Kick Drums

[Lost to the Void]

a limiter is going to kill the transients, really wouldn`t do that unless you can push the attack waaaay back, and then you are just going into compression territory, otherwise, come mastering stage, your kick is gonna be flat and dead, and someone will need to use a transient effect to put life back into the mix.
There`s no real need to have a limiter after a compressor at all in fact, on your kick, either increase the comp ratio, or use a compressor with more bite, or use a limiter instead of a compressor.

[ouido]

Hi,
Great forum with great vibe here.
I was trying to replicate some of the tutorial in this post. I really like the way Matt Fridell create his kicks, but it seems he processed his sound a second time, maybe by saturating with a console , or an entire analog chain. The result I've got replicating with exactly the same setting on plugins is cool, but not so loud and saturate.
Do you guy have an idea how is it done, or how you can approach it itb? Maybe Matt himself could explain his process.

Thanks!

[ashley BORG]

Hi,
Great forum with great vibe here.
I was trying to replicate some of the tutorial in this post. I really like the way Matt Fridell create his kicks, but it seems he processed his sound a second time, maybe by saturating with a console , or an entire analog chain. The result I've got replicating with exactly the same setting on plugins is cool, but not so loud and saturate.
Do you guy have an idea how is it done, or how you can approach it itb? Maybe Matt himself could explain his process.

Thanks!

I think the best thing you should do is upload an example of the kick.
Maybe first solo and possibly in the context of other sounds if you've got that far. This way it will be easier for someone to give focused advice.

[ouido]

Thanks for your answer Ashley.

So I uploaded my sample, I tried to replicate the kick from Matt first and second tutorials. It's a saturated kick and a filtered kick. By comparing with those from Matt you can clearly hear the differences, how they hit, the stereo wideness, etc...
The purpose of this exercise was to create one hit sample, so I didn't inclued an orchestration.

What do you think? For me that's obviously the contrast between digital and analog processing that appear, but do you think there is a way to obtain the same result only itb? I mean, not exactly the same sound, of course, because we cannot replicate all the processus of an analogic gear, and it's not my goal, but I would like to know if it's possible to approach it in a different way (deepness, frequency contrast, etc...°

[Planar]

I think Mattias was about as open about how he made these kicks as you're going to get, he shows you all the plugins he used. I've not compared your kicks properly but they sound OK to me, are you trying to recreate them exactly? Did you match the volumes of the kicks before comparing them?

Tbh, it sounds like you've got the idea of the processes involved already, you're wasting your time trying to emulate his kick exactly. Take what you've learnt and use it to make your own style of kicks. And as the 'Borg says, context is also very important, kick/bass relationship is more important in techno than how a kick sounds in isolation I reckon.

[Críoch]

Yeah.. I'd say experiment too. Agree with the lads, especially with Mark on Mattias being as open as he can be. I dont think theres anything left for him to say or do other than come around to peoples houses lol

Those kicks sound grand. Keep at it.

[ouido]

Ok... I was just asking if there was an analogic or a digital processing to these sounds, but now I'm feeling like I've asked the secret of eternal life to a forbidden god... But thanks anyway
: )

[Críoch]

No.. not at all man. I don't think Mattias used anything other than some plugins. He was quite open about his approachs. You didn't ask about any secret or about something you shouldnt.. its just its been covered at length already. You just need to get stuck in & keep at it. What you have done sounds fine. Keep it up cos you are developing your own take on it. that's good

[Mattias]

Yep no secret stuff. I just used some free plugins so everyone could replicate them.

[ashley BORG]

Keep it up cos you are developing your own take on it. that's good

Yeah that's the point innit. And another thing, just create the stuff in context of a track then bounce it out after, better to understand how the kick work in relation to other sounds.

[ouido]

Ok, muchas gracias all.

[atom_output]

a couple of months back i started to use exclusively bazzism for kick drums, with some layering, mostly for the higher end of the spectrum. then i just go for the saturator (sometimes distortion plugs if applicable) and api 550 compressor.

but yeah, the whole point is to experiment until you get something that either sounds good or generally just sits right in the mix.

[Alume]

Been wondering how to get those submarine kicks, in theory I know how to get there but somehow I cant get it right in ableton. On my md I'm getting close though. I can get the midhigh punch somewhere there. Now that I'm saying this I'll try to layer that with an other kick.

Anyway, can somebody tell me some more about it?

youtu.be/M2MdzwFh8rA
youtu.be/r74U7cYOp8g

While I'm at it, with distortion alone I wont get there. Of course adam X isnt really a guys thats easy to copycat but I really like the punch in this one.
youtu.be/KzErTVUKuJg

[Alume]

Oh shit kind of thought this was like a kick tutorial thingy.

[SpecialGuest]

Hello, I'm from germany and new to this forum and I was a silent reader for some month. I make music for about ten years but never played live and never had any release. I did stop making music for a year because it sounds shit to me. The sounds are not bad, but my kick had no impact and my mix was really muddy at the low end.
I'm into techno music which came out from 1996-1998. I like the style from regis, surgeon and female but also what came out from sweden and germany at this time.

I have problems with compression and I have understanding issues. Many howto's for compression are for rock songs but not for techno. You say to use compression to get the booom but not to limit to let the transients go thru. I have made some graphics to visualize that.



This is the uncompressed kick. The red area is the transient and the green line shows the volume of the boom we want to get louder so the kick would have a nice impact.

AAA_ uncomressed.jpg (26 KiB) Viewed 6468 times

As I understand what you wrote a good comressed kick should look like this.

AAA_ compressed.jpg (27.79 KiB) Viewed 6468 times

The transient go thru (red area) and the boom is shaped by the compressor (flat green line) and than fades out. It is more even and present at the flat green area.



But when I compress my kick or my drumbus it looked like this.

AAA_ let_transients_through.jpg (29.16 KiB) Viewed 6468 times

I let the transient go thru. But the difference between the reen line and the transient peak (blue line) is about 3-4db which is really annoying because it eats my headroom. If I want to go louder it clips and if I leave it there is no impact. What do I wrong? Should I give more gain to the comressed signal? I do gain how I read before. If my signal compress maybe 6db I gain the compressed signal about 6db. But if I do this I have these problems I wrote.

To avoid this problem I limit my kicks and even my drumbus. It sounds not bad at my monitors but I notice some distortion, color or saturation (call it like you want) thru my headphones. And in the overall mix I get the problem that my drums have not the impact I want or what I'm after all. I know it is because I limit all the transients out. But how can I do it better?

And there is another questin I have. When I use official samples for example from GoldBaby the drums are already compressed. But to me they are looked limited when I look at the waveform. It look like that. It is the same when I limit my drums.

AAA _limited.jpg (33.15 KiB) Viewed 6468 times

So are they limited? If yes why they do so if it is better to let the transient intact?

And should I compress my Kick if I use pre-compressed samples? Or only when I layer whith other sounds to shape a new kick sound? And what about my drumbus. Sould I compressed it when I used only pre-compressed drum samples?

I know that there are no rules when making music. But I have my problems and I want to make it better and I really want to understand.


TIA

[Hepta]

I think you shouldn't bother much how the waveform of your kick looks like. It's all relative to what sits around the kick (other elements) and how you mix those that dictates how "fat" your kick will be. I'm not the expert here but It would be a lot easier to help if you had some kind of example to show us.

[Hepta]

Also welcome to the forum man!

[Lost to the Void]

Great use of graphics!!

One way to deal with the difference between the transient and the compressed body is to raise the gain makeup to bring to even out the difference.

I see no real problem with a 3db difference really, that's not a lot of headroom to eat up, if you are gain staging correctly you should still have good final level

Another way to shave down the level is to use saturation and soft clipping to (essentially compress) the transient but in a much nicer way than limiting.
Analog limiting will also work (not digi though).

You can also change the response curve of the compressor by using a high pass on the detector to stop the compressor from reacting to too much of the low end signal.

Really try to preserve those transients, if you ever come to getting your music professionally mastered, having that transient information intact will make a world of difference. The difference between an A standard master and a B standard.

[tuuluuwag]

cool 'article' as it were.. as i eat more knowledge daily.. always good to see the tips others take the time to write out.

[SpecialGuest]

Hey, thank you for your answers. Ok, what you say is when my compressor show a gain reduction about 6db I should gain about 8 or 9db to even out the level between transient and body? It sound logic to me but it is not what it is saying when you read tutorials and howto's. Often you read that you gain up that amount the reduction is. But I will try that. I will also try to use a sidechainfilter. At which Hz should I set it - 200Hz? I know it depends on the track but a little suggestion would be fine. What settings are a good starting point for attack for that kind of techno I mentioned above?
I know that many good people say use your ears but I think I'm more a visual guy who needs meters and sometimes looks to the waveform to understand the difference what I'm hearing when I use a compressor.

I use software compressors like fabfilter pro-c and cytomic glue but also have hardware compressors from FMR Audio RNC1773 and RNLA 7239.


Yes I have example tracks I can share. Should I post it here or on another tread? I know there are threads for bus compression and mix compression.

And I have another question. How do you mix. Do you mix without compressor on drum bus or with compressor at drums. I have the problem that when I mix or level without compressor and I then put a compressor to the drum bus ist some times sound really different and I must set all level again. What is better and how you are doing it?


TIA