subsekt sound design school _ KICKS

[Críoch]

Guys, I have an idea for something that we can all do - which will get a bit of discussion & learning going.

But before I crack on with it.. it would probably be a good idea to have a little chat about it first to set the ground rules.

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The idea is that we start a couple of new topics over a couple of weeks.. and together work on an aspect of a track.

1st off I'm thinking that we could do one on Kicks? We'll maybe supply a couple of 808/909 samples and a couple of samples for the top?? and then whoever is interested, downloads them & comes back with what they have done.

We have space available on this site for pic's and audio to be uploaded. You can do it from your HD via an attachment when you make a post. When people participate in this, it would be most helpful if you could document the processes that you used with screenshots (or a video if you like) and talk about settings.. why / how you did what etc..

I'm honestly a pretty basic guy when it comes to kicks - but I'm willing to step out of the comfort zone & see what people can add to the mix. If everyone does it (or quite a few) - then there are gonna be far more perspectives & a greater visibility of whats good & what sucks

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I think other areas that we could do is something like - making a bassline to go with the kick that we've made (we could possibly choose a "winner" out of all the contributions that everyone will use).. and again, we could agree what type of bassline we'd be trying to make - either samples - or a basic synth patch with a couple of osc's.

Dunno - just thinking aloud here Guys. I want you to come back with ideas here.

Then - after that.. maybe something to do with percussion? Again.. we'll choose the samples etc.. and document our efforts?

and after that.. maybe something like a stab sound of some kind.. again, we'll do it using a couple of Osc's on a synth.. or maybe with all the talk about recorders, we'll get a nice field recording to use.

A lot to sort out - and thats why we should just start on the Kick to begin with.. lol

I'm far from being a hotshot.. but I think it would be a very very interesting idea. Lets see what everyone thinks anyway (I've gone on enough) haha

HERES THE ORIGINAL KICK SAMPLE FROM DRUMAZON THAT WE'LL BE USING:

Drumazon Kick 909 Take II.wav.zip

(50.98 KiB) Downloaded 455 times

[Opuswerk]

Maybe, we simply could all do a kickdrum in something like 10 steps? So it'd make some text, 1 sample and 1 picture for each step?
That's make it pretty easy for any-one else to reproduce no?

[Mattias]

I like your suggestions Ste & Opus.

[helloitsmeagain]

ok, i know you guys are all bashful, so i'll go first.

let me start by saying that sample blows. wimpy as hell.

my process was really convoluted. honestly i never go through this much trouble for a kick, but seeing as it's our first date... Anyway, i'm quite satisfied with the result and would love to hear feedback!

comments are on the file.

[Vorlis]

Ok, so i thought id try and tighten the sample up and make it punch a bit more….

so i warped the sample first then sliced to a new midi track...


I messed with the envelope settings added a multi band, sausage fattener & overdrive, you can see the settings...


The big pink sausage...


Had bout 10 min to do this before work Just a quick bash….

[Críoch]

HIMA - Excellent Kick! Really great.

I'm definitely going to go though all of that when I get some time.

I never use the corpus, though that looks very interesting. You could actually save that as a preset & keep it handy. Looking at those Pic's - I can imagine the process & how it got to the final sound. Its a really nice kick on my headphones - the type of one that I'd use if I heard it. Cant wait to hear it on the monitors.

Q- Is the corpus on the same channel as the Simpler with the kick? Even @ 100% wet, its letting in the signal from the top of the kick?

[helloitsmeagain]

yeah everything from image 1 - 6 is in a row on the same channel.

7 is applied once i rendered that first kick.

8 was applied once i rendered the 2nd.

honestly, i've never tried this before. someone on this board, can't recall who, once had a great idea: experiment!

usually i mess around with a synth, apply some saturation and corpus followed by Puig and a transient designer; round off with a bit of eq and call it a day. this was actually a learning experience for me.

When i listened back to the kick i found it a bit box-y so if i had to do it again... but i did drop some out of the box loops around it and it stood up ok, so yeah it's useable and free for all to do just that. one thing i did notice only later though... the fundamental at G# got over taken so actually you'll need to transpose it down a touch to get back there.

note: all my production is done in earphones. i have some sennheiser buds and techincs rp-dj's. I do own monitors but have a 6 month kid so i've not put them on in a while... I'd be very interested to know how this performs in good monitors.

[JamieinNC]

OK, why not just give you the video I made a while back about the kick using operator? Will that do?

youtu.be/AyAxN0kuM70

[Mattias]

Ok here is my take on the kick.

For simplicity & reproduction I used only free plugins (for both Mac / PC) beside the EQ but you could easily find something similar in your DAW I'm guessing.

Short explanation; The kick goes through a compressor (yeah I usually dont do this but I made it cuz you fellas love compressors hehe) to punch it down a bit, then I warm the kick up a bit with a tube character drive.
After that I wanna add some resonance for body & bite and also down the top & high-mid with the LP filter.
Next a bit tube drive again from another unit to add more character. Time for EQ and a deep cut after 100 Hz (and up to 180Hz~) with about -12 dB. I also took down the side information in the kick from 200Hz with a low-shelf filter. Last I added a "12 bit drum-machine simulation" with the Time-machine unit which is brilliant for dirt.

Sorry for the big pics!

The chain follows:

1_molot_comp.jpg (59.86 KiB) Viewed 18203 times

2_voxengo_tubeamp.jpg (45.19 KiB) Viewed 18203 times

3_camelcrusher.jpg (56.76 KiB) Viewed 18203 times

4_tal_tube.jpg (26.7 KiB) Viewed 18203 times

5_equick.jpg (43.98 KiB) Viewed 18203 times

6_tb_timemachine.jpg (38.4 KiB) Viewed 18203 times

[helloitsmeagain]

new sample, new process. this time round i thought i'd just use what was native to ableton.

corpus for body.

saturation was a preset which i edited.

rendered it all down and then shortened the tail.

Use at your own discretion. When downloading, you accept sole responsibility for any injury caused by it's use.

[Mattias]

A thing I like to play with & use to create interesting kicks (and other sounds) is a chain of filters.
One can build incredibly complex filter chains with lots of different filters working in series & parallel with each-other. I highly recommend using it and experimenting a lot with it.

Here's a small example of what 3 filters in a series can do.
I used 2 units of the Minimal Systems Filter Bank & ended the chain with a Naive LPF 0.6.

filter1.jpg (44.56 KiB) Viewed 14396 times

filter2.jpg (44.46 KiB) Viewed 14396 times

filter3.jpg (40.7 KiB) Viewed 14396 times

[helloitsmeagain]

One can build incredibly complex filter chains with lots of different filters working in series & parallel with each-other.

Very intriguing idea with a pretty cool result!

[Críoch]

OK.. Heres my attempt.

What I tried to do was to use the Filter delay to bring out the sub of the kick. These settings seem to be the best interms of 20ms. Any more & you make an offbeat bass. I tried as best I could to balance the wet/dry on the sub aspect of it. I think its alright.

The rest of it was just tweaking really. I used a saturator to bring up the volume a bit really.. so just to use a small bit of compression.

Recently I've been sticking a few % of erosion wide noise on kicks.. kinds gives it a little bit of stereo. Microtonic uses noise to give kicks an effect almost like reverb. You can kinda get something similar to that with erosion if you want.

When I bounced it.. I thought it sounded a little weak.. so I stuck a tape preset from the VW on it & dialled in the % wet/dry. I dont usually do any of this shit with kicks.. lol - Usually I just stick a compressor & EQ on it and I'm done. This was a real mission & I've spent ages doing it FFS

Dunno if its great - but I like the way it sounded with the little loop I made. I like the sound of those kicks that have a bit of jack / bounce in them.. Whether it translates or not...

1 - Simpler

1.jpg (52.52 KiB) Viewed 14420 times

2. Filter Delay

2.jpg (41.6 KiB) Viewed 14420 times

3.Saturator

3.jpg (27.54 KiB) Viewed 14420 times

4. EQ's

4.jpg (78.23 KiB) Viewed 14420 times

5.Erosions

6.jpg (31.42 KiB) Viewed 14420 times

6. Comp & EQ

7.jpg (65.3 KiB) Viewed 14420 times

Bounce the Kick.. The I used VW & EQ to jazz it up

6. VW & EQ

8.jpg (155.53 KiB) Viewed 14420 times

SS Kick 132 Gshp.wav.zip

(433.18 KiB) Downloaded 403 times

[Opuswerk]

Ok, so heres my take.

I don't normally use samples and synthesize all my kicks (actually most of my sounds), so as to get it right straight away. I find it easier and faster to tune the kicks to the track that way. I did however try to have a go at manipulating sampels, seeing it's something i'd like to learn more.

I tried to turn the kick into something more stomping and dirtier, but outside the context of a track i find it quite hard to decide where or when it'd sound "right". Bass and kick to me are something very complimentary, and can really alterate the feel of a track.

anyways, here's what i did to it.


loaded the file in sampler, so as to have a bit more flexibility on the sample, and use the built-in filter, the extra LFOs and the OSC FM modulation. This allows to modify the transient of the kick in quite an interesting way, as well as adding some other harmonics.

lo-passed the kick, to get rid of some of the saturation if had that i didn't like, applied a fast enveloppe, to still get the snap out.

Added a very little LFO on the sample start. This allows to give any samples a very slight variation, and keep them more alive. I do this on everything basically.

added some saturation until it sounded "nice"

more saturation, then used the AMP to saturate and EQ the sample in a nice way, then eroded and bitcrushed the sample very slightly to add some air. I usually do this with the D16 Decimort, but for the sake of making the steps replicable, i used the ableton plugins and a freely available one.

subsekt kick.rar

(4.66 MiB) Downloaded 467 times

[Mattias]

Nice one Opus. I like those kinds of kicks & I often use a similar chain of processing units.

I use Decimort as well for dirt & airy bitcrush / 12bit drum-machine feel. It's a great plugin. I used the Toneboosters Time Machine in my first example because its free. But I really like that one as well to either compliment the Decimort or add a more sandy touch on the sounds.

[helloitsmeagain]

OK.. Heres my attempt.

hey john, for some reason the images don't show for me...

by the way, i used the exact same process as i employed the first time round, but with the new sample. This one came out way better IMO. and it stayed in key!

[Críoch]

I've put these vids on the blog.. but its worth throwing them in here too. Theres 5 in this series, which are all on YT.

Fxpansion Tremor - Kicks, snares, claps and crashes. It sounds great. Polyrhythmic step-sequencer too! *drools*

You can get a good idea of the process even if you dont have it.

youtu.be/td7oQEXhJ_M

[Mattias]

More super dirty kicks!
This time I used a sampler emulator / bit crusher, a delay with FX unit & a Pre-amp / EQ.
The example is pretty extreme but its easier to hear when the signal is 100% wet. This is a nice type of kick you can mix & balance nice with the Decimort W/D knob for more or less nice dirt.

dirtkick2_1.jpg (44.72 KiB) Viewed 14379 times

dirtkick2_2.jpg (41.4 KiB) Viewed 14379 times

dirtkick2_3.jpg (52.66 KiB) Viewed 14379 times

[bram2000]

Sounds good Mattias. Just one question... what is the delay for? Someone else mentioned using it and I'd never normally think of using it in this context.

[Mattias]

The delay is for filtered feedback, signal which you can overdrive in a way I like when it comes to vintage delays (the TAL ones have a nice nasty ring to them which I like when you overdrive the feedback signal). You can damp and open up the resonance nicely as well.