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The Mother of all KICK DRUMS thread
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br0d
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
355
Posted : Mar 7, 2005 06:08
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First and foremost, if you wanna steal them, steal them. Why bother? Make tunes, not tools.
Secondly, if you truly are interested, and of course everyone is at least a little curious, I've noticed a few things about kicks over the years. These are just opinions, please don't take them as either gospel or blasphemy.
-Most good kicks are at least a bit overdriven to give them a little bit of harmonic complexity.
-No single oscillator can simulataneously generate the high pitched and snappy chirp layer you seek, and also a woofer range (approx 80Hz-120Hz) thump that begins at 0ms and ends at 250ms, so layering is a necessity. The infected method is about as close as you can get. Some VAs with fast filters like Virus and Nord can do a decent job as well. I guess it depends on the sound you want.
-Sub 80Hz kick presence is fine, but you have to be very careful with its level, as well as its length. Underpinning with sine waves works, but most attempts result in this portion of the kick being too loud and too long.
-Comparable to a tweeter, a large speaker cone takes a lot of time and a lot of power to move anyway, so milliseconds count. If your LF content doesn't start and end where your bassline needs it to, it will make a difference.
-Never generate kicks in real time on a synthesizer, especially if that synth is multitimbral and is being used to play other parts. Always sample them. Synths claiming to have "envelope modes" or trigger offsets (hardware virus comes to mind) will munge up your kicks with their voice/polyphony schemes and make them inconsistent.
-If anyone tells you that frequencies under 31Hz are useful, challenge them to reproduce some on a club system. Even subs that go down to 20Hz waste an enormous amount of mix energy doing so, and the frequencies are too low to even be felt consistently, if anything, all they do is create unease.
-Please ignore people who tell you kicks can't be effected. If you wanna put effects on your kicks, and you can make it sound good, do it. The world needs more weird kicks. Start with a bit reducer chained into a reverse reverb set to a predelay that matches the song. 
-So long as there is no audible artifacting or unpleasantness, there is no such thing as too much compression on a kick. Compression usually affects either the harmonic balance or the sustain. If either of these changes is useful to you, compress. Typically beginner kicks are too dull. In psy people like to layer chirps to get around this, in rock they tend to mic and boost the beater. Anything that helps people feel the beat through an otherwise complex or heavy mix is a good thing, and it gives you more leeway with your layering and goofing off with your bassline, which is ALWAYS a good thing.
-Strap a heavy distortion effect on the kick channel insert and crank the distortion way up, until you can hear the actual pitch of the drum (I mean come on, a kick is just a big sideways tom.) Tune your kick such that it is in sensible relation to your bassline's key. Meaning, you don't necessarily have to transpose it up +7 so that it shares a tonic/root with the bassline, just make it something sensible, and definitely get it onto a pitch if it is resting on a quartertone. In my experience, the best tunings are root, fifth, fourth, and minor third. I've even heard guys using octaves before (kick octave higher than bassline,) which is really daring (in danger of not being beefy) but cool. Also, some kicks are just NOT pitched, they sustain on no particular note. This is fine, these can be used just about anywhere. Sometimes, the pitching is very subtle...
-Don't get sucked into the trap of making your kick drum LOUD AS HELL. The tendency in engineering is to emphasize the elements you most enjoy, and in dance music, the kick is way up there on people's list. The end result is too much boominess. If the kick seems a little limp, try changing the harmonic balance, or the BBE mentioned below. That said, when in doubt, DO make it a tad louder, because in mastering, it is easier for an engineer to squash that kick back into the mix a tad, than it is for him to lift it out of obscurity.
-I use BBE Sonic Maximizers on kicks all the time. Why? Read the BBE spec on what their processor does. Now think about it in the context of the parts of a kick drum. It phase aligns the sounds and makes it cut through the mix better, on both the high and low end. Most often I use the presence knob to add some extra snap.
-Some people will disagree with this, but the "industry standard" -5db/-5db combo for kick and bass balance is generally a good starting point for mixing your rhythm section. If the kick sounds too quiet at -5, its frequency balance may be off. If it sounds too loud, it may not have enough low end. Keep in mind that lower frequencies use up more headroom. Meaning "loud at -5, not enough low/too much high, soft at -5, not enough high/too much low." The same thing can apply to bass. The goal is to make the two pulse into one instrument, where the individual elements are almost indistinguishable. It takes time, but strapping HPF/LPF/BPF filters across your mains (or your lowend compression group, if you are routing kick and bass to a group) for testing can really help.
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EYB
Noized
Started Topics :
111
Posts :
2849
Posted : Mar 7, 2005 14:00
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Very good br0d
I add u can also use Ozone and ThrillMe for processing the kick. Ozone already got a multiband compressor, if u don't use ozone, take another multiband compressor for ur kick.
Also the Trash plugin can make u kicks fat and dirty if u like it this way 
 Signature |
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z1P^
Megalopsy
Started Topics :
28
Posts :
535
Posted : Mar 7, 2005 16:18
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wow br0od, real nice and complete advising, ill try the redux/revreverb thing you said, ;D
ah, EYB, in which lenguage do you develop your vsts?
(www) DarkPrisma.com.ar/ ~ FranticNoise.com.ar/ ~ Megalopsy.com.ar/ ~
providing shamanic euphoria until the end of the days! |
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bandarlog
Bandarlog
Started Topics :
44
Posts :
809
Posted : Mar 7, 2005 23:27
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Thanks BrOd, this really helps!
cheers! |
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psypox
Psypox / Bufo
Started Topics :
53
Posts :
768
Posted : Mar 8, 2005 11:48
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i use my synths for kicks.. Nova and Virus .. realy nice kick drums you can make with them
www.myspace.com/psypox |
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fregle
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
11
Posts :
982
Posted : Mar 9, 2005 14:43
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hitting the seat of a leather couch with a drumstick gives a very nice slap for a kick... U can use any subbass-sample/synth for the tail... |
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br0d
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
355
Posted : Mar 10, 2005 11:41
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Quote:
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On 2005-03-09 14:43, FREGLE wrote:
hitting the seat of a leather couch with a drumstick gives a very nice slap for a kick... U can use any subbass-sample/synth for the tail...
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haha
LANDMINE! Has taken my arms! Taken my head! Taken my hearing! Taken my ass! Taken my nose!
Ie, otherwise known as the "Metallica beater" |
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martyn
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
40
Posts :
389
Posted : Mar 10, 2005 14:26
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hmmm... I can't remember Lars Ulrich hitting the sofa in the viedo that clear... ;-) but like the "one" Kickdrum anyway.
www.myspace.com/mentris |
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Psychodelium
Started Topics :
0
Posts :
11
Posted : Mar 18, 2005 03:32
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ohhh yeahhh.... thiz good one |
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br0d
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
355
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 06:36
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Adding this to the thread because it is relevant:
--------------------------------------------
Hi i wonder if there is a formula or something which shows how long a kickdrum should be in ms in relationship with the bpm.
I believe as a drummer plays in "real" life he decides how long the kick drum should decay in relation to the songs tempo.This is probably important for all the other drumsounds aswell the hihats, snareand crash.
I searched the internet and didn´t find anything about this topic
So if you know anything abou this topic please help me
Best regards Conny
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The formula is ((60000/bpm)/4)
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LivePsy
Started Topics :
0
Posts :
6
Posted : Mar 21, 2005 09:12
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Thanks bandarlog for the .zip samples! There's about 40 of them I have to keep in my sampler.
B
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Ramses
Started Topics :
1
Posts :
18
Posted : Mar 29, 2005 16:41
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Tnx to brod ! really usefull issues !
..- It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception -.. |
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NikC
BeatNik
Started Topics :
40
Posts :
601
Posted : Mar 31, 2005 00:27
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Another question I feel should be posted here:
even if I "steal" a kick, whenever i drop it in the mix it doesn't seem to have the same sub 'bounce' or power that pro tracks have when I compare it, even though when i PAZ analyze the track the kick (and bass) have the same amounts of presence as in other tracks.
This gets even worse when I limit a track as whats between the kick peaks gets attenuated and the kick sounds even less powerful... I still (by using an L3 multi') get a quite powerful kick but never with the same fatness and sub bounce.
Also, whenever I insert any compressor/limiter straight onto the kick track (believe me i've tried alot) i get a nasty (but not too loud) fuzz on the kick that takes away the nice cleanness...
How can I boost the power of my kick in the sub region but keep it sounding clean???
Peace |
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fregle
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
11
Posts :
982
Posted : Mar 31, 2005 15:29
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u can only use an EQ at that stage... The producer who made that kick u stole already processed it to pieces, putting more compression/limiting on it will only destroy it. If ur kick becomes weak when limited it means ur limiting to hard... Use a mastering multiband compressor instead, with a long attack, so the kick-transient can get through unscathed. To keep it sounding clean while boosting u'll have to boost the right frequencies while leaving the odd harmonix unboosted. Also, boost the same harmonix on the bass so it sits well with the kick. |
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talolard
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
64
Posts :
282
Posted : Apr 1, 2005 19:36
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br0d's helpfull posty has raised a few questions. since it seems everyone else knows what he means i feel a bit out of place.
Quote:
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On 2005-03-07 06:08, br0d wrote:
First and foremost, if you wanna steal them, steal them. Why bother? Make tunes, not tools.
-Comparable to a tweeter, a large speaker cone takes a lot of time and a lot of power to move anyway, so milliseconds count. If your LF content doesn't start and end where your bassline needs it to, it will make a difference.
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LF being low frequency?
so would you stop it right where the bass lin comes in, let it overlap a little or give a short break?
Quote:
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-If anyone tells you that frequencies under 31Hz are useful, challenge them to reproduce some on a club system. Even subs that go down to 20Hz waste an enormous amount of mix energy doing so, and the frequencies are too low to even be felt consistently, if anything, all they do is create unease.
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what do you mean mix energy? isn't the whole idea of a sub to focus on those frequencies?
Quote:
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-Some people will disagree with this, but the "industry standard" -5db/-5db combo for kick and bass balance is generally a good starting point for mixing your rhythm section. If the kick sounds too quiet at -5, its frequency balance may be off. If it sounds too loud, it may not have enough low end. Keep in mind that lower frequencies use up more headroom. Meaning "loud at -5, not enough low/too much high, soft at -5, not enough high/too much low." The same thing can apply to bass. The goal is to make the two pulse into one instrument, where the individual elements are almost indistinguishable. It takes time, but strapping HPF/LPF/BPF filters across your mains (or your lowend compression group, if you are routing kick and bass to a group) for testing can really help.
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could you elaborate on the "industry standard" -5db/-5db combo/ what does that mean?
thanks guys.
tal
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
natanofgaza@yahoo.com |
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