Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
alex.the.forge
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Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 4:29 am

Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by alex.the.forge » Fri Aug 20, 2010 4:09 pm

funken wrote:Just been experimenting with my kicks. Actually ended up not using a pitch envelope at all. Seem to have stumbled on a wave that had a nice pop at the start without needing one. What I've suddenly realised is that as far as tuning goes, you need to read it as polyphonic, as its a mix of a high note and a low note, and in mono Melodyne just takes the average. Bang goes the tuning on all my previous kicks, I will have to check them all! Even without any pitch envelope this kick has two notes at the same time. Sounds ok anyway, sort of modern.
ALL sounds are combinations of sine waves at different levels and frequencies (harmonics), and those 2 "notes" you are talking about are just the most prominent harmonics, and I think there is probably a really good chance you will have made it in key naturally some way by ear anyway .. assuming you have ever touched the tuning of the kick. but even then, if you started your track with the kick you may have instinctively chosen the pitches of other sounds around it. So I wouldn't worry too much about it, but it is definitely worth chucking a spectrum on it anyway.

If you haven't already dome it, maybe try having a play with the Operator's Partial editor and start with a simple sine wave and then draw in a 2nd partial, then a third, and so on - preferably with a Spectrum following it with the expanded view - and listen to the different harmonics across the harmonic series - then load up some other waveforms and compare them, see which harmonics are present.

In fact, to relate this to the original point, while Dr. Fluffenstein doesn't have Operator he can still do all this with simpler, but the difference is that with operator each oscillator is a powerful additive synth, so you can quite literally draw in the harmonics you want to be in the sound with ONE oscillator, and you could definitely survive with just the one oscillator to create a kick drum.

To achieve the same you can add as many as you like to a rack and use each one as a separate harmonic. To do this you only need to multiply the frequency of the fundamental by the whole number of each partial. I.e. - if you are creating a kick at C1 which is about 65 Hz, then the 2nd partial is double that (130Hz), 3rd partial 3x that (195), 4th x 4 times (260) and so on… there is a really good chance that the 2 harmonics you mention are at least somewhere in the harmonic series in relation to the key of your track, just because you will have been trying to make it sound good.

But if you added the kick after you'd already chosen the key and then never tuned it then that might not be the case

Dr. Fluffenstein
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Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by Dr. Fluffenstein » Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:16 pm

davepermen wrote:I'm building mine with operator, a Sine, and a pitch envelope. the rest then will be saturation, compression, eqing. so you should be able to get equal results with simpler, too.

I've once found a simple kick generator vst plugin which showed me the basics for the operator settings, but i don't know it's name anymore :( i searched for it.
I'm trying to use one simpler at the moment, but I'm getting very limited results that I'm not entirely happy with. For one thing, the decay envelope on simpler is exponential (dips down quickly at first and then sort of levels out), but I like my kicks to peak in the decay phase to make them a bit boomier. I realize I can use compression and EQ to shape the kick, but I want it to be fat to begin with (which is why I had a second simpler with a delayed attack). But either way that shape isn't very suitable for kicks.


I'm trying to squeeze the most essential things into 8 macros. Obviously didn't have this problem with the first version. But now, since I'm using harmonically rich waves I have to include filter envelopes. Any recommendations for what the essentials are? Are there any macro's in the first version that you guys thought weren't needed?

I'm also scratching my head about simpler's transpose slider. For some reason pitching it a certain amount of semitones sounds different from playing a different midi pitch. Not sure which way is better for pitching.
mdk wrote:I did an 808 emulation with operator and ableton native plugs, might be interesting for you :)

http://relivethefuture.com/music/patches/oper808v8.zip

I do have a 909 style kick built with operator somewhere, i'll upload it when i find it.
Thanks, I'll make sure to check it out. Don't have operator but I guess I can still run it in demo mode.

@ Alex, the additive synthesis idea's crossed my mind before. But I've decided to take the minimalist approach and use subtractive(ish) synthesis instead (using simplers filter envelopes). Not sure what the disadvantages would be though.

alex.the.forge
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Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by alex.the.forge » Sat Aug 21, 2010 1:22 am

Dr. Fluffenstein wrote:For one thing, the decay envelope on simpler is exponential (dips down quickly at first and then sort of levels out).
do you have sustain turned all the way down? also don't forget about release and the length of the actual MIDI note and their part in it. I might be stating the obvious, apologies if that's the case… but just checking…. before I posted yesterday I quickly knocked one up with the same sine ADV file and the settings I described and it was pretty close to a 909 kick

anyway, the point of what I said was not that you should necessarily stick to just one for the sake of it, more that it can be done and the results can be surprisingly decent, and you may not need too stack loads of them together - partly because I think you are in danger of overcomplicating and creating a monster that's unnecessarily difficult to control. The original 909 and 808 were designed a very long time ago when technology was very limited by our standards and they really were done with very little. I have a feeling that they were just one sine wave, but I'm pretty certain there are not more than 2.

EDIT:

just checking up…. according to the SOS synth secrets articles it's a sawtooth wave waveshaped so that it ends up more like a sine wave, mixed with some noise

there is also some white noise in the ableton library, although using it in the Simpler it would just be a looped sample of white noise which is not ideal

you should check the whole series if you are interested in sound design, it's kind of the ultimate resource on it…..

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan02/a ... ts0102.asp

this link actually talks about the 909 and 808:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Feb02/a ... ts0202.asp

apparently this is a 909:

Image

while the 808 is much simpler:
Image

Dr. Fluffenstein
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Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by Dr. Fluffenstein » Sat Aug 21, 2010 4:05 am

Thanks for the tips. Sustain is all the way down, but it doesn't really matter anymore since I decided to throw an EQ in the chain to give it more body. I think I will cut it down from 5 chains to 3, 2 waveforms + 1 noise. And maybe a chain selector inside each of the 3 to choose or mix different waveforms. I think that would be a nice balance between simple and flexible. I agree that one oscillator is enough, but with one I can't seem to strike a balance between a snappy attack and punchy mid frequencies.

I stumbled across those SOS articles a few days ago, they're a goldmine of useful info :), thanks for posting. I still haven't read enough to figure out that 909 schematic though.


I've been having some trouble getting sharp attacks on my kicks, it sounds more like a muffled high pitch knock than a click. The only solution I found was cutting the start of the waveform, but for obvious reasons that's not the way to go at it. I could crank pitch decay way down, but then I still don't get the same result as what I hear in commercial releases. Anyone have some tips for making a snappier attack?

Dr. Fluffenstein
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Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by Dr. Fluffenstein » Mon Aug 23, 2010 11:41 pm

bump

So does anyone have some tips for making the attack?

I also noticed that the attack phase is inconsistent with each kick, it happens when I turn down filter decay or filter frequency too much. The meter starts clipping into the red too.

Any ideas?

eggnchips
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Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by eggnchips » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:31 pm

Down load this ademe free kick machine http://www.synthschool.com/downloads.html its great.
Casio keyboard with 48k ZX Spectrum, a couple of tambourines and a triangle.
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eggnchips
Posts: 566
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Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by eggnchips » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:31 pm

Down load this ademe free kick machine http://www.synthschool.com/downloads.html its great.
Casio keyboard with 48k ZX Spectrum, a couple of tambourines and a triangle.
MUHK RECORDS

Dr. Fluffenstein
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Location: Toronto

Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by Dr. Fluffenstein » Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:25 pm

Thanks, I'll check it out. I'd prefer to make them from scratch though.

Silence
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Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by Silence » Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:44 pm

id love something like Propellerheads Kong... guess i´ll have to get Reason 5 and use it as a sound module
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Dr. Fluffenstein
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Location: Toronto

Re: Looking for Flexible Kick Synthesis Solution

Post by Dr. Fluffenstein » Tue Aug 24, 2010 11:20 pm

Silence wrote:id love something like Propellerheads Kong... guess i´ll have to get Reason 5 and use it as a sound module
That looks pretty neat, I'm sure you can get close in Live (except maybe the physical modeling modules). This gave me some idea's for what to map to live's macro's :)

I'm working on different kick "modules" (racks) right now, some of them are giving decent results, others are useless. But I'm hoping that sooner or later I'll get a great sounding accident :D . It seems the more waveforms I layer together the better the results, haven't been having much luck with just two waveforms. The biggest challenge is probably mapping the macros so that any setting gives a usable kick sound, while also squeezing as much variety as possible into 8 macros.



Was hoping someone could help me out with the attack portion. I've got some pictures of my waveforms vs. those from samples.

Samples: http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/6270 ... lkicks.jpg

My Kicks: http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/9136/mykicks.jpg

I'm having trouble getting a large amplitude in the attack portion, I'm not talking about the initial click but about the punchy mid-range sound, the last sample waveform in the pic I uploaded has the kind of "pop" I'm trying to get, it's sort of like a mini kick before the main kick. And if I do get a decent attack things start clipping a bit further down as you can see in the last picture.

Any tips for how this can be done? It was easier getting a good attack in the first kick rack I uploaded, but that one used 5 waveforms and I want to make it simpler.

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