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Do the following with every sound in your mix at some point, but kicks especially.
Take a parametric EQ. Make a positive bell curve, with a reasonably wide Q, but not too wide. Sweep it across your sound. Slowly. Repeat with different settings until you feel you're learning something.
This will lay the bones of your sound bare, so you can emphasise the bits you like and remove the bits you don't.
A kick drum has a click, made of the first few milliseconds of the impact (the attack transient). This will show in a sample editor as a spike. Or a tight band of high frequencies on a heavily compressed kick.
You want to keep this! It defines the sound so it can be heard in the mix... And gives it part of its power.
Traditionally, in studios people will use plastic cards taped to the drum skins, plastic beaters, microphone positioning, etc. etc. to achieve this click. We use samples, EQs, compressors (with medium attack settings) and the like.
T*
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