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Making the kick thump harder

I wanted to share something that I came across a bit ago while trying to get that "perfect kick."

I tried a lot of things to get a kick I liked:
-I synthesized for days in Operator(I followed Lolo's tuts, then experimented)
-I download several different packs
-I tried compressing them, limiting them

I still could not get that "oomph." So what I did was look at a song that I thought had a great kick and try to emulate it. I looked at Gareth Emery's "Metropolis" and the biggest thing I noticed that the kick is nothing like the ultra limited kicks you get in those sample packs. I took a Deadmau5 kick that I liked, and started to shape the curve similar to the Emery kick and I realized why I never got that "thump" I wanted. In the lower mid range, I reduced one of the waves so that the difference between the one I was changing and the next one was about 3 db, and that gave the kick a nice oomph that wasn't there before.

making a good kick comes down running the sample through various tools you have to hand and finding ways to home-in and draw out the best part of the kick sample.

by using things like wave shaper,eq and cutting out the lows and highs will make for a good clean tight kick.
the best method seems to be having the kick placed correctly in the mix and not swamped with other parts of the track namely the bass.

Re: Making the kick thump harder

quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux I still could not get that "oomph." So what I did was look at a song that I thought had a great kick and try to emulate it. I looked at Gareth Emery's "Metropolis" and the biggest thing I noticed that the kick is nothing like the ultra limited kicks you get in those sample packs. I took a Deadmau5 kick that I liked, and started to shape the curve similar to the Emery kick and I realized why I never got that "thump" I wanted. In the lower mid range, I reduced one of the waves so that the difference between the one I was changing and the next one was about 3 db, and that gave the kick a nice oomph that wasn't there before.

Didn't quite catch what you were getting at here?

I've found one way of getting a tighter kick is to close the filter on your sampler and control the cutoff via an envelope, then just set the envelope levels to 0 apart from the decay, and use the decay control to shape the envelope on the filter.

Re: Re: Making the kick thump harder

quote:

Originally posted by jason_bradberry Didn't quite catch what you were getting at here? I've found one way of getting a tighter kick is to close the filter on your sampler and control the cutoff via an envelope, then just set the envelope levels to 0 apart from the decay, and use the decay control to shape the envelope on the filter.

I made the volume of the kick jump a few db as the kick is moving into the low range to give the kick more of a thud.

Your technique sounds interesting, if you have a before and after example please post it.

quote:

Originally posted by owien ...the best method seems to be having the kick placed correctly in the mix and not swamped with other parts of the track namely the bass.

This, this and more of this. A well placed kick can do wonders, If I realised that when I first started making tracks, I would of saved myself a vast amount of time. Try it.

What is this?

quote:

Originally posted by Acton This, this and more of this. A well placed kick can do wonders, If I realised that when I first started making tracks, I would of saved myself a vast amount of time. Try it.

yep and its taken me like forever to find a method that works,the kick needs its own little space

It seems like it takes forever for people to pick this up.

Steps for making a great kick:

1.) Use a good sample
2.) Make room for it in the mix

I usualy drop the bass at 30-40z. And the kick is heavy in the 0-35hz range. Ive never really had any complaints about kicks since. And I do this my EQing the abss, I don't have to touch the kick. Either way the 0-50hz range needs to be segregated, as those freqs are what make the low end. It really depends on what you are making. Some basses have a "low end" of 100hz. So things change. Don't put reverb on anything under 200hz imho, as this can also muddy things up. Your kick and bass could be fine, but the reverb on your upper bass may be dipping into the low range. Don't use reverb to make phat bass either :P

There's just two points on the "good kick" checklist;

1 - does kick sound good on its own, if it does, proceed to 2
2 - if it sounds bad in the mix, it's not the kick's fault, it's everything else

First check your basses, how is the low end placed around the kick, does it need ducking, eq them accordingly, etc, the usual works, usually the cause for a crappy kick is actually way too muddy bass.

Has anyone tried something like this:

Kick at key C1
SubBass at key E1

That way they should sound really nice together but the kick is lower than the bass so the kick still stands out

edit: i know people do this with frequencies already. I was just trying to figure out which key combo's work the best musically

Depends on the scale. The scale I am using doesn't have E1.

Re: Making the kick thump harder

quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux I looked at Gareth Emery's "Metropolis" and the biggest thing I noticed that the kick is nothing like the ultra limited kicks you get in those sample packs.

And yet, heaps and heaps of today's best sounding songs use sample packs such as Vengeance, Thomas Penton, Ueberschall, Sounds of Revolution and others, and they have fantastic sounding kicks.

Similar to what several people have already said:

1) Choose the kick sample which sounds the way you want your kick to sound, set an appropriate level and send it straight through to the master channel without processing.

2) You're done.

If it doesn't sound good after this, you've either chosen the wrong sample, or the sounds around it are wrong.

In general, most sounds should be approached in this manner - they should sound good in the mix straight up without processing. Once you have a decent mix, then you can start honing things, cutting away frequencies with EQ, applying musically pleasing compression and so on. Some kicks I'll cut the subs away from (under around 40Hz), some I won't. The processing is very minimal though.

The best way to get the perfect kick for me is to buy a drum machine. Something cheap like the mbase 01 will do.

Design the kick to work with the track and record it in so its in key with your track. Then layer this kick with a processed kick sample, i will always use the mbase 01 for the low end and punch and the sample for the upper mids and highs.

The kicks you get on cds like thomas pentons are really really bad imo. There is no punch whatsover! and they are completely overcompressed and limited with what sounds like waves L2 as well.

The best way to get the perfect kick for me is to buy a drum machine. Something cheap like the mbase 01 will do.

Design the kick to work with the track and record it in so its in key with your track. Then layer this kick with a processed kick sample, i will always use the mbase 01 for the low end and punch and the sample for the upper mids and highs.

The kicks you get on cds like thomas pentons are really really bad imo. There is no punch whatsover! and they are completely overcompressed and limited with what sounds like waves L2 as well.

quote:

Originally posted by dannib completely overcompressed and limited with what sounds like waves L2

How could you possibly know that?

quote:

Originally posted by david.michael How could you possibly know that?

Because all Daws, all FX and all Synths have a distinctive sound that completely gives them away, didn't you know?

quote:

How could you possibly know that?

I dont know for sure. But hes obviously used the same limiter on every sound, as they have a distinctive (horrible) character. Why limit the samples?

I say Waves L2 because i get that exact sound when overusing the L2. When over limited like those sounds are, you lose a lot of sub-bass, all the dynamics and snap of the kick and introduce a horrible mid-range distortion too.

It just reminds me of the Waves L2 thats all.

quote:

Originally posted by dannib I dont know for sure. But hes obviously used the same limiter on every sound, as they have a distinctive (horrible) character. Why limit the samples? I say Waves L2 because i get that exact sound when overusing the L2. When over limited like those sounds are, you lose a lot of sub-bass, all the dynamics and snap of the kick and introduce a horrible mid-range distortion too. It just reminds me of the Waves L2 thats all.

I just don't understand how over-limiting a sound in L2 would sound different using any other tool to do it... but, I could definitely be wrong.

To answer your question, "Why limit the samples?", I'd guess for probably the same reason today's songs are all squashed to hell.... upon first quick glance, it sounds "better", "hotter", or "more professional", which = more $$$. Loudness war is even affecting our ingredients!

With the L2 i find their are many artifacts when pushing the limiter. I find i can push the UAD precision limiter a lot further and still retain a fair sound. The L2 distorts the signal quicker and sounds harsh imo.

I wouldn't read into it too much, the sounds just reminded me of it, thats all.

I agree that the Penton kicks are terribly overlimited (one look at their waveforms will tell you that!) and I really wish they would've provided more raw/less limited samples instead and leave the extreme processing up to the user. But, I definitely wouldn't say that they lack punch or sound terrible - they sound much better than the Vengeance samples IMO and don't have the artifacts that the Vengeance samples have.

I'm generally in the "find a good sample and stick with it" camp, although I tend to layer a couple of kick samples pretty frequently. For example, I'll find one sample that has a nice round bottom end, but little attack, so I'll layer it with a sample that has the attack I'm looking for (I'll hi-pass filter it to isolate the attack frequencies). I do this because most sample packs seem to have kicks that are either too clubby (hard) or too housey (soft) IMO and I generally tend to like a compromise between the two.

quote:

Originally posted by dannib With the L2 i find their are many artifacts when pushing the limiter. I find i can push the UAD precision limiter a lot further and still retain a fair sound. The L2 distorts the signal quicker and sounds harsh imo. I wouldn't read into it too much, the sounds just reminded me of it, thats all.

Gotchya. Didn't realize that.

Try this:

Choose your kick first before anything else. On your bassline when/if you sidechain it, try using the same kick for the SC sample; if the kick is too long it will fuck up your sidechaining effort, so try using the same kick sample for your side chain but shorten the kick envelop a little so there is not much sustain on it (ergo, the first thump of the kick and no real tail at the end, accordingly... the tail of the kick lingers in the compressors and ... yeah. it sucks).

EQ your bassline precisely, wipe out some bottom end as needed but quality is more desirable than quantity since a precision cut can make or break a kick/bass mix down. Grab the Vengeance sample packs, they are designed to be put immediately into tracks. They do not need editing and there are almost a thousand kicks to choose from. If you mix and EQ your track properly the kick will stand out exactly as it needs to.

It's not how loud or powerful your kick is, but how well it fits with your other elements in the mix. Basslines with a long tail contain bass frequencies, so you have to keep that in mind when inserting a bassline that occupies the same frequencies. The clear kick you are looking for is a kick that is not competing for frequencies with the bassline, which creates mud.

Oh yeah, shortening the kick (like I described for the SC) can also sound pretty good if you just want a thumpy sound. And don't forget, you might just be choosing the wrong kicks

From what i know now, just get a good kick that you specifically want, it needs certain character to have thump. Compression will only get u so far. Also its very easy to induce audible distortion in the kick by compressing the kick, depending on the compressor you use!

Try this:

Send the kick to a send channel, on the send add a compressor with the lowest attack possible (preferably none at all), a ratio at 2:1, and a treshhold at 50 dB. The release should be at 300-400 ms.

Cut out the low 200hz or something like it

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