How do sound designers create that squashed transient on kickdrums ?

[FeelingMachine]

There is one thing that has eluded me on my journey through drum processing and that is that squashed transient on a kick which leaves a waveform resembling a fish, the squashed transient being the fishes lips.
After the 'lips' the waveform jumps up in volume for the body which then decays off. The transient doesn't slowly curve up to meet the body, it is a definite pair of lips (lol).

This is whats bugging me. No compressor shaping can achieve it, not so much an envelope shaper either. Editing the waveform doesn't work as you're just lowering the volume and losing its impact.

I stumbled across SSL Duende drumstrip which has a transient shaper which has an invert function, it didn't quite work but it gave me an idea of reversing the waveform and then trying various compression techniques. I haven't had much joy so far but im not done experimenting

Is it just simply a case of layering a squashed 'punch' sample with a kick body ?

I've heard examples which don't sound layered yet have those fish lips, so i was curious if there is something im missing.

Your help is most appreciated !

[DNeal]

Can you post a sample/example of what you mean? I'm having trouble following exactly what you're describing (and I'm just more of a visual person).

[larm]

I'm just guessing now ... but if it's a sine that's been pitch swept down you can use a tuned notch filter to get what I think you mean are fish lips...

Requires no esoteric compression, just set the filter band reject width (Q) and the attenuation

[Sendy]

It's yours as soon as the money is wired to my account

[ferez21]

Funnily, the best kicks DO look like fish on the oscilloscope!
larm is right, to achieve this lovely fishiness you should notch somewhere around 200hz, this is the conclusion i got to after experiminting with it.

[CableChannel]

WTF? The fish lips are tiny, so there wouldn't be an initial transient at all. Gotta have surgery so the fish has Jessica Simpson lips n sh*t so you can at all hear the initial transient.

[DNeal]

I'm just guessing now ... but if it's a sine that's been pitch swept down you can use a tuned notch filter to get what I think you mean are fish lips...

Requires no esoteric compression, just set the filter band reject width (Q) and the attenuation

That lower image almost looks like there could be some phasing issues in the area you're pointing out

[Sendy]

Funnily, the best kicks DO look like fish on the oscilloscope!
larm is right, to achieve this lovely fishiness you should notch somewhere around 200hz, this is the conclusion i got to after experiminting with it.

Fish lips implies to me a slow curved attack, wheras a good kick should have an almost instantaneous attack. I honestly don't get this whole "fish shape" thing, maybe I'm taking it too literally.

Now, if you were to say the best kick looks like a fish, that's been fired from a high powered fish cannon, head-first into a wall, I'd kinda agree perhaps. Because apparently my brain thinks that's too amusing a thought to pass up.

Mixing in a fish-shaped *element* with a normal decay envelope kick might be a good technique, though. Crossfading an attack with the body of another kick is a good example of that.

Wouldn't it be awesome if "fish" could become a new type of envelope. With controls for lip girth, body length and fin angle. Multimode envelopes would have to provide a "fish" option then...

- ADSR
- Breakpoint
- ADHDSR
- fish

[Davias]

Just slam it into a limiter and voila, fish lips !
(but big lips since the transient should hit the 0 db, then the kick is sucked in, raises toward the body which slowly attain 0dB again and finally is decaying, I would call it fish tail instead).
Or maybe I just didn't get it...

[Xenobt]

Go Fish!!! The answer you may be looking for is contained in the thread title!

Lots of artists use transient shapers like the EXCELLENT SPL Transient Designer to get attacks squashed and bring the body of the sound out. It lets you get much more beef into your drums without adding more peak volume.

Transient designers can work in reverse too, sharpening attacks even further and suppressing the sustained material. It's a good trick for "de-reverbing" drums.

There's several types out there for different DAWs, here's a free one from the fine folks at Flux!

http://www.fluxhome.com/products/freewa ... ersweet-v3

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

[Loki Fuego]

How much is the fish?

[CableChannel]

Well apart from the whole fish n chips thing here:

a technical solution is CableGuys VolumeShaper3. You can let it work in retrigger mode and shape the envelope of a kick drum or anything you like to any curve you draw. You can easily sculpt a sine bass into this fish thing, no problem whatsoever.

[ferez21]

How much is the fish?

[FeelingMachine]

This is why love the audio world, thank you so far guys.

I think Xenobt's suggestion is probably the method which is commonly used regarding a transient shaper ;
"get attacks squashed and bring the body of the sound out. It lets you get much more beef into your drums without adding more peak volume."

Which is exactly what im trying to achieve but without losing that punch when lowering the volume of the attack. I did try a transient shaper but it just sounded as if it was softening the attack. I think i will process the attack further after using the transient designer.

Although im still dubious, as you will see in the pic i post below, the attack is squashed but appears to be bolted on to the body, it doesn't gradually blend up to meet the body in volume. This is why i suspect its a case of layering a compressed punch onto a subkick layer. But this is not easy to achieve by simply adjusting layers in the time domain.

Example ;


screen shot on windows

Notice the attack portion is flattened and maintains this volume until it hits the body with no gradual slope up to meet the body. Its almost like it is squared. Which could actually be another clue.

On a side note, you may also notice before the attack portion there is a teeny 'nipple', which i cut off to discover that it is a hi-hat. This has been incredibly squashed yet still does its job of helping the kick to cut through the mix.

So really its not so much a fish we're dealing with now, im afraid it is in fact a profile of a giant tit. The nipple hits first (hi-hat), then the areloa (attack), then the body of the tit. (lol im so sorry about this)

I do have other kicks like this if you are curious and they so happen to be the biggest, beefiest, punchiest, sits-in-a-mix-well-iest, yet not so annoying, kicks ever, that is of course for my tastes.

*takes a breath

So yes, if anyone has any further ideas based on this i welcome them with open arms and i shall forever be indebted to you ! Thank you good people !

[Loki Fuego]

So really its not so much a fish we're dealing with now, im afraid it is in fact a profile of a giant tit. The nipple hits first (hi-hat), then the areloa (attack), then the body of the tit. (lol im so sorry about this)

I'm imagining this in pictures right now...