Hi,
As a fan and a producer of EDM, i've been thinking about kick drums alot lately. To be more precise, the pitch drop of kick drums and what effect it has on punch and character.
I love those drawn out, deep bass kicks but i'm having trouble fitting them into an arpeggio-style bassline. Imagine a kick starting at 10kHz, ending at 49Hz , with a length of about 130ms. A good portion of the sub punch would hit your face relatively "late" compared to the snappy attack. As a result, the sub frequencies of the kick will sound shuffled or out of sync to a bassline.
My neighbours will think i'm producing electric swing when it's in fact trance. How would it sound on a big speaker system, having the kick "out of sync" like this? Is it bad? EDM is all about bass and i wanna hear some input!
Kickdrum pitch
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 49 posts since 26 Jan, 2018 from Stockholm, Sweden
Yamaha HS7 - HD600 - Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 - Akai MPK261
www.soundcloud.com/frozen_orb
www.facebook.com/frozenorbmusic
www.soundcloud.com/frozen_orb
www.facebook.com/frozenorbmusic
-
- KVRAF
- 2989 posts since 5 Nov, 2014
Dunno what are you talking about, just made kick like that and it's rather short and punchy, are you sure about 130ms part?
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 49 posts since 26 Jan, 2018 from Stockholm, Sweden
Maybe i wasn't clear, if the pitch drop is only 10ms short and the rest is a 120ms decay on a static sub sinewave then sure it will sound short.
I'm talking about a longer pitch drop, ie, the time it takes for the sine wave to go from for example ~10kHz to 49Hz to actually start producing subsonic content.
I'm talking about a longer pitch drop, ie, the time it takes for the sine wave to go from for example ~10kHz to 49Hz to actually start producing subsonic content.
Yamaha HS7 - HD600 - Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 - Akai MPK261
www.soundcloud.com/frozen_orb
www.facebook.com/frozenorbmusic
www.soundcloud.com/frozen_orb
www.facebook.com/frozenorbmusic
-
- KVRAF
- 2989 posts since 5 Nov, 2014
Can you post actual example?
-
- KVRian
- 597 posts since 10 Jan, 2017
Mike Senior discussed EDM kicks in a review of Sak Noel's "Loca People" here - https://www.soundonsound.com/people/mix-review-34
Personally I'd try not to get too bogged down in the technicalities. Have a good reference track, make sure your monitoring is the best it can possibly be, and then if you're synthesising your kick, tweak the envelopes until it's grooving properly with the bass. Or my preference, tweak the bass after choosing a good kick sample.
Good monitoring is really important for getting the groove correct. If you can accurately hear what the sub frequencies are doing (which I certainly can't on my small monitors in my room!) then your job will be much easier
The Slate VSX headphones have been a huge help for me.
Personally I'd try not to get too bogged down in the technicalities. Have a good reference track, make sure your monitoring is the best it can possibly be, and then if you're synthesising your kick, tweak the envelopes until it's grooving properly with the bass. Or my preference, tweak the bass after choosing a good kick sample.
Good monitoring is really important for getting the groove correct. If you can accurately hear what the sub frequencies are doing (which I certainly can't on my small monitors in my room!) then your job will be much easier
The Slate VSX headphones have been a huge help for me.-
- KVRist
- 156 posts since 1 Jul, 2020
Even if using a sample you can can still fine tune (or drastically change) using a pitch envelope
