I've been looking at the tutorials on here and other places on line about kick drums. There are several differences of opinion that I wanted to check out with people on here.

COMPRESSION
There seems to be a difference of opinion about the use of the compressor on the kick. Some people online are saying to set your attack around 25 ms or so to allow for an initial umph in your kick. The tutorial on here was saying to set the attack at 1 ms.

Right now, in Reason I think I'm getting the best sound with an M Class compressor with input gain of 7.5 dB, threshold -17, ratio 4:1, attack 30, and release about 100 ms. Do those sound like reasonable settings?

EQ
I've seen opinions vary a lot on EQ with the kick as well. Right now, I've got everything cutting out under 30 Hz, +6 dB at 81 Hz, a pretty wide notch filter at 630 Hz with -14.9 dB and a Q of 1.7, then +8 dB at 5 KHz because I read that the kick-drum's "slap" occurs somewhere up in there. Do these EQ settings sound reasonable?

WAVEFORM FOR KICK
I don't know how many people synthesize their own kicks instead of using samples but I do. Those of you who do, which waveform do you like to use? I tend to use a triangle wave but I see a lot of people suggesting a sine wave.

Peace, Agent Starchild

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Agent Starchild
Durham, NC, USA

Those who share the wealth of their knowledge will end up far wealthier and more loved. Those who use their knowledge as a throne from which to sneer at others will never have a true friend.

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Eve of the Invasion
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the reason why you see so many different ways to handle this is because there is no right or wrong way to do it. USE YOUR EARS

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quote:

Originally posted by meDina USE YOUR EAR

what if he doesn't have one

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm what if he doesn't have one

Fixed

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I really suck at making music

Don't be so hard on the guy.
It sounds like you know what to do to get different results from your compressors and EQs.
It is now just a matter of knowing of what you want to achieve.
If your still lost, listen to some tracks you like that are similar style to what you want to produce. Then listen to the main elements and see how they are shaped.

quote:

Originally posted by T-Soma Don't be so hard on the guy. It sounds like you know what to do to get different results from your compressors and EQs. It is now just a matter of knowing of what you want to achieve. If your still lost, listen to some tracks you like that are similar style to what you want to produce. Then listen to the main elements and see how they are shaped.

not trying to be hard on him

but using your ears is the most important part of the whole process... not exactly what numbers u punch in... preset numbers are only good starts for reference points (we have all said this a million times to whoever asks this question) so in the end.

USE YOUR EAR(S)

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I really suck at making music

the main question here, is what are you trying to achive with your kick by compressing it and EQ'ing it? It sounds more like you think you "must" have these two things on it... and are just using rough tutorial or forum posts for your settings.

now, that being said.. I'm not saying dont use them, I rarely leave EQ or compression off on my kicks, But I specifically set them to match the sound and the envelope of the kick im using.

If you cant answer the question above.. I would do more reading into how these two things work and why you should be using them.

if you can.. tell us a bit more about what your trying to achive and I'll give you some tips.

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First of all, don't worry about hurting my feelings. I'm pretty amused when people try to do that in an impersonal online forum. What I've never understood though is if people are pissed off that I'm wasting their time by asking questions, why do they waste their time thinking of clever disses? I'm a teacher by profession so I understand that some people do better reading on their own and others do better asking questions (both are forms of research). I would get fired pretty quickly if I chewed out every student who asked me a bone-headed question.

What I currently have is the best I can do by "using my ear."
One thing I should say is I'm creating my own kick from scratch using a sixteenth note triangle wave tone played at F#1 with the filter set to a very low frequency with high frequency and pitch, shift, and filter modulation as well as a very short decay filter envelope. I don't want to just use a sample.

By itself, it sounds like a pretty nice thwack. When I put everything else in, I feel like I could do better.

For some reason, it seems like there's attack in the shape of the sound wave which is making me scratch my head. What I mean is that it doesn't have the "tallest curve" until 20 ms in or just under where I set the attack for the compressor. I had thought by giving the compressor 25 ms of attack or so, the sound would be loud from 0-25 ms and then drop off drastically which I thought would accent the thwack sound. Am I wrong?

In any case, I had hoped that I could just put up the settings on my equipment and someone would say "Oh, I put my attack at 40 ms on the compressor" or "I generally raise 5 KHz +3 dB rather than +6 dB," etc, which is the sort of thing I would post if I knew something someone else didn't know. Are people just very protective of their knowledge that they get angered by others with questions?

Thanks to those of you with patience.

Peace, Agent Starchild

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Agent Starchild
Durham, NC, USA

Those who share the wealth of their knowledge will end up far wealthier and more loved. Those who use their knowledge as a throne from which to sneer at others will never have a true friend.

Tracks-in-progress (Please help me make these better):
Eve of the Invasion
The Realm of Possibility

quote:

Originally posted by AgentStarchild In any case, I had hoped that I could just put up the settings on my equipment and someone would say "Oh, I put my attack at 40 ms on the compressor" or "I generally raise 5 KHz +3 dB rather than +6 dB," etc, which is the sort of thing I would post if I knew something someone else didn't know. Are people just very protective of their knowledge that they get angered by others with questions?

Well, the thing is most people use samples when they are doing their bass drums, so there really is no need for much compression or other effects as most of the samples are quite usable as they are. Also, I can't really comment on anyone else's behalf but I've never even thought of the numbers like that - everything I do I play by ear...

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100hz boost to give the kick more power on club systems is my usual one.

800hz for more body and I usually boost the 5hz area for the thwack

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Thank you. That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to get in response!

Agent

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Agent Starchild
Durham, NC, USA

Those who share the wealth of their knowledge will end up far wealthier and more loved. Those who use their knowledge as a throne from which to sneer at others will never have a true friend.

Tracks-in-progress (Please help me make these better):
Eve of the Invasion
The Realm of Possibility

quote:

Originally posted by flutlicht junky 100hz boost to give the kick more power on club systems is my usual one. 800hz for more body and I usually boost the 5hz area for the thwack

Yeah this works and all but these same frequencies dont apply to EVERY single instance... it might be 130hz... 90hz... 70hz... 121hz... for thump/power... all i ment by use your ears is the numbers are not necessarily guna give you the right fundamental frequency or HOTSPOT that your ear would be able to hear. adjust the q on the eq so that it is very narrow, boost the gain and sweep across the low frequencies slowly till you get to the sound that sounds best to you... you can then open the q a little boost that general area several dbs.

all im trying to say agent starchild is that you can have anyone tell you a number on this forum to boost or cut whatever, sure that will make your kick more desireable, but you will only get the best results with further experimentation.

Sorry for the miscommunication
Joey

edit: i have never used the same compression/eq setting for any kick in any song, im not sure why someone would do it exactly the same from one track to another... but maybe thats just how i operate

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Last edited by meDina on Jul-05-2007 at 22:05