KVR Audio

andypryce · Post by **andypryce** » Mon Jul 23, 2018 4:15 pm

What are the fundamentals needed to create this type of Kick Drums? Soft but punchy and deep. Sounds like all synthesized but can not get it right. Is it 808s with pitch env and compression and low boost or layering Sub synth with click samples?

Thanks
A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU_ws0Di6wI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7is5SfXcME

ONST (UK) · Post by **ONST (UK)** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 3:17 pm

This was as close as I could get it with kick 2 (https://clyp.it/pa5iplss)

I started with the 909-02 preset and worked my way from there. pulled out some of the body so it slides down into the sub early on in the kick. parallel compression without 34ms of attack time was key to getting the sustain and the kick up front. saturation with fab filter saturn adds the warmth to the sub. i used lfo tool at the end to shape the kicks d, s, r

i can send you ableton chain if you want to work on it some more

ONST (UK) · Post by **ONST (UK)** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 3:24 pm

almost forgot to add the eq which focused on boosting the sub of the kick and taking out the boxiness. by taking out the boxiness the kick suffers a bit so brought it back up by giving a small tight boost to around 180hz.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 3:27 pm

Sounds to me like a sine wave with a fast pitch envelope to give it that initial transient snap, and a low sub underneath that to give it the heavy bottom end.

TIMT · Post by **TIMT** » Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:34 pm

2 kicks both synthesized by the sounds of things.the subby one has a pitch envelope that doesn't extend much beyond a 5th there abouts and the other is a generic style pitch envelope covering a few octaves.the 1st kick has a sidechain key triggered compressor on it from the 2nd kick providing most of the envelope and pushing most of that beefy energy in the tail out of the way, and as has been touched upon already,there's parallel compression and what sounds like a tape style saturation across the whole kick

ARNK · Post by **ARNK** » Fri Aug 10, 2018 4:49 am

TIMT wrote:2 kicks both synthesized by the sounds of things.the subby one has a pitch envelope that doesn't extend much beyond a 5th there abouts and the other is a generic style pitch envelope covering a few octaves.the 1st kick has a sidechain key triggered compressor on it from the 2nd kick providing most of the envelope and pushing most of that beefy energy in the tail out of the way, and as has been touched upon already,there's parallel compression and what sounds like a tape style saturation across the whole kick

Are you referring to the first or second example track?

Liney · Post by **Liney** » Fri Aug 10, 2018 10:13 am

Without straying off topic, is it common to parallel compress the kick drum (on its own, as part of its sound design, rather than as part of drum bus)? And by 'is it common', I mean 'is it something that many people here have found useful?'

I am now quite comfortable using a compressor as an enveloper on individual kick drums, but I have not used parallel compression.

TIMT · Post by **TIMT** » Fri Aug 10, 2018 5:00 pm

ARNK wrote:
TIMT wrote:2 kicks both synthesized by the sounds of things.the subby one has a pitch envelope that doesn't extend much beyond a 5th there abouts and the other is a generic style pitch envelope covering a few octaves.the 1st kick has a sidechain key triggered compressor on it from the 2nd kick providing most of the envelope and pushing most of that beefy energy in the tail out of the way, and as has been touched upon already,there's parallel compression and what sounds like a tape style saturation across the whole kick
Are you referring to the first or second example track?

Both kicks are very similar an use almost identical methods,so i guess it doesn't matter which

andymcbain · Post by **andymcbain** » Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:00 pm

Both variants on a 909 kick to my ears.. find a 909 preset on your drum synth and start from there. Mess with the starting frequency (the attack) and the curve... you'll get there.

theorize · Post by **theorize** » Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:47 am

What drum synth are you guys using. I have drum synth live but I'm not sure how much I like it, I'm not pulling sounds with much character out of it. I also have drumaxxe, but it's not super good for punchy stuff. Just curious what people here that make their own drums are using. I honestly like using Orangator (yes, still... but it's a good synth for a lot of things) a lot because you can pitch the noise, but can't get the 2nd timber to work, would be great if I could... then I could do a lot of experimenting without having to export and import sample to make a layered sound. Sorry OP not trying to jack threat, but seemed like a good place to chime in since it's a thread where people are clearly using drum synths.

andymcbain · Post by **andymcbain** » Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:44 am

theorize wrote:What drum synth are you guys using. I have drum synth live but I'm not sure how much I like it, I'm not pulling sounds with much character out of it. I also have drumaxxe, but it's not super good for punchy stuff. Just curious what people here that make their own drums are using. I honestly like using Orangator (yes, still... but it's a good synth for a lot of things) a lot because you can pitch the noise, but can't get the 2nd timber to work, would be great if I could... then I could do a lot of experimenting without having to export and import sample to make a layered sound. Sorry OP not trying to jack threat, but seemed like a good place to chime in since it's a thread where people are clearly using drum synths.

Sonic Academy Kick 2 and Vengeance Sound Metrum... both excel in different areas.

A lot of people still use Bazzism - simple and effective

sqigls · Post by **sqigls** » Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:04 pm

Carbon Electra makes good kick drums too.

most synths can do a decent kick, even without effects on top
but anyway, sine wave modulated with a pitch envelope... bit of saturation, eq... on some synths you can roll the attack back a bit to round off the transient a bit, then the right compressor will add a bit of click back into it. The sustain phase of transient designers can be good for shaping kicks too. It's all about the envelopes really. DrumSpillage is king for tight shapes. Though something like Heartbeat is nice with its retro sound, the saturation is real sweet more often than not

theorize · Post by **theorize** » Wed Aug 15, 2018 10:37 pm

I'll have to check out these recommendations, thanks. I'm looking for something with good envelopes that are responsive with fast times (maybe goes without saying) and good generators that can have a lot of variation, I'm kind of looking for an all in one package. MuTonic looked cool but just a bit too electronic, I want something that can add in something to the sound to it doesn't just sound like the same old drum synth sounds (but I want to be able to do those too when I feel like it), something I can experiment with. I don't care if it even uses samples on a layer as long as they're versatile, like various noise samples I can shape. Just as long as it's a layer and not the base of my sound.

andypryce · Post by **andypryce** » Fri Aug 17, 2018 9:18 am

ONST (UK) wrote:This was as close as I could get it with kick 2 (https://clyp.it/pa5iplss)

I started with the 909-02 preset and worked my way from there. pulled out some of the body so it slides down into the sub early on in the kick. parallel compression without 34ms of attack time was key to getting the sustain and the kick up front. saturation with fab filter saturn adds the warmth to the sub. i used lfo tool at the end to shape the kicks d, s, r

i can send you ableton chain if you want to work on it some more

Hey ONST
This sounds pretty nice thanks!
Thanks for all the other suggestions as well.

The nice thing I like about these kicks is they are relatively short but have really low deep sub. So that is why I thought maybe some serious low end shelf eq lift or something similar like VOG etc is used. Because I don't get this levels of sub with kicks without lengthening the sub. Especially the first example has a great low end for a kick that short.

Yet another Kick Drum question