Hy guy's, for a long time i have one curiosity, i would want to understand as they are created kick sound like that they use the great trance producers (Above & Beyond, Alex M.O.R.P.H. etc...).
it exists cd sample with these sounds?
Tnx
Trance Kick (Above & Beyond, Alex M.O.R.P.H. etc...)???
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- KVRAF
- 2356 posts since 30 Sep, 2003 from Sunny Staffordshire
Basically, it involves mixing sampled kick drums. You take a few sounds that you like, and mix them in different ways to form a new original sound.
Originally this involved mixing sine and 909 kicks with sampled vinyl kicks. Later people would just sample differently from their genre of choice.
Some people do still synthesize their own sounds, but you're highly unlikely to hear those artists doing so.
If you like I will try to prep a little toot for you.
TB
Originally this involved mixing sine and 909 kicks with sampled vinyl kicks. Later people would just sample differently from their genre of choice.
Some people do still synthesize their own sounds, but you're highly unlikely to hear those artists doing so.
If you like I will try to prep a little toot for you.
TB
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- KVRian
- 553 posts since 24 Feb, 2005 from Prana
See tranceaddict.com's forum's production section for info.
“Somebody said to me, ‘But the Beatles were antimaterialistic.’ That’s a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool.’ ”
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- KVRAF
- 2356 posts since 30 Sep, 2003 from Sunny Staffordshire
TB - Sampled Kick Toot
Ok, well first I just want to make this point...
Sampling of drums is ubiquitous in dance music. Most of the kick drums you hear in modern trance tunes are samples of samples of samples. Each time they are treated and mixed, then mastered and pressed etc. Its likely that some part of todays classic kick sounds date back to old 909 and vinyl samples from the early 90's / late 80's!
This isnt to say that you cant build sounds from scratch. Indeed some do, myself included. Im quite sure that Push uses 909 kicks almost exclusively in his records. Corsten aswell. PVD's old classic kick sounds to me like it is built from for sine based kick sounds. So dont discount the idea of synthesising your own sounds as it can be a great way to come up with original samples.
But for the purposed of this little toot, Im going to deal with sampled sounds, as I believe this accounts for the vast majority of kick drums in the records you listen to.
Now, to demostrate just how much sounds get sampled, have a listen to these three kick sounds. I wonder how many times you've heard these exact sounds or derivatives of them? Quite a few I would bet!
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?a ... 3C7CB65F47
So the question is, how do they turn a fist full of sampled kick drums into something new, and more importantly something that fits their music perfectly?
Essentially, they use classic component sound design techniques. They treat each sample as a certain isolated element of the total sound, then mix the elements to form a composite. And now I'll show you a few techiques for achieving this. Take these as basic demostrations and not the gospel, as there are many, many variations and combinations of these techniques.
Indeed, they use similar techniques when mixing pop and rock tunes.
MAKING A KICK:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?a ... FB0CC71F7A
Now Im going to take you through the process I might go through when making a kick from sampled sounds (or from any sounds for that matter, synthesised, recorded... whatever). First I take a load of drums samples and import them into Cubase onto audio tracks. Then I begin lining some up and thinking how I might get two sounding nice together.
1. Listen to sample 1 and you'll here my two kicks first unprocessed. Before I try any kind of layering, I make sure that Iv edited the attacks to my satisfaction. That might involved cutting upto the transient, or not if I want a sloppier attack. Sometimes I cut off axis and put a little fade at the start so that i get a REALLY hard attack. At this point I also do any pitching.
You'll notice that Iv picked one sample that has more punch and more top end, and another that has alot of 'umph' (yep, the technical term!).
2. Sample 2 shows the sounds processed before mixing them. Here you'll see that Iv LP filtered the fat sound, and HP filtered the high one. This was to prevent any phase cancellation in the lowend. Be sure if you do this to listen with the filters on and off, as ometimes you can get happy accidents where they sound great straight away!
3. Sample 3 is our mixed kick drum, which Iv EQ'ed a little and beefed up with Camelphat Free.
Now, this sounds to me very similar to that classic Airwave kick sound. But it isnt really working for me. The attack is too sloppy so I think I might try another attack.
4. In sample 4, Iv gone back into Cubase and Iv found an new attack from another sample that I think will work better. Then I crossfade the new attack onto our mixed composite kick. I think you'll agree that it doesnt really work too well either and that it was probably better before!
5. By this point Im getting a bit pissed off with this sound so I grab the old LP filtered sample and I try some new attacks on the start of that. With in a few minutes Iv got one that works nice and punchy (imo) as you'll hear in sample 5. But it sounded a little dull, so I HP'ed a percussion sound and layered it ontop.
6. Finally, to tame the attack and boost the 'umph' I use a hard
compression from Waves Rencomp (sample 6).
So from this you'll see that its a very 'liquid' process. I never find myself tied to one sound. There are always several possibilities floating around, and at some point I'll find a mix that works nicely.
I think that the final sample sounds nice, and Im sure it would work kick fine in an Oceanlab style track. Ofcourse, when I use it in a track, its highly likely that I'll perform some kind of surgery on it once again to make it fit the music.
Also, bare in mind that it is not always this much of a pain as it has been during this toot. There are many times when the first two sounds work great straight away, and you can
just mix it down and move on. Thats why I like to get quite a few into the arrange window to start with, as it up's the odds of getting a happy accident. When Im doing loops, I can usually pump out loads sounds an hour, as I use these techniques on hats, snares, claps etc aswell. I get them all into the Cubase arrange window and thats where I do my beats.
So have fun, experiment, and if you come up with any cool tricks or sounds, be sure to give me a pm
TB
Ok, well first I just want to make this point...
Sampling of drums is ubiquitous in dance music. Most of the kick drums you hear in modern trance tunes are samples of samples of samples. Each time they are treated and mixed, then mastered and pressed etc. Its likely that some part of todays classic kick sounds date back to old 909 and vinyl samples from the early 90's / late 80's!
This isnt to say that you cant build sounds from scratch. Indeed some do, myself included. Im quite sure that Push uses 909 kicks almost exclusively in his records. Corsten aswell. PVD's old classic kick sounds to me like it is built from for sine based kick sounds. So dont discount the idea of synthesising your own sounds as it can be a great way to come up with original samples.
But for the purposed of this little toot, Im going to deal with sampled sounds, as I believe this accounts for the vast majority of kick drums in the records you listen to.
Now, to demostrate just how much sounds get sampled, have a listen to these three kick sounds. I wonder how many times you've heard these exact sounds or derivatives of them? Quite a few I would bet!
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?a ... 3C7CB65F47
So the question is, how do they turn a fist full of sampled kick drums into something new, and more importantly something that fits their music perfectly?
Essentially, they use classic component sound design techniques. They treat each sample as a certain isolated element of the total sound, then mix the elements to form a composite. And now I'll show you a few techiques for achieving this. Take these as basic demostrations and not the gospel, as there are many, many variations and combinations of these techniques.
Indeed, they use similar techniques when mixing pop and rock tunes.
MAKING A KICK:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?a ... FB0CC71F7A
Now Im going to take you through the process I might go through when making a kick from sampled sounds (or from any sounds for that matter, synthesised, recorded... whatever). First I take a load of drums samples and import them into Cubase onto audio tracks. Then I begin lining some up and thinking how I might get two sounding nice together.
1. Listen to sample 1 and you'll here my two kicks first unprocessed. Before I try any kind of layering, I make sure that Iv edited the attacks to my satisfaction. That might involved cutting upto the transient, or not if I want a sloppier attack. Sometimes I cut off axis and put a little fade at the start so that i get a REALLY hard attack. At this point I also do any pitching.
You'll notice that Iv picked one sample that has more punch and more top end, and another that has alot of 'umph' (yep, the technical term!).
2. Sample 2 shows the sounds processed before mixing them. Here you'll see that Iv LP filtered the fat sound, and HP filtered the high one. This was to prevent any phase cancellation in the lowend. Be sure if you do this to listen with the filters on and off, as ometimes you can get happy accidents where they sound great straight away!
3. Sample 3 is our mixed kick drum, which Iv EQ'ed a little and beefed up with Camelphat Free.
Now, this sounds to me very similar to that classic Airwave kick sound. But it isnt really working for me. The attack is too sloppy so I think I might try another attack.
4. In sample 4, Iv gone back into Cubase and Iv found an new attack from another sample that I think will work better. Then I crossfade the new attack onto our mixed composite kick. I think you'll agree that it doesnt really work too well either and that it was probably better before!
5. By this point Im getting a bit pissed off with this sound so I grab the old LP filtered sample and I try some new attacks on the start of that. With in a few minutes Iv got one that works nice and punchy (imo) as you'll hear in sample 5. But it sounded a little dull, so I HP'ed a percussion sound and layered it ontop.
6. Finally, to tame the attack and boost the 'umph' I use a hard
compression from Waves Rencomp (sample 6).
So from this you'll see that its a very 'liquid' process. I never find myself tied to one sound. There are always several possibilities floating around, and at some point I'll find a mix that works nicely.
I think that the final sample sounds nice, and Im sure it would work kick fine in an Oceanlab style track. Ofcourse, when I use it in a track, its highly likely that I'll perform some kind of surgery on it once again to make it fit the music.
Also, bare in mind that it is not always this much of a pain as it has been during this toot. There are many times when the first two sounds work great straight away, and you can
just mix it down and move on. Thats why I like to get quite a few into the arrange window to start with, as it up's the odds of getting a happy accident. When Im doing loops, I can usually pump out loads sounds an hour, as I use these techniques on hats, snares, claps etc aswell. I get them all into the Cubase arrange window and thats where I do my beats.
So have fun, experiment, and if you come up with any cool tricks or sounds, be sure to give me a pm
TB
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- KVRist
- 54 posts since 7 Jul, 2004
Sweet post TB... Clearly written and with audio examples. This kind of thing is really helpful to me and probably the OP as well. Maybe consider putting this in the tutorial section?
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- KVRist
- 63 posts since 9 Jul, 2003 from Sydney, Australia
Which freq's you find are best to have your LP on the low kick and the HP on the attack part? And in terms of your compression I assume you have next to no attack and an release like 200 ms? Or are you using the compressor basically like a limiter (no attack and very fast release)?
In cubase I assume you bounce these seperatly after filtering then place them into the same audio part and use cubase's xfade function to combine them?
In cubase I assume you bounce these seperatly after filtering then place them into the same audio part and use cubase's xfade function to combine them?
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- KVRAF
- 2356 posts since 30 Sep, 2003 from Sunny Staffordshire
To be honest, Im really flexible, nothing is hard and fast with filtering, compression, EQ etc. This is what I love about Cubase is that Im used to the interface enough to be able to just play around and not have to think to much about it.
So I tend to filter and EQ to ear mostly. In that example, I think it HP'ed upto about 400Hz but Im not totally sure.
You're right about the compression yes, it was a very fast attack, high ratio setting. I wanted to take that big transient peak and beef up the bass a little. Its weird but Iv noticed that this kind of compression give similar results to a low mid EQ scoop (around 300Hz). But other times I might use a very different compression to bring the transient out more.
Its like, think of the audio files as little bits of clay, and the plugins as your tools to mold them.
Yeah, I do the crossfading in Cubase. You can see the waveform as you fade, and there is usually a point where it looks and sounds perfect. I find that difficult to do in Wavelab. Also, in Cubase you can easily tweak the fade settings. Sometimes a longer fade its better, other times a very short one.
TB
So I tend to filter and EQ to ear mostly. In that example, I think it HP'ed upto about 400Hz but Im not totally sure.
You're right about the compression yes, it was a very fast attack, high ratio setting. I wanted to take that big transient peak and beef up the bass a little. Its weird but Iv noticed that this kind of compression give similar results to a low mid EQ scoop (around 300Hz). But other times I might use a very different compression to bring the transient out more.
Its like, think of the audio files as little bits of clay, and the plugins as your tools to mold them.
Yeah, I do the crossfading in Cubase. You can see the waveform as you fade, and there is usually a point where it looks and sounds perfect. I find that difficult to do in Wavelab. Also, in Cubase you can easily tweak the fade settings. Sometimes a longer fade its better, other times a very short one.
TB
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- KVRist
- 428 posts since 13 Apr, 2003
I really admire you teeboy, one of your fans here @ kvr
I'm really confused why you still haven't released any samplecd's or something like that, you got so much knowledge and make cool sounds!
I'm really confused why you still haven't released any samplecd's or something like that, you got so much knowledge and make cool sounds!
I'm a Jugga Nut!
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- KVRAF
- 2685 posts since 14 Jul, 2005 from Australia
tea boy, huge thanks for your awesome post too !
I have been producing trance for a long time now and have only recently discovered that sampling kicks is indeed the best way to get a good sound. Mixing kicks and then compressing the crap out of them works beautifully.
So far the best compressor I have seen for kicks is by far the Marquis by Voxengo in T3 mode, it's more like a tool than a compressor, totally can shape the sound
Just a question for you, what do you use to compose the drumbeat itself, what sort of samples and what sort of software ? I find Reason is great to use for drum beats but I always wonder if Reason's sample players are in some way destroying the sound, just paranoid
Fots
I have been producing trance for a long time now and have only recently discovered that sampling kicks is indeed the best way to get a good sound. Mixing kicks and then compressing the crap out of them works beautifully.
So far the best compressor I have seen for kicks is by far the Marquis by Voxengo in T3 mode, it's more like a tool than a compressor, totally can shape the sound
Just a question for you, what do you use to compose the drumbeat itself, what sort of samples and what sort of software ? I find Reason is great to use for drum beats but I always wonder if Reason's sample players are in some way destroying the sound, just paranoid
Fots