How do you make your clicks for your kicks?

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Hi! First of all, and even if it sounds corny, I hope this year goes well for you!

I don't want to use samples; prefer to take my time making them than to spend endlessly trying out what suits them. Could you share your processes or some ideas with me, from the most basic of what vst to use to some creative process? Thank you very much!

Just in case, pd: I am not using for now hihats, I just want to keep my kicks "balds" making their transient more punchy just with a click. Thanks.

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Transfigurationsofbeing wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 4:02 pm Hi! First of all, and even if it sounds corny, I hope this year goes well for you!

I don't want to use samples; prefer to take my time making them than to spend endlessly trying out what suits them. Could you share your processes or some ideas with me, from the most basic of what vst to use to some creative process? Thank you very much!

Just in case, pd: I am not using for now hihats, I just want to keep my kicks "balds" making their transient more punchy just with a click. Thanks.
I use two subs in Kick 3.

One for the body and one with a very fast envelope from a high pitch downwards as the click and a very fast envelope for the amplitude.

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If you really want to make your own clicks, then simply use an harmonic exciter on your kicks. That’s how I make mines.

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Just in case you forgot, if your sine wave synth starts 12-15k it will be more clicky anyway, compared to starting lower down.

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The ideal "click" is a dirac delta function: an infinitely short spike with finite area. In DSP it is naturally approximated with a one-sample spike, step function, or fancy bandlimited version of the above.

How to make that with a synth? Use a square wave oscillator pitched very low with a very short AD envelope. Very handy for pinging filters if a synth lets you modulate osc volume pre-filter.

How to get that with some sub? Use a low sine oscillator with longer amp release and fix a non-zero start phase, so it begins with a sharp step to the waveform.

But that's not how most drum synths do it? Right. The frequency spectrum of our dirac delta is "all frequencies equally loud". So to get quite a short sound with all frequencies we can take an oscillator and quickly sweep through them. High to low is preferred because it ends in the right place. That classic "fast pitch bend sine osc" kick start is equivalent to our delta function running through an allpass filter. When we play with the decay curve, this is effectively changing the phase shift and frequency balance.

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LOVE Kickshaper.

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I usually layer samples, but I've also used this plugin with great results:

https://unitedplugins.com/Nanopulse/

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Cableguys Snapback

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Chop Suey was an eye opener for me.

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Much of the time I never bothered as if you do not get them just right level wise they can be ear fatiguing, so listen out for that.

Too much punch is merely hardness.

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imrae wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 5:50 pm The ideal "click" is a dirac delta function: an infinitely short spike with finite area. In DSP it is naturally approximated with a one-sample spike, step function, or fancy bandlimited version of the above.

How to make that with a synth? Use a square wave oscillator pitched very low with a very short AD envelope. Very handy for pinging filters if a synth lets you modulate osc volume pre-filter.

How to get that with some sub? Use a low sine oscillator with longer amp release and fix a non-zero start phase, so it begins with a sharp step to the waveform.

But that's not how most drum synths do it? Right. The frequency spectrum of our dirac delta is "all frequencies equally loud". So to get quite a short sound with all frequencies we can take an oscillator and quickly sweep through them. High to low is preferred because it ends in the right place. That classic "fast pitch bend sine osc" kick start is equivalent to our delta function running through an allpass filter. When we play with the decay curve, this is effectively changing the phase shift and frequency balance.
video or demonstration please.
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markello wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 1:35 pm Cableguys Snapback
Probably the quickest and easiest way these days.

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Slap. It can layer or replace the transient and has a bunch of other modules for drum shaping,makes the whole process very easy. It’s nice to use on other parts besides the drums as well to add some extra texture and attack
https://www.yum-audio.com/Slap-by-MrBill

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A few days ago I saw a video by D. Ramirez controlling saturation/distortion with envelopes / envelopes followers and some examples involved kick drums.
I didn’t try it yet, but I think it’s an interesting idea.



When it comes to synthesize kicks (although this doesn’t really fit the “effects” forum… anyway), it could be useful to look at the architecture of some drum synths: some add a short noise, others add a short pulse/click, others allow for a mixture of the two (for example the Jomox Mbase 11 - I was going through the manual and various videos in the past few days while looking for a possible future purchase). On the DFAM for example, sometimes I patch the gate/trigger out as an audio signal, in order to get a strong initial click (I should spend way more time with that synth, by the way).

In software, you could generate a click with a synth with envelopes “suffering” of clicking by setting a a very short attack and decay (you don’t even nees oscillators, just something clicking, like TAL Bassiline), then layer to taste.

If you want to keep it within the effects realm, you could try using a gate (maybe midi controllable? like Cubase’s midigate or something like Volumeshaper to cut a short trigger out of an exising track.

Just some ideas, of course.
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