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I just saw the cryptic Minds masterclass and they have reverb on the kick....
Am I missing something on the whole production thing?
Reverb on the kick wasn't a total NO NO?

I set a reverb up on a master effects bus and send all my drums or most.I use Logic's space designer and it has a built in filter,i will always set it to high pass so the reverb signal never muddy's the bottom end.

nothing is a no no anymore

u dont even have to master your shit

ppl just have 2 buy into ur hype

thats the game

rayman612 wrote:nothing is a no no anymore

u dont even have to master your shit

ppl just have 2 buy into ur hype

thats the game

didn't know bout that :O

If you can make it work, why not?

Route the channel to a send, put everything below 300 Hz to mono and hi-pass the bitch.

I route my drumbus to a reverb as well. Give it some space.

Frequencies are frequencies (Jesus, I feel like I'm at a bodybuilding forum saying 'carbs are carbs'). A kick is made out of anything from subs to highs. If you can put reverb on the mids/highs of a pad, you can do it on a kick too. Just be clever with your EQ'ing. There's nothing magical about kickdrums that makes them one big exception.

Route the channel to a send, put everything below 300 Hz to mono and hi-pass the bitch.

this is a frickin nice tip!

i reverb the highs sometimes.

there's no rules. as long as you make it sound good.

BE CREATiVE. Break the rules and find something special on your own.

I've never reverbed a kick before but I'm sure someone could make it work. Like most producers are saying in this thread, you generally want to high pass (EQ) the noise so that you don't get a loud bass reverb. Bass reverb is a general no-no in electronic production as most artists want a slappy snappy clean kick sound.

reverb on kick is essential to so many pieces of music
declaring something a no-no is a way of boxing in whole collectives of musicians, creating patterns that grow stale quickly and open up niches other people will gladly fill by distancing themselves (and thereby creating new no-no's) as much as possible from said stale patterns.
rinse and repeat.

rules don't work when they're just there without explanation.
once you know why it's a bad idea to put reverb on a kickdrum you can decide when it's time to break the rules.

Yes.

hasezwei wrote:reverb on kick is essential to so many pieces of music
declaring something a no-no is a way of boxing in whole collectives of musicians, creating patterns that grow stale quickly and open up niches other people will gladly fill by distancing themselves (and thereby creating new no-no's) as much as possible from said stale patterns.
rinse and repeat.

rules don't work when they're just there without explanation.
once you know why it's a bad idea to put reverb on a kickdrum you can decide when it's time to break the rules.

i concur!

Electronic music (in general) does not have any "space". Reverb creates an idea of space to the elements, think of it as a way to position things in a mix. I can't imagine why there would be a rule against reverb on kicks, just filter the low end to avoid phasing and mud.

I've long felt that reverb is the key to burials cavernous kick drums..havn't been able to come anywhere close to reproducing these though.

I've done reverb on the kick before.
I automated the reverb on the kick and snare like this:
On the capital letters, I turned the reverb on.
K---s---k---s---k---s---k---S---

You might use this if you don't feel like the beat needs a crash cymbal at the beginning but needs an extra "push"

Hircine wrote:Electronic music (in general) does not have any "space". Reverb creates an idea of space to the elements, think of it as a way to position things in a mix. I can't imagine why there would be a rule against reverb on kicks, just filter the low end to avoid phasing and mud.

This. In the KM they said they're using a send bus for their reverb. If you put an EQ3 before the reverb and cut everything below 300hz, you're golden. Doing it without the EQ will result in watery muddy low end.

thanks for all the replys. Interesting stuff

Artie Fufkin wrote:I've done reverb on the kick before.

Phil Collins too!

Sounds good = do it

Doesn't good = don't do it.

My latest track is the first time I've messed about with this. Used a seperate reverb for it (short time) lowpassed it around 400Hz and then only had it in just to add some ambience. It really helps get rid of that (computer/digital just clicked in kick sound) I really recommend experimenting with this, especially if you're making more atmospheric tracks.

If you think about it in a recording of a live band with a kick drum there is always going to be some level of reverb/ambience. It makes sense to not get rid of it altogether with dance music, the benefit here though is that we can control from the word go how much we choose to be there.