how about a nice thick bass kick?

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ekord123
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how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by ekord123 » Thu May 05, 2011 8:25 pm

Greetings, I'm new to live and still understanding some concepts.Right now I'm trying to get a deep bass kick tone (i.e. the kind you hear in electronic music, and hip hop). here are a couple of key concepts that I kind of get, but I could use some filling in:

sampling- is it possible to start out with a pretty normal kick drum and turn it into more of what I'm looking for? live 8 has quit a few kick samples, I'm guessing that I just load them into impulse (don't have operator) and edit them, but from here im confused. from what I gather I need to use a low pass filter, and get it within the 50-150 hz range. If anybody could expand on this it could be very helpful.

but in general, is there anything I'm missing out on? And are there any good free or inexpensive sample libraries I can pull from (with soft synths, as well as kick samples).

Cheers :D

Cezband
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Cezband » Fri May 06, 2011 8:59 am

EQ is definitely a good start, also think about layering different kick sounds on top of each other and seperating it into different eq parts - for instance, the main attack of a kick is usually more towards the mid-range (the "click") followed by the tail which is deeper and lower, so if you find two seperate samples and eq them accordingly you can get some good results which are easy to tweak.

Also worth reading up on are concepts like tuning the kick, compression, and sidechaining other parts to the kick in order to make it punch through the mix. Loads of tutorials on all this stuff, google around or check youtube.

As for samples, most music magazines these days feature a cover DVD with assloads of samples. I usually browse the magazines and find the ones with samples to my particular tastes that particular month. You can walk away with gigabytes of samples for about 5 or 6 quid - better value than most of the download sample packs online. Or you could always find some hits in a song you dig, then snip them out and use them yourself.

And just remember, you don't just have impulse at your disposal, you can load your samples into a drum rack too. Both are useful in different situations.

Hope that helps a little :mrgreen:
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twisted-space
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by twisted-space » Sat May 07, 2011 12:20 pm

http://samples.kb6.de/index.htm
Loys of kick samples there. Well worth a donation IMHO.

Quantize
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Quantize » Sat May 07, 2011 12:56 pm

You might find this video on Kick Layering and the free rack that accompanies it useful :-)

http://www.quantizecourses.com/pages.php/?cat=3

It's the second video down.

fonnovo
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by fonnovo » Sun May 08, 2011 6:08 pm

i layer a 909 and a 808 kick, plus a sine in operator taylored to fit my needs, the some eq, filter and compresor and voila!
Latest Tune, please provide feedback on my mixing skills.
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invol
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by invol » Thu Jun 09, 2011 5:09 am

Starting with a good quality sound is always best. Layer if you need to, of course. EQ can help big time.

Find a range in the low mids to cut by as much as 12 dB - usually between 150 Hz and 400 Hz, Q around 4, . Also make sure to cut sub frequencies, e.g., below 40 Hz or so, boost lows to taste, and +/- 3 kHz and/or 5 kHz or so to adjust "attack". A few dB of compression for punch, and you're there.

Grappadura
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Grappadura » Thu Jun 09, 2011 3:44 pm

have u got the suite?
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leighbeynon
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by leighbeynon » Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:35 pm

Interesting I was told you shouldn't layer kicks as you can phase out the sound and end up with a less powerful kick than the 2 you started with I think waves alchemy have good stron kicks but I'm alsonstruggling to create my own little pool of eq'd kicks ready to use
LPB

Cezband
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Cezband » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:34 am

I don't think phasing would be an issue unless you were using the same sample twice - two different kick samples would have sounds sufficiently different to ensure that you wouldn't get phasing.

But if I'm wrong, I'd love to get some more information on it. :)
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Quantize
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Quantize » Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:18 pm

There is good chance that kicks will phase and this will create a lack of power in the low end and alter the character of the kick in the high end. Kicks as a rule have the same backbone - a sine wav that pitches down quickly to the low sub tail. If these simple low frequency waves cancel each other out then the kick will be weak.

As a rule however only one kick in the layer will contain the low end as the others will have these frequencies filtered out. The same filtering technique can be used to reduce issues in the high end. Additionally, as previously mentioned, attack can be used - as can decay and offset. There is also the option of slicing the kicks up - one kick providing the attack and the other the tail for example.

To summarise, piling kicks up randomly may well produce a far worse sound than having one kick on it's own but with a little tender care you can make a kick that has the character you want.

Lots of sample packs contain already layered kicks : Riemann, Wave Alchemy & Thomas Penton Drum Essentials all contain great kicks that need little to no modification. Leaving more time to make music :-)

leighbeynon
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by leighbeynon » Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:34 pm

now i like that statement leaving more time to make music, i dont mind listening to samples and trying to edit things on a very detailed basis but it does cut down your time to actually make something that develops into a track !

ive not heard of 2 of these sample libraries ill have to check them out see how they sound

thanks !
LPB

Cezband
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Cezband » Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:59 pm

Quantize wrote:There is good chance that kicks will phase and this will create a lack of power in the low end and alter the character of the kick in the high end. Kicks as a rule have the same backbone - a sine wav that pitches down quickly to the low sub tail. If these simple low frequency waves cancel each other out then the kick will be weak.
Yeah, when you put it that way it's a lot clearer. If I'm layering kicks then I tend to split it into "top" and "bottom" but I didn't really make that obvious. Thanks for the clarification, makes it a lot easier to think about kicks in general. :)
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Quantize
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Quantize » Sun Jun 26, 2011 9:00 am

To throw another Sample Pack into the ring that contains some nice kicks : https://www.nodoughmusic.com/hello/late ... -sample-cd

Best of all this one is free. The guys at no dough have just bought out a new pack and it sounds like they have taken a lot of care over it so it may well be worth checking out.

jonno128
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by jonno128 » Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:37 am

I've been using the kick layering workflow taught in one of the Quantize Courses video tutorials, and I just came across a phenomenon that I haven't been able to define. With the aid of Spectrum, I noticed that the lower I play a drum sample, the more high-frequency noise in the sample gets created. The noise gets amplified even more when I add a compressor with the threshold set to very low values. Essentially, the lower the sample is pitched, the lower the noise sweeps down the frequency spectrum and the longer it lasts. Can someone explain to me what is actually happening?

Quantize
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Re: how about a nice thick bass kick?

Post by Quantize » Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:02 am

Hi Jonno,

Does this only happen in the rack of can you reproduce it just using a simpler for example? If you want to upload the file somewhere and drop me a PM i'll check it out for you :-)

When you add a compressor this will emphasise the high frequencies in lots of cases and reduce the louder low end of the signal.

Best

Keith

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