Stephan Bodzin kick

[Ari-S]

I'm looking for a specific kick drum sound, that you'll hear a lot in these softer types of techno. Some examples with kicks like that are these tracks from Stephan Bodzin:




I know it has a lot of similarities with the classic 808 kick sound, but to me it sounds way more punchy and round than just a regular processed 808 kick. Can someone tell me how to achieve this type of kick if I want to make my own?

[zeep]

It's a saturated 808 kick. I can get pretty close with just an 808 kick, some compression. a slight eq boost and a bit of a pitch env just for the attack.

[Ari-S]

It's a saturated 808 kick. I can get pretty close with just an 808 kick, some compression. a slight eq boost and a bit of a pitch env just for the attack.

Yeah, I think I thought a little too complicated when I posted this topic... I managed to recreate it almost perfectly and it was suprisingly easy. I took a clean 808 sample, added some multiband saturation to excite a bit of the high end and then a bit of EQ and compression. The result: https://clyp.it/ysqfw1it
It sounds almost identical to the kick from Zulu. It's probably only missing a bit of an analog feel, because Stephan Bodzin probably uses analog hardware for processing, but I think I got close enough for now.

[zeep]

It's a saturated 808 kick. I can get pretty close with just an 808 kick, some compression. a slight eq boost and a bit of a pitch env just for the attack.

Yeah, I think I thought a little too complicated when I posted this topic... I managed to recreate it almost perfectly and it was suprisingly easy. I took a clean 808 sample, added some multiband saturation to excite a bit of the high end and then a bit of EQ and compression. The result: https://clyp.it/ysqfw1it
It sounds almost identical to the kick from Zulu. It's probably only missing a bit of an analog feel, because Stephan Bodzin probably uses analog hardware for processing, but I think I got close enough for now.

Glad you managed to recreate it It sounds perfectly fine.
I don't think analog gear would make much more of a difference for this kick.

[risome]

Kick 2 is great for kick construction also Microtonic from Sonic Charge for these types of kicks.
Mutilband transient shaping also helps from the likes of Alloy 2 as well as EQ and Compression

[Ari-S]

Kick 2 is great for kick construction also Microtonic from Sonic Charge for these types of kicks.
Mutilband transient shaping also helps from the likes of Alloy 2 as well as EQ and Compression

I know Kick 2 by Sonic Academy, but I think it wouldn't give me the same result as the processed 808 kick I made. The concept of the Kick plugin is great I think, but it's just layering a sine-based subkick with a top-kick sample. You can do just that within the DAW itself with samples and a synthesizer and even have more control over the way its sounds IMO.

[M-Prod]

I have read several threads in search of tips for kick drums, especially the one where you recreated the Zulu kick from Stephan Bodzin (on Reddit?) I'm a fan and am proud to have chatted with him in person on ADE a few years ago. I too am amazed at the sounds of his kick drums that are so simple but yet sound so full and punchy. I was impressed by the one you were able to create and shared on Clyp. I have been trying to recreate his kicks (and hats, synths sounds for that matter) for inspiration and have come close but not as close as you imo. Would you be willing to share a bit more details of how you got there? I tried all kinds of chains and combinations of sat/eq/comp/volume env. I have Saturn so it might be enough if you could share your settings, since you stated how close you got with just that. I don’t seem to come close and need quite a lot of eq and compression and often end up with another eq after compression. Still it’s not as good as yours. I also wonder what kind of kick you started with in the first place. How much 'tone' does it have. I've had different results with either keeping the original snappy tone or dialing it back and get the snap back from comp/envelope/sat. Also, did you or did you not use a pitch Envelope. I mostly come closest when I use little tone If you could share some more details, dat zou ik enorm waarderen

[CHOOS]

The beauty of these kicks is the simplicity of them.
Slightly different distortions and settings will all change the character somewhat so you can really finetune everything to your own need to perfectly fit your track.

https://rumble.com/vquer0-minimal-kick.html

[sircuit]

They won’t ever sound the same in your songs even if you’d have them from Bodzin himself. Every kick is unique to the song. The reason you hear them more or less the same is because they are treated, according to each song, to play the same role. But is never the same.

The kicks are simple but then he also uses no more than 20 tracks (if that many) in each project - all the elements are carefully made to complement each other.

The art of Bodzin is first his excellent taste, his ability to pick a perfect sonic palette, then the engineering behind each sound. Aka 30+ years of experience

[M-Prod]

The beauty of these kicks is the simplicity of them.
Slightly different distortions and settings will all change the character somewhat so you can really finetune everything to your own need to perfectly fit your track.

https://rumble.com/vquer0-minimal-kick.html

This is amazing! thanks! I got some good kicks with sine waves before and will try some of these tips for sure! Definitely will try OTT again. PS enjoyed your other movies too. As a big Prince fan that one gave me a big smile

In general most of these kind of kicks can be recreated with either a processed 808, Sine kick (e.g. microtonic/kick2) for Bodzin's earlier work like liebe its or something like a CR78 (Bodzin+Romboy). I'm just really impressed with the OP's effort for the Zulu Kick. This is what I learned from his the OP's efforts (based on 808):

- A good sample. Sounds simple but there are many, many 808 kick samples. It needs to be clean and not too much 'tone'. First I thought that the pop was from a high tone setting but found out that's mostly saturation/eq/compression bringing out the highs on a 808 kick with less tone. That combination creates that full, woody click instead of a sharp click you get from the tone. I prefer round robin's. I also tried my TR-8S kick, but somehow the samples seem to work better.
- Subtle saturation. Not on the sub, but I'm not sure yet where to start from there. Had different success starting at either 50/150/500 hz and up or multiple bands (up to 4). I'm not there yet. I would prefer to use single saturator (e.g. decapitator, high passed) like in your movie because imo the simpler the better.
- Eq, nearly always a dip in the low mid's similar to your movie. Sometimes as low as 90 or high as 300 hz depending on the sample. Sometimes pretty deep, up to 10db. Other cut's/boosts are tiny or none. It seems it's better to get most of the high end from the saturation/compression (taming the low end) then from eq.I found that if I needed a lot of EQ, I was better off starting with a different sample. I'm not sure about low cutting the kick. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I mostly decide in the context of the song. The OP's kick has a lot of sub it seems.
- Compression. I tried pretty hard compression (like 5-10 db) for some time but in the end subtle (1-3db) works a lot better. Fast FET worked best (I use presswerk) but ymmv. One way to check is to solo the sub. It sounds clean and punchy but also almost 'gated'. This is either an envelope (e.g. a low pass LFO tool shape) but seems to sounds better when it comes from the compressor.
- A last cheating trick is to match some eq settings with FabFilter ProQ but mostly to see what's going on because that does not take the dynamics into account.

It might sounds like a lot but in the end it's mostly little, subtle changes and mostly just sat-eq-comp.
Let me re-quote:

The beauty of these kicks is the simplicity of them.

It's a great experience and once you really learn how to approach these examples it's so much easier to create your own. Thanks for sharing!

[M-Prod]

The beauty of these kicks is the simplicity of them.
Slightly different distortions and settings will all change the character somewhat so you can really finetune everything to your own need to perfectly fit your track.

https://rumble.com/vquer0-minimal-kick.html

I was wondering, in this example do you mix the effected channel with the original channel? Since you low cut the kick I assume you need to bring back the original for at least the sub. I'm not sure, I'm not that familiar with FL studio. Also there is some microphone echo (?) that makes it a bit hard to hear the final result.

[CHOOS]

Yes sorry bout the mic echo
I really don't like my new headphones and my ears get hot AF after a few minutes. I'll have to get another pair.

In this case I didn't mix the original back in because by using a shallow high pass filter enough of the sub came through and the distortion then brings it back up again.
Compression after will boost everything again too.

My advise is to start using a kick once you're happy. Then work on the rest of the track and then when you're done go back and fine tune the subtle extras so that it fits perfectly as a whole.
Sometimes you can exaggerate the thump more or more but you won't completely know till all the elements are mixed in with it.

There no set rule. If it sounds good, it's good.

I can spend hours on kicks and get distracted but sometimes you just need to move on.

You've done a lot of homework I see so I'm glad my small contribution helped.

Merry XMas!

[M-Prod]

Thanks a lot Choos. I was able to recreate your tutorial with a FL trial so I was able to hear better what you did (and I'm not switching to FL any time soon though .. lol). Thanks for the efforts and definitely learned new stuff. For a while I sometimes just used his excellent kicks from the NI Machine library, that I would eq to taste for the song and tweak them along the way. Also there is a chain (bus, master) that influences the end result of course. A while ago I decided I wanted to learn how to build these myself in order to better understand what the basis is before the sound enters the chain. I found that although it's relative easy to get '75%' it's pretty hard to get that last 25% that makes these kicks sound so good (yes musical context is one of them). But I keep on learning along the way.... And yes, I too can spend hours on them but hey, they do end up in songs!

Happy holidays!!

[lwj]

It's a saturated 808 kick. I can get pretty close with just an 808 kick, some compression. a slight eq boost and a bit of a pitch env just for the attack.

Yeah, I think I thought a little too complicated when I posted this topic... I managed to recreate it almost perfectly and it was suprisingly easy. I took a clean 808 sample, added some multiband saturation to excite a bit of the high end and then a bit of EQ and compression. The result: https://clyp.it/ysqfw1it
It sounds almost identical to the kick from Zulu. It's probably only missing a bit of an analog feel, because Stephan Bodzin probably uses analog hardware for processing, but I think I got close enough for now.

Adding a bit of transformer or tube saturation can help there. Another great little hack I use on every kick is bx-subfilter (not the subsynth but just the free filter), really helps to clean and focus the bass a bit more before you process it further.