Maybe my suggestions are obvious or already known, but I’ll share some of my AR kick knowledge. I’ve been playing RYTM for over 6 months and it’s the centerpiece of my setup. The BD is the centerpiece to my AR so obviously I made it my goal to learn every in and out of the 3 BD machines. So much so that I can build a fresh kick to tailor to the song or sound system or environment on the fly. BT can make great kicks too, but I usually use the BT for my sub layers. Learning every facet to the AR is, to me, like learning all the scales and chords on a guitar and practicing like crazy until it’s an extension of your body. Also it should be noted that I don’t play on monitors ever. I play on a PA system or headphones. I know it’s not the right way to do it, but it’s fun and I have all these subs and speakers, but no good monitors … so whatevs’ ! hah
Lately I’ve been actually getting some INSANE kicks from the FM machine. I find the right speed of FM sweep and tune really makes the kick stand proud of everything in your mix. I rarely use samples anymore for the kick. Maybe a REALLY small transient for the click, but thats it. I find the analog machines with you all you need. If anyone is interested I can give up some sysex files of my FM kicks or post some demo sounds on soundcloud.
Here’s some of my other tricks I do every day:
-
FX! First thing on any kit I make is really beef up the compressor settings as well as the Overdrive. In compressor 1:4 ratio, and really fast atk. Threshold varies so go by ear. I like a mix around 50% for a sort of parallel compression dirty overall feel when you have overdrive on the sound. In the Overdrive section of FX I always up the amt, change the symmetry by ear and put the del and rev to PRE. I don’t mess with delay overdrive.
-
Overdrive in the amp menu of the kick. Not like a ton maybe 8-15, but I overdrive every kick. I guess I just like that punch when it hits the compressor. IMHO the overdrive, compressor, and filter are everything on the AR for punchyness.
-
The filter. I don’t do this on every kick, but I found this really sick YIP type hit at the beginning of a kick if you hit the highpass filter with a really fast downward envelope. It makes the kick stand out bigtime. Basically its just Res about 80 or something pretty high - you want it to squeel because it’s a fast little hit. Dec is down low like 3-15 (fast) and atk, sus, and rel are all off. This will give a super fast downward env. Env depth up just a bit, and then adjust it up or down by ear. Now Frq is where the magic is … there’s a sweet spot (actually a few I find) where you make a laser sounding ZAP and take out just enough low end to make it pop, but don’t go high enough that you lose all your low end. I can’t tell the number for freq it changes per kick but it’s somewhere around 30% mark. This is my secret weapon of kicks these days.
-
LFO If my filter envelope and synth settings (mainly the tune sweep) aren’t getting me enough SMACK then I go to the LFO. I make a really fast downward drop using Exp wav and setting the mod to ONE or HLF. Depth is always set to taste, but really mess around with the speed and the depth until it is going really fast from a ZA to a ooooooom.
-
Don’t overdo the bass on every other track. You can lose a really nice sounding kick in the mix. Separating all your instruments by freq range is gold. I kinda learned that watching tut vids back in my ableton time HAHAH those silly ableton days. I also try and keep all the bass hits short dec including the kick so they stand out.
Anyways … this may have been totally out of place … I’m honestly really shy about this stuff, but I wanted to add my 2c cause I’ve been seriously having too much fun with kicks lately.