kick drum eq

[5-0-what]

so i have read on here a bunch of places about kick drums sitting around 80hz
i have gone thru my entire kick drum library and all my kick drum sit from like 40hz to 65hz
so when i eq then they lose alot of there presence but left alone they make the whole track muddy
can any body help

[JFK]

Those are some pretty bassy kicks dude.

Best advice? Get some higher pitched kicks and layer with the subbier ones.

[Freshman]

Agree with JFK.
You can also pitch up your current ones of course, if your drum computer allows. Should sound okay

[kejk]

I usually try to have my kicks peaking at 100 hz.

[DEMZ]

I usually try to have my kicks peaking at 100 hz.

Yep 100hz is were the "thud" usually is, I tend to boost there and roll off below that because it clashes to much with the sub.

[kejk]

I usually try to have my kicks peaking at 100 hz.

Yep 100hz is were the "thud" usually is, I tend to boost there and roll off below that because it clashes to much with the sub.

I CUT at 100 Hz so it doesn't walk into my sub.

I never boost peaks though, I think it sounds better just turning the gain level up.

[DEMZ]

I like a bit under it, my kicks always sound a bit empty to me with a straight cut, personal preference I guess. I dont boost too much though, maybe 1db max.

[bum robot]

Those are some pretty bassy kicks dude.

Best advice? Get some higher pitched kicks and layer with the subbier ones.

[narcissus]

i usually don't EQ my kicks at all. i usually use tuning, volume decay, and perhaps a single filter to get them sounding how i want

[jsills]

all depends on where you want your kick in the mix. for dubstep since there is usually a lot of sub bass you want your kik to punch in the midrange and sit on top of the sub. dl a hiphop drum kit and you should find some much more punchy kicks that peak around 100.

[Depone]

Kick ideally should be peaking at around 85-100hz and your golden. Way back when , i thought the best kick noises were the ones with loads of bass and oomph. you have to realize that its just not practical.

[kejk]

Kick ideally should be peaking at around 85-100hz and your golden. Way back when , i thought the best kick noises were the ones with loads of bass and oomph. you have to realize that its just not practical.

Well, for hiphop or dance music there is nothing wrong with a really subby kick... Just doesn't work in dubstep =/

[Depone]

Kick ideally should be peaking at around 85-100hz and your golden. Way back when , i thought the best kick noises were the ones with loads of bass and oomph. you have to realize that its just not practical.

Well, for hiphop or dance music there is nothing wrong with a really subby kick... Just doesn't work in dubstep =/

hmm i have to i disagree with the dance music bit, most house music, or even dnb, the kick soudns really big and punchy, but rarely is it punching at 60hz, more like 80.

Hiphop on the other hand! thats a different matter!

[kejk]

Kick ideally should be peaking at around 85-100hz and your golden. Way back when , i thought the best kick noises were the ones with loads of bass and oomph. you have to realize that its just not practical.

Well, for hiphop or dance music there is nothing wrong with a really subby kick... Just doesn't work in dubstep =/

hmm i have to i disagree with the dance music bit, most house music, or even dnb, the kick soudns really big and punchy, but rarely is it punching at 60hz, more like 80.

Hiphop on the other hand! thats a different matter!

Well in dance/house/trance/all those 128bpm club shits the kick are the place where the bass comes from. There is not a subbass under it. (Or they use the same technique as in dubstep... cut kick at certain hz, and lowpass sub at the same freq.... but then it would only trigger at the same time as the kicks.)

[abakus]

old thread but... how the hell do you guys have the time to go through every bass drum and check its EQ... I'm learning more about the producers than producing here in this forum, it seems like I just don't have the same technical understanding of producing as everyone else does... I go into my ultrabeat drum processor, the one that comes with Logic 9, I search for a few kicks, one that sounds airy, one that sounds punchy, one that sounds bassy, (all from logic pro's sample list) layer them, and I'm good to go bar effects... do most people really devote this much time to just a simple kick drum?

[-[2]DAY_-]

its not that people know the eq of every kick, its just that as we spend more and more time fucking about, browsing samples, writing tunes and doing mixdowns, you start to just know... well, that is a bit too much 80Hz, or, thats too dense at 250ish or too blocky at 500, and -- ooh, that one is gonna sit really nice at 100Hz. Its just getting used to all your sounds/instruments, not just kicks... to a degree its process of elimination ... "if my sub is pushing waves at 40-75 Hz, and my pads are rolled off at 200, what frequency range could this be where i'm laying in my kick drum?" Once you find a kick thats fitting in there nicely, you'll know its sound is the sound of around 100Hz knocking. Once you've cut and boosted and mangled three thousand EQ curves on every instrument you ever played, you start to recognize "Well THAT has a bit too much 4k" it's the same thing. Everyone arrives there from a slightly different path, but you get the idea

[abakus]

Ok, so when equalizing things, the idea is to not have too many instruments covering each frequency, you want the final tune to be (when looking at the audio visualiser) a smoothish curve?

[the_agonist]

.. do most people really devote this much time to just a simple kick drum?

if you think dubstep producers give themselves a hard time over it...imagine what minimal house/techno producers put themselves through, where the kick plays an even bigger part in the track.

if your drums sound shit, your tune sounds shit IMO IMO IMO.

if your selection dont suit the context of the track, you can ruin an otherwise good idea.

if possible, work with audio thats pretty much already right for your track, as opposed to eq'ing, compressing and layering to make it fit or sound better (these tweaks can be good for effect etc but not a replacement for quality audio)...it will make a world of difference for you. As for frequency ranges of kicks, let the track you are making help you decide what suits, it can be couterproductive sticking to hard and fast rules.

[stinjee]

i like to hi pass my kiks at around 50hrz. i find that leaves space for the subs underneath. i hi pass any mid range bass to around 200hrz which leaves a nice space for the kick to cut through the mix. if im gonna boost a kick i ilke 60 hrz ish with a tight q, all depends on the sample tho. i then generally apply a wider q cut around 300 hrz to remove muddiness from the kick. i dont really like around 700hrz either but some times it removes too much of the body from the kick so again this depends on the kick. if its still not cutting through enough il boost around 1.5khrz for some click. i always try to think what goes in must come out from somewhere so the frequencys dont get crowded.
not saying what i do is right but i think it generally sounds ok.

[abakus]

Ok, cheers guys, it looks like I've overlooked some very basic things when learning how to produce