Kick Drums

[Xsist-Music]

How can i get my kicks sounding bassy and t not clash with my subs/basses? i use a filter to cut out all the frequencies below 60hz (normally) but the kick then starts to sound to high and when i boost lower it shows up on the analyser again, how would people like feed me get their kicks sound really heavy and not clashing?

[Sonika]

60 hz is a bit too low, definitely cut off higher, like the 70 hz range

And use a bit of distortion and maybe some stereo widener or something for more power, just have a good sample to start with as well

[Xsist-Music]

oh yeahh, haa, sorry, why 70?

[ZankUSA]

I cut off my kicks at like 70 or 80 hz with a LP filter..

cutoff my sub at 60 hz

Bam no clashing

I also do some EQing outside of my filters, add some reverb, maybe saturation.. meh just experiment.

[atlascesar]

oh yeahh, haa, sorry, why 70?

70 is very good number. hasnt no clashing with schumann resonances at the 70 hurts.

i might be too saying this but as well so much at 73 hurts

[Xsist-Music]

but when i high pass at 70 i loose all the bass in the kick

[deadly_habit]

60 hz is a bit too low, definitely cut off higher, like the 70 hz range

And use a bit of distortion and maybe some stereo widener or something for more power, just have a good sample to start with as well

maybe i'm showing my age here, but i'd never use a stereo widener on any bass sound be it kick, sub etc, because it wouldn't work for cutting to vinyl (i personally keep all my sounds 150hz and below mono because of this)

[madmeesh]

but when i high pass at 70 i loose all the bass in the kick

Damn right you do!

Let the truth be known - - - !
60 is the frequency that moves the people. But the laws of physics dictate that you cannot have a sub bass (for example 40-60hz) occur with a 60hz kick without distortion and general misery. The answer lies in the perception of sound.

When you are arranging a track, and you demand a beefy 60hz kick, let it happen. But when the sub bass comes in - and we're assuming you don't want it sidechaining and losing power - cut off the big fat descending tail of the kick with a waveform editor, or else high-pass it at 100, and just leave the 'pppt' of the attack of the kick. Have your bass-out kick, and bass-in kick. I heard Rob Sparx do it on a beautiful track, and it works very well. The point here is that the ear fills in the gaps; it remembers the big kick, and when it the song drops, it isn't aware that the kick has been significantly diminished to make room for the sub bass.

The other options are of course sidechaining, or just plain arranging your tune such that the kick never occurs with the sub. This is good too for creating rhythmic space in a track.

[Xsist-Music]

that sounds like a cool idea haha, but my kicks are usually about half a bar with no tail, and in a bleton i fade them a bit anyway, ive tryed pitching them but then the kick goes too high and if i go down its too low

[MKRUGGER]

There's really no "right way" to get a punchy kick, you have to find your own way, by experimenting.. Also every track is different, so it's always going to take something else to make things punch through.

The best thing you can do is listen! You ears can show you things that your eyes cannot.

The only other advice I can give is to layer your kicks!

What I'll do is grab and 808 Kick, EQ out the high end (Leaving just a tad) Then I boost it a bit around 100hz, and cut out some of the really low end for the Sub (Around 60hz)
I also reverse the polarity of the 808, helps it punch through!

I then grab a punchier kick, with a bit of high end, (not too much though, I don't like it to sound like a pellet gun, just enough to give it a punch)
EQ out some of the low end, boost around 100hz, and boost the top end just a slight bit.

I throw a transient shaper on both drums, and turn up the attack, lower the release, and turn the drive up a bit to save a few Db.

I then link/send both of these to a mixer track "Drums In" and I send that to "Drums out" then throw PSP Vintage warmer on Drums Out (This REALLY makes them punch through if you use it right, and it doesn't squash it out, or take away all your headroom, it's amazing..) And turn the mixer track down a bit to save Db.

I might throw a slight reverb on that track too.

I also link all of my other drum elements to the Drums In.

Also, make sure both drums are hitting at the same level, so they mesh together.

This sounds confusing and stupid by typing it.. But it really works, and gives me pretty heavy kicks each time.

I'm thinking of making a video :] Let me know if you want one.

And remember, that's just how I do it, but there's a million different ways... Go for the simplest way to get the best sound, don't go compressing and distorting shit for no reason, do what sounds right!

Also, make sure to mix right (read moneyshot thread) .. And also remember that the big name tracks you hear are mastered, so don't compare your tracks to theirs, trust me!

[Sonika]

60 hz is a bit too low, definitely cut off higher, like the 70 hz range

And use a bit of distortion and maybe some stereo widener or something for more power, just have a good sample to start with as well

maybe i'm showing my age here, but i'd never use a stereo widener on any bass sound be it kick, sub etc, because it wouldn't work for cutting to vinyl (i personally keep all my sounds 150hz and below mono because of this)

yeah I've actually never used a stereo widener on my kicks, I like em mono. I was just suggesting it haha

[elyhess]

There's really no "right way" to get a punchy kick, you have to find your own way, by experimenting.. Also every track is different, so it's always going to take something else to make things punch through.

The best thing you can do is listen! You ears can show you things that your eyes cannot.

The only other advice I can give is to layer your kicks!

What I'll do is grab and 808 Kick, EQ out the high end (Leaving just a tad) Then I boost it a bit around 100hz, and cut out some of the really low end for the Sub (Around 60hz)
I also reverse the polarity of the 808, helps it punch through!

I then grab a punchier kick, with a bit of high end, (not too much though, I don't like it to sound like a pellet gun, just enough to give it a punch)
EQ out some of the low end, boost around 100hz, and boost the top end just a slight bit.

I throw a transient shaper on both drums, and turn up the attack, lower the release, and turn the drive up a bit to save a few Db.

I then link/send both of these to a mixer track "Drums In" and I send that to "Drums out" then throw PSP Vintage warmer on Drums Out (This REALLY makes them punch through if you use it right, and it doesn't squash it out, or take away all your headroom, it's amazing..) And turn the mixer track down a bit to save Db.

I might throw a slight reverb on that track too.

I also link all of my other drum elements to the Drums In.

Also, make sure both drums are hitting at the same level, so they mesh together.

This sounds confusing and stupid by typing it.. But it really works, and gives me pretty heavy kicks each time.

I'm thinking of making a video :] Let me know if you want one.

And remember, that's just how I do it, but there's a million different ways... Go for the simplest way to get the best sound, don't go compressing and distorting shit for no reason, do what sounds right!

Also, make sure to mix right (read moneyshot thread) .. And also remember that the big name tracks you hear are mastered, so don't compare your tracks to theirs, trust me!

This was really helpful !

.. And also remember that the big name tracks you hear are mastered, so don't compare your tracks to theirs, trust me!

This is something that always seems to piss me off lol, my songs always just sound pretty poor quality compared to big names. Makes me happy you said this ha

[sketchyderek]

I usually don't cut the sub out of the kick, just sidechain the sub bass.

Soft-clip saturdation can go a long long way, too, as I just found.

Also, at the moment I like to make my kicks really short and square looking (like this [], almost). K jenzo like.

[Xsist-Music]

Wow thanks guys, I guess the main reason is I'm just using shit vst's like I always compress I kick to hard, snares I'm fine with because I can just cut out like 120hz but I'll just experiment with my kicks:)

[didi]

i use a filter to cut out all the frequencies below 60hz (normally)

You should roll frequencies off gently, to avoid issues with phase. It's no good setting your filter to lo-cut with the steepness of a brick wall. Gentle attenuation can often be all that's needed to sort out a clash.

"Everything in its own space" does not mean eq, so that there is no overlap. If you roll off more gently, you might find that you can retain some of the kick's thump without having the sounds fighting for attention. And you will have less issues with phasing sucking the power out of your sounds.

but when i high pass at 70 i loose all the bass in the kick

Make judgements in context of the tune. I recently wrote a track with a kick that was high passed at about 85 hertz, on its own it sounded a bit light, but when layered with the sub and some very subtle sidechaining, the kick sounded massive. Don't judge your kick out of context.

[didi]

it wouldn't work for cutting to vinyl (i personally keep all my sounds 150hz and below mono because of this)

There is a huge myth about that you can only cut bass in mono, that's something which is really resistantly in producer's heads, its absolutely not true!
I have been cutting several thousand of vinyls and I really have to think hard about when ever I had to cripple a stereo bass signal beyond musical recognition because it wasn't translatable to vinyl. That might be three cases, in all that years.

People should not bother about that, they should make the music the way they feel it should sound like!!!!
99% of problems related to phase can be corrected in the mastering room effortlessly without making a musical disaster out of the piece. With most phase adjustments that need to be done for vinyl, you can nicely live, and I never experienced somebody who was really shocked or totally unhappy with the result. Of course in the high days of IDM there were a couple of pieces that had 180 degrees out of phase full level 50 Hz sine waves and such, and that gives you problems...

But that is so much the exception that it is not in balance that every producer takes this so strongly into account which just keeps him away from making music. People should focus on sculpting colours the way they feel it should be, and not think about the post-production.
People should not make music for post-production.


What are the most common mistakes of your customers? What are things people do because they are inexperienced, and which makes your life harder, or the result musically miserable?

If you talk about real mistakes, I'd say most mistakes are really related to limiting. Second most mistakes are related to compression, and that's about it. Mistakes - there are a lot of things I have to cope with, which derive from being uneducated or inexperienced, like for example people keep sculpting their sound by boosting frequencies if they feel an element is not prominent enough in the mix. Lets boost it! If it has not enough bass or not enough high end - lets boost!!!

http://www.monolake.de/interviews/mastering.html

This came up in another thread a few days ago.

[madmeesh]

Word.

[dublerium]

60 hz is a bit too low, definitely cut off higher, like the 70 hz range

And use a bit of distortion and maybe some stereo widener or something for more power, just have a good sample to start with as well

maybe i'm showing my age here, but i'd never use a stereo widener on any bass sound be it kick, sub etc, because it wouldn't work for cutting to vinyl (i personally keep all my sounds 150hz and below mono because of this)

yeah I've actually never used a stereo widener on my kicks, I like em mono. I was just suggesting it haha

This forum won't benefit from people just making suggestions they don't know to be beneficial or not. Maybe wait until you actually know things before you start trying to help/teach other people

[Huts]

"Everything in its own space" does not mean eq, so that there is no overlap. If you roll off more gently, you might find that you can retain some of the kick's thump without having the sounds fighting for attention. And you will have less issues with phasing sucking the power out of your sounds.

This is a great point that I think gets over looked a lot. EQ out frequencies that are causing undesired sounds, not because 'you're supposed to cut everything below X frequency on your kicks/midrange/snare etc'

[Reamz]

I don't really like bassy kicks. Kicks need punch. Which is around 90-100Hz. Highpass at 70Hz. If you feel your kick is lacking try boosting around 90Hz.