Share Your Kicks

Martinukai · 2016-01-04T02:37:10.000Z

Great thread. Making pounding kicks can be quick on the AR, or even instant, but great ones still elude me. Like many people, I try layering samples on the bassdrum machines a lot. I had recent limited success with a low tuned piano, of all things.

mkdsl · 2016-01-04T08:08:13.000Z

What I’d do is tune the kick while in the venue, man we have the killer option to adapt our sound to the enviroment. Almost every time i performed live it sounded better (punchier, cleaner loud) than the DJ acts before or after me.
We can mold our sound to resonate with the club, one step beyond DJing
I often bump the low end on the Rytm’s channel in the dj mixer, it can be too sharp, and the added bass dampens it a bit, while giving it that low end boom.

The grin that comes when your kick starts shaking up the place, priceless.

ON-OFF-ON · 2016-01-04T23:16:06.000Z

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.

geoffmar · 2016-01-04T23:34:43.000Z

""onoffon"":

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.

Hey! I’d be super pumped to grab a couple sysex files from you just to see how you’re working - been struggling to keep my rytm right now and this just might push me over the edge!

ON-OFF-ON · 2016-01-04T23:37:00.000Z

Sure thing! I’m at work currently but I’ll find a way to link it on here when I get home.

Martinukai · 2016-01-04T23:45:33.000Z

Yeah onoffon, I would love to hear some examples… if it’s no trouble of course?

thx1183 · 2016-01-05T00:06:52.000Z

great tips and use of the possibilities of the ar. nice!

geoffmar · 2016-01-05T00:14:08.000Z

pumped!!

Taura · 2016-01-05T02:10:27.000Z

Hey Snitch,
your track is supercool! But I can understand what you mean.
It works very nice at home, but the kick is not ‘kicking’. I would say, it does not necesserily need to, there is this very nice basswobblecarpet instead and to me this sounds like a fresh alternative attempt in the moment. But in the club this will for sure and unfortunately turn into something supermuddy humming in the low end, unless they have 1A speakers and roomacoustics, but how often does this happen…

stutech · 2016-01-05T11:24:39.000Z

great tune snitch - you could easily tighten the lowend in the mix if you wanted to, but for my tastes it’s gr8 as it is! rsp

I’m not exactly a kick connosseur on the AR, but have managed to get a few usable kicks. I love the FM kick machine, it’s crazy!

Personally I always keep overdrive disengaged until I have reached the farthest point I can reach without using it. The overdrive sounds rather good on more lofi playback systems, but can sound totally OTT in a treated room with nearfileds or at the club, so I tend to be careful with it nowadays (LOL @ my first gig with the AR, I had drowned all my sounds with overdrive - mudville)

I just thought of an experiment - indiout all sounds, route your kick (plus whatever else you want to smash) to the master as well as indiouts, and then use master distortion to smash the sounds. Blend the driven masterbus to indisounds to taste with a mixer. This way the transients would still be intact, but you could mix in “saturated body” to the sounds…

ON-OFF-ON · 2016-01-05T21:41:46.000Z

Hi Geoffmar and Martinukai,

I just uploaded some sysex to the files section.

I included two system for sounds FMbop and FMstnks and also a sysex for a project called SHOWKICKS.syx it contains a couple patterns I made for other projects that have what I feel is a nice BDFM kick.

http://www.elektronauts.com/files/download/196

If I can finish rendering the video before my macbook runs out of juice I’ll upload a little video I made last night of a song I’m working on that has lots of FM in it heh.

Martinukai · 2016-01-06T02:11:12.000Z

""onoffon"":

Hi Geoffmar and Martinukai,

I just uploaded some sysex to the files section.

I included two system for sounds FMbop and FMstnks and also a sysex for a project called SHOWKICKS.syx it contains a couple patterns I made for other projects that have what I feel is a nice BDFM kick.

http://www.elektronauts.com/files/download/196

If I can finish rendering the video before my macbook runs out of juice I’ll upload a little video I made last night of a song I’m working on that has lots of FM in it heh.

Thanks so much onoffon!,
I just transferred all sysex files and the only thing I can get to work is the FM stnks kick. I do a search for the other kick and there’s no sign.

Also the AR received the many songs and patterns you sent in that other file but it appears that they are blank.

I can see for sure that they transferred ok on both machine and c6, but when I search for them (I loaded an empty project especially) there is nothing there.

ON-OFF-ON · 2016-01-06T18:05:59.000Z

Sorry Martinukai - I can do a double check on my rytm later to make sure they can be loaded correctly. I do admit I haven’t exported many sysex files from rytm, but I followed the process that I know works well on my monomachine. When I get home later I’ll do some testing to make sure my sysex files did in fact export correctly. I know for the indiv sounds I went through the sound manager menu and sent sysex to C6 (in receive mode) and it imported it and then I hit save. For the project it seemed a little more involved and it was like a big 1.5meg file even though I exported an empty project with only 2 patterns and 2 kits.

I’ll try again for ya later today !

pats · 2016-01-06T19:25:43.000Z

Where are the patterns/sounds and kits located after using the sysex receive function through C6 ?

i downloaded the kick file from the “files section” but i can’t locate it in the rytm.

thanks!

pats · 2016-01-06T19:29:28.000Z

just read the replies above (i had my replied on hold for a while)

Martinukai · 2016-01-07T01:12:58.000Z

""onoffon"":

Sorry Martinukai - I can do a double check on my rytm later to make sure they can be loaded correctly. I do admit I haven’t exported many sysex files from rytm, but I followed the process that I know works well on my monomachine. When I get home later I’ll do some testing to make sure my sysex files did in fact export correctly. I know for the indiv sounds I went through the sound manager menu and sent sysex to C6 (in receive mode) and it imported it and then I hit save. For the project it seemed a little more involved and it was like a big 1.5meg file even though I exported an empty project with only 2 patterns and 2 kits.

I’ll try again for ya later today !

Don’t worry about it. No rush man, thanks for making the effort:) Really generous of you sharing your sounds and techniques!

matheusleston · 2016-01-07T02:09:17.000Z

""onoffon"":

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.

I just said in another topic that I can’t get good kick sounds using only the BD’s channel synthesis. But your post gave me hope once again! Thanks for all the tips, I will explore all those things.

takadoum · 2016-01-08T13:03:17.000Z

Very good tips, Onoffon

I also always use filter to sculpt the click. This way you can sweep from a really pure kick (no click) to the most clicky psytrance kick ever

And point 5) is crucial ! The most important IMHO. Most of the time, a bad filtered sound on other track will eat your kick body.

As for the LFO, I hardly never use it for the ooomph, but rather for sculpting the tail, to add rebounce or tie to the bass (BT) on following step if it’s too different from the kick note.
And this really helps because everything is related to the other tracks. A weak but well blended kick will work better than a huge but incoherent one.

Another tip to add punchyness : work your levels (synth and amp page). In the beginning I always put synth level at maximum, and play with amp. WRONG !!!
Sometimes you have to put synth level very very low so that you can set a huge distorsion with dist and amp level, which will bring punch but not saturation.
Then you can choose between a huge but clean kick (low synth level) and a dirty one (high synth level).
Of course also play with wave type, and filter, for high pass is better to bring harmonics and very dirty texture.

My 2c too, good day all and happy new AR stuff !

ON-OFF-ON · 2016-01-08T18:59:45.000Z

Hi again everybody sorry I haven’t had a chance to test the sysex files I posted here, but I promise I’ll get around tonight.

I only had a really short amount of time last night for my music machines to I spent it making this recording.

It uses the FM kick with techniques I was describing in my earlier post.

http://www.elektronauts.com/t/i-rem-fire-video/16715

NICK_GOOD · 2016-01-09T17:05:43.000Z

GREAT THREAD PEEPS SO MUCH INFO!!!