. Again they're not flat at all, but they color for the benefit of kick/bass translation.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Hey Laurent, just wanted to say thanks for doing the preset! BadApple - I had a very quick listen and your tracks aren't in that bad shape. On Dark, you can hear the kickhas an after hiss, which is either the sample itself or the result of bad compression. The key is to layer a couple of kicks like lolo explained - you can even just do them as individual samples on two (or more) tracks. One with nice bottom end and one pitched up or more "clicky" to give it attack. A while back everyone was banging on about compression on kicks and compressing one this wy and the other that way then compressing them both etc. I could not understand it - just get a decent kick sound in the sample and don't fuck about with all that compression. Compression won't make a bad sample sound good. Also a way easier way is to find a track with a kick you really like and use that. Yes' you will have to do a little work to make the other elements sit with it but you have to do that anyway....

Thanks for taking a listen. Some of those noises i cannot seem to get out, however they are the only kick samples in logic that have that punch i like. I have only been doin this for like 9 months now and I really want to get that quality thump in my songs. It is just so fuckin hard to get....ugh

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