Dubstepforum.com

Hi Everybody,



I recently joined this forum, and It raised alot of questions. I read the whole Money shot Thread, and changed currently my mixing standards.

So now, I compare my tracks to others like, R3hab, Bassjackers and Nicky Romero. And it seems that their kick sounds fuller and has more like a blast.

How do you guys make your kick? And do you also lower your kick to like a F or something?

It really frustrates me . Currently I'm using Fruity Loops 10!


Many thanks in Advance,


Greetings From Holland

Try observing people at McDonald's.
Nah but really, just layer a couple of kicks that you like, cut them so they dont sound like poopoo and then eq :3

I do that to man! I make my kicks just like Swedish House Mafia but still..

If I need to post A little of my Music here, It would maybe be better?

We could tell you more if we had clips to work with, yeah!

try using around two samples. get a nice subby 808 kick or something with some good meat in the 90ish hz range (depending on how your sub bass will be). compress to taste and boost it a bit if needed for volume, also set the attack up a bit to let the initial hit through and have it squash the tail so it sounds punchy and not long and flabby. eq it so that you really only get the meaty thud from it...ie roll off the highs. then get another kick with a bit of mid/high end click, eq it and cut the lows, then you can experiment with adding some fx to this kick like distortion or even some parallel reverb depending on what type of character you wish to give. then once you have these two layers and the rest of your drums complete you can send the whole drum track to a heavily compressed channel on a send, aka parallel, aka new york compression. new york compression allows the original signal to come through and you mix it with the heavily compressed signal to fill in the sound and make it sound thick and heavy.

edit: oh i forgot to mention, the initial sample matters more than anything i just said.

you don't have to make one, they're all over the place
check out bpb, kvraudio, etc. plenty of free packs with fat kicks
there's one that was floating around that I nabbed for free called "Club Kicks" ca't remember where but the hits are terrific.
good for making sub's too

Today wrote:"Club Kicks"

Deffo Club Kicks. They're always dope.

oh shit i googled it
http://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/club_kicks/pid46#purchase

found 'em

In the tune in my sig, I used the standard FL10 kick, took away the click at the start, added another (IMO) better sounding click, compressed a little bit and that was it
I think it's pretty fat

Here!

http://www61.zippyshare.com/v/20927193/file.html


4 bars of normal kick, and then togheter with everything.

This is only a piece of the intro, but it would do the work

I use Sonnox for my compression!

http://www.evolutionmastering.com/mixdown001.html

There's a link to my tutorial purely dedicated to kick drum processing. May be worth a read if you're looking to get your kicks to punch harder

I quite like the kick you've posted! Nice and snappy.

If you want fatness you need a different sample methinks. Remember, you can't boost stuff that isn't there, no matter how much you compress or EQ.

I never use more than one sample for the kick usually, I just find the right sound from the off and treat it in context with the rest of the track.

When I process a kick it's usually: Saturate, or (some other kind of 'analogue warmth' plugin) -> EQ -> Compress. Keep it simples, and less is more!

If your kick is to be huge, other elements of your track must be small. Find the balance!

Filthzilla wrote:

Today wrote:"Club Kicks"

Deffo Club Kicks. They're always dope.

holy shiiiiiit the drums in "Atlantis" are incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
any tips for getting your kicks so punchy?

Im pretty sure everyone covered all the techniques for getting a big fat kick... but you could also go the other way.

If you listen to Pendulum (drum and bass band, totally dope), they have an interesting tactic I employ all the time.

Get a nice punchy kick with a lot of mid/high end. Now, load an EQ and completely cut off the sub bass area. Then, load another EQ and boost it so that the kick is very clicky. Go to your basslines and cut all the areas you boosted your kick so it punches through (Im a big fan of subtractive EQ), and then with everything else in the track, cut the sub bass range completely off. Then make a sine wave sub bass, make sure it covers the entire sub bass frequency (usually takes two octaves) and then cut everything in its EQ except the sub bass freqs, so there isnt any overlap. This way you can get basslines with lots and lots of definition in the bass-mid bass area, get a nice punchy kick and have car-blasting sub basses.

Make sure you cutoff any super super deep freqs on your sub bass to save headroom (Wherever you cutoff when you pre-master or mix it is good. Some people say 20 htz, some people say 30. It depends on your habit.)

If you take a track by Pendulum and lowpass it so you can only hear the sub bass, it has zero kick interference and lots of pure sine basses. And really, they have FAT basslines.

Yeah, this didnt answer your question, but its kind of an alternative. Its also geared toward more classic drum and bass, rather than dubstep, so this may or might not be a good idea.

Now to make your kicks big and fat... Well, first do everything else everyone else said (layer two well EQed kicks, saturate them, compress them), but then do an EQ sweep and find the real sweet spots, where the big 808 bass hits and where the real punch is, and possibly where it clicks in the high end. Boost these frequencies (might be a good idea to do this before the compression). Now, you have a big punchy fat kick right? Now here is the thing you need to do: make it cut through the mix. Take your basslines and violently subtract these frequencies from them with an EQ so that the kick really stands out in those areas (dont cut them completely, or your bass will sound thin, but do them liberally). Then take your percussion, like your snares, toms, hihats. EQ them all so they have no bass frequencies that are interfering with your kick and your basslines. Do the same with all your instruments, so that the kick has a real place in the mix.

Now you have your kick that stands out in the mix. If it is overpowering your bassline now, try bringing down the frequencies where your bassline is really hitting.

I am a huge fan of subtractive EQing... I find that when I take away frequencies, I can stuff way more power into a mix. You may have to layer more tracks though to make everything have a bigger frequency range before you cut, just to make sure that they arent thin. You want them big and bold in their spectrum, not thin and wimpy

Just gonna jump right in with a noob question.

What is cutting? Everyones always going on about it, and I've probably done it already by accident without realising it, but I still don't really get it per say.

eq - taking away frequencies = cutting

wow cool!

But I got some tracks here.

http://www49.zippyshare.com/view.jsp?lo ... y=64990890

If you listen to this one, It got a heavy kick, do they then lower the kick in Key from like C to an A ?


http://www52.zippyshare.com/view.jsp?lo ... y=50017445

This is a track by nicky romero, Here you got a nice big fat and resonating kick!

How do you make it also come out nice and fat?!

And what is a good saturation plugin?

If you want to dish out the dough for a real nice one, I'd recommend PSP vintagewarmer. But there are an array of free ones that are sweet too

here are a few:

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2011/04 ... t-plugins/

Quick question related to layering kicks. I have heard alot about tuning the kick to the key of the track or another note within the key/scale but when layering kicks do you tune each layer or just retune the kick as a whole after its bounced? What is the best way to go about doing this, if at all (using Logic). thx.