"All rhythm evolves around a kick... "

Can someone explain this? Also, I heard that the bassline should never be on the kick, but around the kick. But i'm sure i've heard some classics which are otherwise.

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Originally posted by trancey_spacer "All rhythm evolves around a kick... " Can someone explain this? Also, I heard that the bassline should never be on the kick, but around the kick. But i'm sure i've heard some classics which are otherwise.

Give an example of a classic that has the bassline on the kick, and I'll tell you if you've interpreted this correctly.

Well, this is dance music, and the kick is what people dance to (for the most part), so it's very important in that sense.

It's a good rule of thumb to not place bass notes over the kics since the sub-basses will interfere, but of course you CAN do this and it's done all the time. You just have to be careful with your EQ'ing, and I believe side-chain compression will also solve bass/kick overlap problems though I don't know much about side-chain compressors myself.

Maybe Thy or another one of the audio engineering pros can get into more details =P

the kick drum is what drives the rhythym of a dance song. those are the beats that you will dance too, or find yourself dancing to. its mind boggling the lengths you can go to to make your kicks fit better into your tracks. ive ben at this a year now and i still am not satisfied with my kicks. every track i layer, EQ, effect, compress a new one, sometimes out of as many as 4 to 8 separate kick samples or synth blips. its hard to get absolutely right.

you can play a bass note on a kick but you have to be careful doing this because kicks and basses tend to occupy alot of the same frequencies in the low end of an EQ. unless you have alot of headroom you will just go straight over 0 dB and clip everytime a kick and bass note hit together. secondly, if you use up alot of headroom compensating for a bass and kick note playing together without clipping, the rest of your track will end up not very loud cuz you will have used up all your headroom. what many producers do is kind of go half way. play bass notes on kicks but duck the bass (lower the velocity of the note) so that they dont interfere. that way you save headroom to make your track louder at the end plus you can make nice rolling constant basslines.

oi that's me sig !


I used it more as an indication that you bump your head up and down on the kick. And that movement defines the core rhythm

Bass can perfectly well be on the kick, in fact in non dance music it usually is. With dance music you just have to watch out that the kick doesn't lose its power because of the bassline...because....well...all rhythm....

Thankfully there are ways to have bass + kick and not lose kick power, like making sure the bass has proper sound characteristics, having it slightly less loud than the kick, and perhaps having the bassline "duck" away from the kick.

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All rhythm evolves around a kick...

yer. the kick is like most prominant down beat in dance music. you go down on that and up on the upbeat (in trance typically the off hat). that way you get a good bopping rhythym (in 8th intervals). its better if your kick and off hats are clean and defined. breaks are different. down beat is the kick. upbeats are typically the snares. thats why breakbeats are so much more interesting to dance to. that little blue dancing man on the front of the tranceaddict page would be good at dancing to breaks (he probably is or was dancing to breaks). lots of arms and legs. you can do that with your standard downbeat, offbeat too. but it just doesnt feel as natural.

in psy and old skool trance sometimes there isnt really many offbeats - just the kicks and sweeping synths all around. thats got more of a hypnotic quality to it (hence i suppose the 'trance'). but you can do some mad dancing to psy. maybe its the uptempo or something. drum and bass is imho the ultimate for dancing. the speed, all the up and down beats. you can do some whacked out stuff. some people really go for it with the dancing too which is always good to see.

its so important to get your bass kicks and hats as solid as you can cuz tunes that can make it on the dancefloor tend to be the ones that more people remember, the ones more DJs are inclined to play (cuz they get a good reaction to it in clubs) and typically are the ones that are more successful cuz they get played more often and more people remember them. obviously theres other elements - a memorable riff is always good. but you can spend years just tweaking your beats to perfection and the rewards are self evident.

Yes well it is true that all forms of dance music do revolve around the kick its what makes or breaks tracks in my opinion. Although there are tracks that have bass that land on the kick but the tend to be your typical high bass or sub bass dives right before ur pads or leads kick in on ur breakdown. This bass dive effect is also away to bring your elements of ur downbeat kick and ur upbeat hats.


heres some examples of what im talking about.


exp 1 your high bass

K---k---k---k---
---o---o---o---o
xXX-xXX-xXX-xXX-
exp 2 Bass Dive
K--------------
x______________

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There is a tune that describes the essence of a kick and bass.

David Forbes - Questions must be asked.

one of my favorites, and youl hear how a funky bass with a kick sounds and how a funky bass sounds without a kick ( youl hear it mainly in the break of that tune)

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Originally posted by Octanesyco Greetings. My name is Casey. You can call me Moose. -Moose

heheh...i never much liked the Questions tune before I re-examined it that way. Hey..its pretty cool!

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