Can't get the kick to sound right!

oh yes haha! the low and dark tomb :wink:

this was done with AR and a sample kick, so two sounds layered, but quiet old already and not mastered.

https://soundcloud.com/sert-berlin/landr-artefacts-of-dr-mehose

https://soundcloud.com/sert-berlin/landr-snewoge-rising

I havenā€™t had time to bounce some of the new stuff since Iā€™m working live act oriented not producing finished tracks in the last few month. Iā€™ll see that I bounce some stuff this week and share it here!

Hard to believe because?

I know what you mean using samples is like is not pure , is not you , is cheating LOL , i recommend trying the Bp filter and then the envelope you will get various textures and you can add a lot of overdrive , also lfo in one mode modulating pitch , freq filt or something else , also think about the bassline , you need to create a relationship between the kick drum and bass , is music forget about making a perfect 4/4 kick drum alone you will need a bass to pump up your kick drum , try to tune them at same tone even if the bass is really deep or filtered , also donā€™t work at 127 vel in BD HD for example, analog rytm has too much power sometimes you just need to low the volume , velocity or decay !!

2 Likes

Yeah actually part of the problem is that I have a hard time making the AR kick work with ANY bass line. And by that I mean that the AR is OK, but I always end up using a sample because it works out better in the mix. Of course I donā€™t have a lot of low end on my NS10s - this is probably part of the problem, but I like to work on them, theyā€™re so focused!

yes i see your point! try using analog rytm alone for a moment and make the "bassline " from the BT or another kick drum engine ( sharp or plastic is great for this ) of course try to quit all the attack as possible so your kick drum run freely on the field your bass is the companion and mix all well to see , I had the same feeling two months ago but i think you can achieve what you want without samples , are you working with headphones , monitors ?? and what music are you trying to make etc ??

@IVAN_B When youā€™re using samples, you donā€™t have to import a sample from a kick.
This can be a waveform to add a support to the bass part, or to get LFO FM crazy on itā€¦
Samples are a tool, you may lay any sound, not necessarily your target sample :wink:

Have you tweaked the compression ?
If not, it should be the first part to look into.
If you did, well, maybe itā€™s time to do it again :smiley:

Hmm, have you rolled off some low freqs from these examplesā€™ kicks?

The second examplesā€™ kick sounds like it could be challenging to coax from a single bd machine, but upon a quick listen I think I could replicate the first examplesā€™ kick with a single machine (might not get a 100% identical result)

The reason I asked is because personally I donā€™t feel like I need to layer that much to get the kicks I want, especially after the 1.30 update. Usually a single machine is enough, sometimes I use two in a transient/body combination but thatā€™s rare for meā€¦ Buut YMMV

IIRC there used to be a lot of talk on this board about the AR kicks ā€œnot sounding thru cheap speakersā€ or something similar. Using larger amounts of overdrive and pitch modulation seemed to make the kicks translate better in those situations.

On some gigs with ghetto PAs that Iā€™ve played in, I had to crank both pitchmod and overdrive to near ridiculous levels in order to get the kicks cutting thru. Then, on the next gig with a decent PA, I had to spend most of the soundcheck dialing those suckers back lol

oh yeah, one more thing came to mind - make sure your amp envs are tight enough! The default amp env settings suck (wayyy to much decay), and can drown out almost any bassline

2 Likes

Iā€™d be happy to learn how to make it without the samples! cutoff might happen at 30 hz since my speakers go to 45hz only and sometimes I forget to put them back in.
tbh I havent played much with the new engines yet, but hopefully find the time soon!

man, you need to check the new kick machines ASAP - so much new possibilities for kicks (and well tracking synth voices too!)

1 Like

Thatā€™s something I never thought of! Iā€™ll definitely try this. Maybe I will also try to use the individual kick output to bypass the compressor entirely. Iā€™m also not sure about using OB as input or simply recording the audio through my interface.

@tsutek Thanks for the amp envs advice, will definitely take a look!

Been a struggle for me too. Side chaining and multimaximizing have helped me out the most. Also i like to use a hint of abletons saturation plugins. Low latency and customizable. The next thing im going to learn about is imaging. Hope this helps someone out tho!

Can anyone recommend any low latency imaging plugins i could use on my kick track?

Edit: I am using overbridge.

Yeah,

the thing is: If you search for a sound that bomb like actual releases from good artist, you compete with real good mixing and sound arrangersā€¦ you will never get a that good result just ā€œplug and playā€

But The good news: AR gives the perfect ā€œraw soundā€ for cool mixesā€¦ Just using it live (with the stereo out), i like a little compression (medium attack, long release) and Equing in the mides and highs on the mixer (outboard, sometimes a lot) to get a good out of the box sound.

Preprocessed samples help a lot, though in special for the kick i love damn good processed samples and clear out the low frequencies, so you can mix it perfect with the fat AR bassesā€¦
having that good processed samples you get better results out of the box, cause the AR has no EQs, which would be crucial needed to do a good soundmix within the ARā€¦

still i love the results better than my jomox, with all in all sounded way to rough for meā€¦ the AR has that beautyfull warm soft bassness (and harshness, if i dial in overdrive or crank up the parameters) :slight_smile:

My fav is the pulteq EQ bundle from plug in allianceā€¦ it makes the bass hell present and cranks up mids and highs gentlyā€¦ really feels like the first plugin, that works like a mixing desk EQ with really good resultsā€¦

for imaging, i love the digital EQ from plugin allianceā€¦ it really brings percussion to live with the stereo imageā€¦ great one!

1 Like

hi there for my live set i always send the 2 kicks through there separate out so that they donā€™t go through the compressor it makes them more clear and punchy they can have there own EQ on the mixerā€¦. also that way they donā€™t crush the thin sounds it allows me to have them bigger and pop out of the mixā€¦it also allows me to apply more compression on the main out and do a low cut on all the other sounds to get more clarity hope that helpsā€¦

2 Likes

Iā€™m into house and tech house. I need my kicks to be deep and fat. And I donā€™t like using two tracks for the kick.

When I make new kicks, I usually proceed like this:

  1. build a kick with just the synth. Try to get as close as possible.
  2. pick peak filter with some resonance and adjust frequency and envelope to make the kick go boom in the right places
  3. add a little bit of distortion
  4. ensure proper compression settings (I typically have long attack and relatively short release, along with SEQ=HIT

variations:
add one-shot LFO (e.g. exponential) on volume, pitch, etc. to make the sound sharper.
use the low tom as bassdrum.

advice:
as someone already said, polished and mastered kicks will often sound better. frankly, stop comparing too much and enjoy the unique AR sound.

3 Likes

https://static.gearslutz.com/board/imgext.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fj4z61uI.jpg&h=720f01c911446d48eb10cd9b0e76c2ae

6 Likes

What role does volume play in all this? Are the machines I perceive as having an easier time dialing in a kick simply louder and thus sound ā€œbetterā€ to me?

(in my experience)
Easy kicks - TR-8, Jomox Mbase 11, Volca Beats, Machinedrum
Kicks that need significant tweaking and processing - Vermona DRM, Rytm

I know the Rytm is capable of the kick style Iā€™m after. I guess Iā€™m just spoiled by other machines Iā€™ve had in the past and am tempted to repurchase them unfortunately. I donā€™t think itā€™s all about comparing Rytm kicks to processed samples. Some machines are just a little harder to dial in than others. Iā€™m talking smooth round juicy 808 style kicks. I can get the Rytm plenty loud and aggressive very quickly if I want a distorted kick, but I donā€™t.

Funny thing is, I know Iā€™ve heard good kicks on my Rytm before. I might switch back to my non-OverBridge setup, try different comp settings, and other tips mentioned above. When I find something I like this time I will be sure to save save save.Thanks!

2 Likes

ohā€¦ you recorded via overbridge?

well, thats maybe the dealbreaker. I also tested overbridge for recordingā€¦ its a cool controlling tool, but to me the sound is far better when recording it with my RME and separate outsā€¦ this is especially for subbassesā€¦ ( i really love the BT Subs, which are the kind of Miami Bass TR-8 styleā€¦ mixed with a little filtered Rimsound on Top)ā€¦

JoMoX: Yeahā€¦ they have less sub, but pretty present midsā€¦ still i am not really a fan of this sound anymoreā€¦ well, but thats personal tasteā€¦ still also great tools

volume: thats keyā€¦ its all about levelingā€¦ dialing away some of the heavy subs with a high cut gives you a lot more room to turn up the volume of the mix in total (also for bass synths)

1 Like

I havenā€™t been recording with overbridge specifically because I find the kicks lose something in the translation. Most noticeable is the overdrive sounds much grittier. Non-overbridge, I find the overdrive in low amounts just gives some presence and punch to sounds. I might actually start doing more overbridge, but Iā€™d literally have to go back and tweak most of my kits to make it work.

Most of the kicks Iā€™ve made on the RYTM are strictly synth only no layering. Iā€™ve managed some really nice and membraney type kicks with the BT. In about a year Iā€™ve made around 40 (maybe more) kits of my own and only just recently started layering up samples. Those ones can be tricky since you almost need to re-design your kick several times ā€¦ basically I try and get the sample only to sound great ā€¦ then slowly bring in the synth part but itā€™s REALLY important that you tune them. Kicks can be hard to tune by ear so sometimes I use a frequency analyzer in reaper to tune the two to each-other (and to the song).

I have a pretty nice formula that I use every time - I passed it on to a friend recently and he was pretty stoked on it:

  1. medium decay on the synth page, not too much sweep because the pitch sweep will be done with the LFO. If the kick synth has a click then for sure use it, just donā€™t over do it since weā€™ll get a transient from what I do with filter and LFO.
  2. 2-8 overdrive (sometimes way more depending on your genre, but for mellow house like I make I keep the kicks pretty smooth) make sure you tweak the overdrive settings in FX since the defaults are not the greatest
  3. HP2 filter resonance around 50-70 depending on how much bassey boom you want. Cutoff is tricky because you have to find the fundamental frequency of your kick. This can be done by ear just sweeping through the lower freqā€™s until you feel your speakers just go WOMP. Itā€™ll really stick out when you hit the sweet spot. Filter envelope all to 0 except decay around 10-15 (you want a quick downward sweep) and ENV around I dono 8-20 you can kinda go by ear.
  4. Amp env again this is really by taste, but hold around 4-10 DEC should be a bit less or a bit more than the hold value depending on what kinda tail you want on your kick.
  5. LFO the most important part. Mod dest is the synth tune. It should be a exp shape and really fast ā€¦ like 32 speed maybe 8 or 16 mult. Depth is to taste, but I usually try and go in multiples of 12 (octave) so like 12, 24, 48. I guess some people might think ā€œwhy use the lfo for pitch sweep when you have a sweep on the synth pageā€ well ā€¦ I guess I learned this from seeing how LEM designed kicks on the monomachine - use one slow sweep for the body of the kick (kinda like an 808 boom) and a fast sweep to develop a PIEW transient at the beginning. The quick filter env also promotes the transient and if you have a click too then youā€™re basically 3x the pop.

Thats basically it. The recipe works the same on all the kick engines and really makes them punch. It also works on the BT and thereā€™s a real magic sweet spot that makes BT sound actually more like a real kick than any of the kick engines.

25 Likes

I so love discussion about synthesis. Thank you man, Iā€™ll take some time to analyse LEMā€™s kit again ^^

1 Like