Hey guys,

Recently been practicing layering kick samples. I have also come across some information lately regarding tuning kicks to the key of the track. If it matters at all, producing mostly progressive house/dance music.

1. If I were to tune my kicks how would I go about doing this in Logic? In the sampler? a certain plug-in?
2. In terms of layering, would you tune the individual layers of the kick, as a whole? both?
3. Personal preference/does it sound good question but do you tune it to the root note or another note in the scale you are using?
4. In your tracks what type of tuning have you done to help get the kick in the bass to sit together better?

Thanks for your time, any responses to the above questions are greatly appreciated.

Just use a spectrum analyzer to find where the peaks are, and tune it to where it sounds good.

thanks. would the best way to tune the kick be to use the transpose knob in the esx24? also when loading samples into the esx24 should I be concerned about the root note when mapping the samples to the different keys? Sorry if that questions doesn't make sense, always confuse myself haha.

It's the neat way to keep your stuff organized, without a sample browser.

Take a look at this post : Tune the Kick to the Song ?

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=288130

thanks for the thread link. some good info in there.

^^ This

I don't really know where this tuning drums to the key of the piece of music came from, but it seems a really weird thing to do to me as you might get the drums sounding too high or low pitched for drums depending on the key of the music.

Drummers tune their drums to each other (well, those that can... ) as it makes the kit sound more like a whole than mismatched drums, so camsr's advice of tuning to where they sound good is probably the best thing you can do.

I think tuning to the key of the song comes from using the kick as a sub bass as well.

Right, and in that specific case it would work, but as a general piece of advice I don't know it's something that would be beneficial that often.

I'll usually tune my kick until I hear it bouncing against bass line. As easy as that. If you tune your kick to the root note, you won't hear this effect.

I see. So do you usually tune it to a note in the key/scale you are using? like a consonant interval such as a 5th? even though I know it entirely depends but in your case you just never have your kick tuned to the root note

Many times, since kicks aren't usually thought of as pitched, (808 notwithstanding!), they'll be in an odd pitch place between two semi-tones, and fine tuning (in the cents) range can make things sit better without big harmonic jumps.

Just getting it to SOME note in a 440 12 tone scale can help lots!

That being said, I heard a dance track where the kick was in a third harmony to the root key UNTIL the bridge hit with the same note as the kick. OMG! The whole thing seemed to explode! So, you can create tension in a track with tuning, or make it more consonant and groovy.

Another tool in the composer kit!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

Remember, some kicks don't have consonance themselves, therefore it is important to judge the sound by ear and use frequency analysis to find harmony between other elements. Layering can be difficult because if the layers are not in tune with themselves, it might not harmonize with your track, so you must choose the pitch carefully.

I'd add that it should be on a case by case basis - don't feel that you *have* to do some sort of pitch shifting on drums - sometimes they're best left alone.

Am i the only one that is extremely confused in the terminology used for building new kicks?

Layerng implies putting stuff on top of one another right?... well here's the problem if you layer 2 kicks (doesn't matter how different they sound) don't even need to be in the same frequency range you're going to run into a shit load of phase problems which you're probably going to try rectify with eq which is then going to further aggrovate the problem theirs always the shifting the sample in milliseconds but if you get one bit to sound right another area is going to sound a bit f**ked as the cycles are going to clash somewhere along the lines.

The actual process of "layering" kicks and other drum sounds is to cut different frequency portions of different kicks,claps,snare,bits of shit round your house and glue them altogether to make a new kick,snare,clap etc etc so nothing overlaps with one another and you have complete control over every cycle

The only time i could imagine it would be useful to actually layer a kick over one another is if you used a whole kick that had no low frequencies in it and no middle information so essentially it would be a stereo layer which you hear alot on alot of professionally produced drums.

Which brings me to my final point,if you can't get ONE kick to work in your mix or arrangement out of a well produced sample pack it's your mix or your arrangement that's the problem not the kick out of the sample pack.

Am not implying it's impossible or you shouldn't do it...i just imagine it wouldn't sound too good and the assache required to get it to work (hardcore notching eq)is just an endless chasing of your own tail