Can't get the kick to sound right!

Hi there,
I tried the trick of routing the kick to mains, while keeping the rest on separate outputs and it’s wonderful, I feel I have moore control over the kick and it really stands out from all the rest.
However, I’d like to find versatile compressor settings, that could work all right in diverse situations (different styles of kicks).
Problem is I’m a total noob with compression =]
Would you have compressor configurations to recommend?
(Like one for short kicks?
And another one for longer tail kicks?)

this should be in a book of quotes

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It’s like good advice from a Buddhist

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Many good tips in this thread!

What really was an eyeopener for me was this video by Cenk:

Cenk is dialing in a kickdrum and then uses the low pass filter on it (settings around 30 -36 should do the trick). When low pass filtered the kick is less gabber but more techno like…
Next you need to increase the filter envelope amount with fastest attack and fairly short release to let the initial transient / klick through.
You might want to apply some overdrive on the amp page to beef things up even further

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Give any kick extra resonance on filter page, overdrive in the amp page, these settings alone (turned high enough) can cripple any speaker system. Be careful.
The widespread error in music production is creating kicks with a €1500 machine while listening on €200 “producing monitors”.

My Rytm thrives on a B&W system (worth more than the Rytm).

The Rytm is a monster built to fill the whole range even directly into big PA’s possible. Perhaps all your life you have been looking for that upgrade on the true core of your kit: speakers

My synthesized sounds are better than most samples. If it is the other way around for you I think your speakers are the problem (really!)

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Man this video really blew me away. I was following a lot of the instructions posted on here, and they worked pretty well.

But then I see what Cenk is doing to make his sounds and it’s totally different! Lots of over drive, aggressive filtering and pitching. Man, I am almost overwhelmed now, haha.

I just found the document here on all the sounds they made, so I am recreating these and putting them into different patterns. Before that I was pausing the screen over and over to try and figure this stuff out…lol.

Are there more resources out there as good as this? I personally like making lo-fi house and minimal house. My next step is figuring out what synth sounds I should use, which ones I should layer with samples or which ones to replace with samples to get the vibe I want. I have always been set on the kick drum, especially after seeing this video, but I was not sure on the snares. Cenk makes the snares sound really usable in the above video and basically has me rethinkingmy sound design on the AR2 completely now.

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Have you all seen this video? Around the 50 minute mark Cenk uses a bass tom to make a subkick and then brings in a 909 sample. He then LPFs them hard with some resonance. I think he says that he always does. I think that may be the case because he does the same trick in the 1.30 video. Anyway, I have been matching him step for step and the kicks sound awesome.

Really cool how he is LPFing with some resonance and then dialing in the envelope to create the click sound. The kicks sound phenomenal when you do it like this. I think most pple suggest that you HPF, so to me this is a rather awesome way of making really huge kicks that I probably would not have thought of.

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Watch the gain staging and be careful with LP filtering your kick as it might not cut through the mix on all systems…

On these videos (both with the mk1 and 2) there’s tons of overdrive being used… I feel like on my rytm any time I go past 16 on the od it’s totally blown out sounding. I’m actually starting to wonder if something is wrong with the od circuit on my rytm or what bc the amounts used here would just sound terrible on mine. Are there any suggestions on how I can check if it’s working properly? It usually results in a huge increase in volume, which I’m also not setting in the videos… thanks for any help/suggestions

This. I use the free 808 Base Tom that gets tuned to the track. I’ll then layer either the BD synth or a sample over it. You get really good sounding, punchy and controllable kicks. Using the filters and overdrive puts the cherry on top.

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Totally agree with you both. For me the AR is about layering and BT/LT/Pinged filter plus BD/Sample/Noise is testimony to that.

+1 on that

Thx for the replies @loopdude and @xidnpnlss - i guess I’m specifically wondering about their use of overdrive in the videos right now. Does cranking the od to max like they show not cause a huge volume increase and introduce nasty sounding clipping? It seems to on mine so I’m wondering if there is some trick to get the pleasing overdrive you hear on the videos…

The soundpack mentioned in the video is still available and it’s free.

Maybe it’s worth to check that out :wink:

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Try lowering the level of the sound going into the overdrive. This will allow for more dynamics and increase the amount of drive you can put on the sounds.

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I think I’ve figured out what’s going on in the video. For me, the only way I am able to get those kinds of sounds, and especially to be able to crank the overdrive without getting insane volume increase, is to have the compressor mix all the way up. Put it on HIT setting, the rest of that page seems fine on default but adjust to taste according to your needs. Oh also put the distortion amount on the dist page around 72. Wonder if anyone can confirm that that’s what’s goin on in the two vids above.

I never managed to get a satisfactory progressive/psy kick out of the Rytm, without using a sample. Often, those kicks are generated by sweeping filters. Seems to be a waste though - using samples on the Rytm. …and it needs some advance planning to do so too.

And don’t forget the impulse-machine for a nice transient on top of it :wink:

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Tried Punchbox when I woke up with a coffee super sick, wish I could get that in the rytm somehow. pumping this thread. I can add the click, the filter with a bit of resonance, but the distortion part is still a bit vague for me to be honest, unless I run it through the compressor, which I haven’t tried yet as someone mentioned.

it’s really easy actually, you have 2 types of distortions, one overdrive per channel and master distortion, both have different characters, it’s easy to destroy the kick with overdrive, to dial in overdrive you must play with the SRC volume on the BD machine, put the overdrive at max and the SRC LVL at minimum and start bringing it up slowly, you’ll hear when it’s too much instantly, after that you can dial back on the overdrive and balance with the SRC level to get the perfect amount, and control the overall level from the AMP LVL.
the master distortion adds more character and less destruction up until the middle-ish, and that applies to all voices so dialing it in with a kick only is only good if you’re resampling the kick, otherwise dial in something like 30-40 and come back later when you have other elements in the mix.

I like rytm kicks, sure they are not Kick2/Punchbox but what the world would look like if all kicks were the same :wink:

also, I loaded many base samples that come with Live, there’s lots of roland style and other samples in there, there are also lots of kick tops available, they all sound awesome in the rytm, and sometimes a sample works better in the mix and it’s really easy to use them…

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