Why do my own kicks cause my room to echo?

[Plyphon]

Hello,

I produce on headphones 99.9% of the time, but when I do turn on my monitors I notice my kicks always make my room ring/echo/reverb at a really honky/boxy frequency.

First of all, the room I have my monitors in is terrible - you couldn't get a worse room for acoustics. I'm not really trying to get a workable room out of my setup, but I'm curious because....

I never notice it on anyone else's tracks! ('Professional' tracks that have been released)

So what is everyone else doing to their kicks that I'm not? It's literally every kick I try I can hear the reverb in the room - a dry 909 straight from the box too a fully processed doofer. But any other kick on any track/mp3/vinyl I have it's absent. What could it be?

[2latuile]

Assuming you're listening at the same level and you've listened to "others" kicks in isolation, the only answer left (I can think of that is) is that there's a resonant frequency in your room that everybody else happens to EQ' out. Check (your's and others kicks) with a frequency analyser and a EQ, you should find out.

[borg]

I often make the mistake of starting a tune with a kick, and going for a full sound before all elements are there. So I end up with a too boomy kick. Maybe try shortening your kick's envelope. I usually also end up cutting around 200 Hz (between 100-300) a lot.
I also make music only on headphones.

[Críoch]

Room frequencies for sure. Length of decay also.

Worth going back imo to the release settings @source when fx are added up the chain. Can make things tighter. It can be a volume thing also I feel. Getting the overall balance of elements right & sorting out clashes can lessen it too.

The usual stuff. It's something I'm weak at / don't spend long enough on. Any approach needs to be consistent to work & practice makes perfect, so to actually remember to do what needs to be done is half the battle.

My door used to rattle at around 55hz. Put some carpet on it & it got rid. Wife wasn't happy about it.. but it was annoying.

[Plyphon]

Thanks all - yeah, maybe I should spend some time with them getting really brutal on the EQ to see what's up. It's gotta be an EQ thing right - i'm probably not highpassing my kicks enough, or leaving too much in the bottom so its a bit flabby. On headphones it can be hard to pick up on that as it can sound alright on the cans.

Good idea putting another track through a freq analyser, I hadn't thought of that

[Lost to the Void]

It's highly unlikely that everyone except you is cutting frequencies in their kicks at the exact same place. As cutting kicks in the same place is not a "thing".
So you need to look at potential commonalities.

So other peoples tunes will have been finished.
Ie mastered.

That means a low RMS of the music that isn't honking.

I'm going to say it's not a frequency issue as much as it is a dynamics issue. Your unbridled(?) kicks may just have a higher dynamic range and so their root frequency is dominant and is pinging your room.

Try some hard compression on your kicks and see what happens.

[Plyphon]

Yeah interesting, I did wonder if mastering did play a part. I have noticed that my own kicks feel wider in my room than those from tracks - even though I mono the kick. I'll try the compression trick!

[Plyphon]

It seems to be something to do with how much 100-400hz I have in my kicks. Perhaps I'm 'unable' to hear that on headphones so much.

[2latuile]

It seems to be something to do with how much 100-400hz I have in my kicks. Perhaps I'm 'unable' to hear that on headphones so much.

What about those "others" kicks that don't trigger this room resonance ? Are they more scooped than yours in this region ? Steve rightly mentions dynamic as a possible cause, and it's indeed probably part of the issue too.

[Lost to the Void]

Unless you are adding 100-400hz then it probably isn`t that, as this isn`t a common area to cut with kicks. In fact cutting kicks isn`t really that common a thing. Compress em, and you are good to go.

[borg]

Plyphon, what is your kick strategy? If you start most of your tracks with the same kick sample or rack, it could very well be that there's excessive low mid already present.

Steve, I remember an Ableton set you shared long time ago with fuckin' HUGE cut in the low mids...

[Lost to the Void]

Plyphon, what is your kick strategy? If you start most of your tracks with the same kick sample or rack, it could very well be that there's excessive low mid already present.

Steve, I remember an Ableton set you shared long time ago with fuckin' HUGE cut in the low mids...

On a kick drum? I must have been doing some wacky shit and having to make room.
Generally the only time I cut kicks is to make them more bassy, so I`ll high shelf everything down from 200 or higher.
Or if I am using a kick as a silent sidechain or click to top off a big bottomy kick, I`ll cut the lows.

But generally, get the pitch right, get the envelope right, compress, jobs a goodun.

[borg]

I'll see if I can find it...

[Críoch]

Jeez.. after months of not giving one fuck about Kickdrums (liberating) & spending an hour here & there with my compression skills today, this thread has made me totally paranoid & sad

I understand using the compression to make the tail dip and though I know its doing something, it's not really doing what I think it should sound like.. nor does it 'look' particularly different on a smex or span. Guess its not dramatic enough. Fundamental is still strong.

Must have made 10 different flavours of 808 kick today. Punchy, clicky, thumpy, boomy , flaccid, blah, blah, blah..

Good experience nonetheless.. so many variations on tone & colour with just some pre eq & compression. I'm usually throwing in a bit of comp, overdrive ( more as a colour eq) eq and limiting, in various amounts to get something weighty. I usually sort boomyness by going back & adjusting the adsr.. so an additional approach is very interesting.

Steve, if you do get around to streaming as planned, any chance of going through some stuff on regular kicks in the vid?

[borg]

Steve, if you do get around to streaming as planned, any chance of going through some stuff on regular kicks in the vid?

http://subsekt.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11267

can't find the set/file I mentioned a few posts up at the moment...

[Críoch]

Hahahahahaha.

Dog at my homework & breakfast. That's my excuse..

[borg]

I definitely need to revisit that one myself as well...

[Críoch]

ok.. must have been tired yesterday. I've got it happening now. Phew. Thought I was going mad haha.

Edit.. I had it on RMS instead of peak. Tired head yesterday, trying to pack it all in.

[Plyphon]

So here's a quick export of some kicks -

https://soundcloud.com/humanfutures/kikcz/s-knDYWiIBSUK

4 beats per kick, goes through 6 kicks as I've been duplicating and tweaking, listening back on monitors, tweaking again, etc.

I started with the kick at the beginning and the kick at the end is where I've gotten too - the final kick rings a tiny bit in my room but no where near as bad as the first one does.

The final kick is more balanced, has a -5db scoop at 500hz with a fairly wide Q reaching down to 200 and up to around 900hz. Also a bit of a dip at 50hz and a small boost at the top end. Less saturation/fuckery on it, too.

What gets me is on my headphones the first kick sounds fine - sure its a muffled low-fi aesthetic but it sounds good and fits the vibe. But on my monitors it sounds really poppy and boxy, and sets the room off. The final kick whilst not having such the same aesthetic doesn't set the room off but still fits the track.

I tried compressing but couldn't really get the room to stop, and it introduced more poppyness as the transients were compressed I guess. Admittedly I'm not the best with compressors - so this could be user error.

I can't emphasise enough how bad this room is, though - which means I really need to learn the cans and 'learn to hear' this stuff in the headphones. If I turn the volume right down you begin to hear the poppyness in the kicks. If I turn the master down to -24 the first kick sounds super poppy without much body, and the last kick still sounds reasonably balanced. But at full/normal volume both sound passable. Idk if this is related or a tangent.

[Root]

All I can hear is some standard kick samples. Isn't it rather a problem of your room than of your kicks? If you play certain frequencies with some punch on your monitors your room will ring? So therefore shouldn't your focus be on your room and not the kicks details? I'm nowhere a professional, but I'd try this: add some diffusion, absorbtion and stuff, avoid clean walls. I don't know whats possible in your room, but do you got a measurement mic? Get REW and check your room, then try different monitor placements, rearrange your furniture to work as acoustic elements (bookshelf = diffuser, couch = absorber, ...). There's a lot info in the forum that helped me a lot with all this.