Kicks - Effects?!

[TomViolenz]

Hey guys,

just wondering what kind of effects do you have on your kick channel in live situations?

I don't mean utilities like compressors, transient shapers, EQs etc., nor do I mean rythmic stuff like delays or BeatRepeat. All these things are already taken care of.

What I mean is rather things that do interesting tonal things with them. Best would be things that can just work on an on/off basis, so I can punch in that effect for a few bars and revert back to normal just as easily. (so things that make the volume jump are a no go)

Any fun suggestions in your tool boxes?!

[DangerousDave]

A heavily driven saturator for those hard breakdowns? High pass filter automation? The saturator would obviously need some make up gain adjustment, so you could have it in a rack with a limiter/utility or use the output fader of the saturator if it has one.

Sometimes I use a really heavy reverb'ed kick right before a breakdown or something, you could easily set up a reverb like the way you mentioned.

[JoshG567]

Corpus on membrane, tweaked and filtered to be very dark and inharmonic, side-chained to the MIDI pitch from a synth bass-track, pitched down one or several octaves?

Makes it more wubbable and gives a subtle moving pitch.

[TomViolenz]

Thanks guys keep 'em comming.

I particularily like the Corpus idea.

The HP filter, while it sounds good, I don't see how I could set it up so that I just press a button to turn it on without producing audio artifacts. Also how do you set it up so that the automation of that filter begins each time anew when you turn it on?
I also already have an EQ3 on the track with the kill switches assigned to buttons.
But I do like the idea of automatic filter sweeps on the press of a button, but don't see how to implement that.

I played with the reverb idea before on my own and I find that turning on any reverb, on a running track always gives a very distinct pfffff sound that is pretty independent of the source material.

As I said I'm mostly after things that can be activated/deactivated on a running track with one button.

(In my controller set up I have in the section that I plan for the kicks a few buttons left unused)

[JoshG567]

I've found that toggling devices on/off produces artifacts in a lot of cases, so what I find myself doing, and not at any large scale, is putting the fx on a 2nd chain in a rack where the 1st is empty, and flipping the chain selector to get an affected signal. The devices are always running, though, so it may not be viable.

I'd use dummy clips for the push-button filter sweeps. It's pretty wild, but to get a 8x8 dummy clip matrix with a Launchpad or similar one must daisy chain the audio routing through those 8 tracks. Only works if there's a static input, really - changing the input routing sucks.

[TomViolenz]

I've found that toggling devices on/off produces artifacts in a lot of cases, so what I find myself doing, and not at any large scale, is putting the fx on a 2nd chain in a rack where the 1st is empty, and flipping the chain selector to get an affected signal. The devices are always running, though, so it may not be viable.

Good idea.
I'll give that a shot.
Though I don't think it would work for the reverb, as that is a different type of artifact, but I'll try anyways.

(BTW: In my experience Lives devices are generally the most artifact free when turned on/off compared to vsts)

I'd use dummy clips for the push-button filter sweeps. It's pretty wild, but to get a 8x8 dummy clip matrix with a Launchpad or similar one must daisy chain the audio routing through those 8 tracks. Only works if there's a static input, really - changing the input routing sucks.

Nah, that's too convoluted for my set.
It already has quite a bit of complex routing for my look-ahead looper implementation and I already have a Maschine (as a Midi controller), a Push, a Nocturn and a Launchpad to play with. So I think I'll rather stay with kis on this.

But aren't there any good sounding filter vsts that have inbuilt LFOs that can trigger anew when turned on?!

[Sternenlicht]

Dial the reverb effect in as a send knob?

[TomViolenz]

Dial the reverb effect in as a send knob?

Oh that stuff is long taken care of
No free sends left in my set

(Yes also the six DrumRack sends are already used for a totally different purpose)

Also the punch in, not dial in aspect is kind of important for me here.

EDIT: So it seems not all reverbs produce that artifact
I don't know why I hadn't tried Valhallas Vintage Verb before for this. (Especially since I already have it a couple of times on my sends )
Works nicely

[XSIMan]

updated
Multiple layered kick samples + Soundtoys Radiator or Decapitator, send a bit of reverb along with colour EQ and compressors.

Best filter is Cytomic The Drop it has everything an analogue synthesizer filter has plus more. Parallel SH-101 filters sound good on kick

Oh another good one is D-16 Decimort it reduces the sample rate and bit depth very important for that early 90s EDM drum kit sound.

[TomViolenz]

Multiple layered kick samples + Soundtoys Radiator or Decapitator, send a bit of reverb along with colour EQ and compressors.

Best filter is Cytomic The Drop it has everything an analogue synthesizer filter has plus more. Parallel SH-101 filters sound good on kick.

Great plugs, unfortunately out of my price range ATM.
I'm probably gonna see how far I get with AutoFilter.

BTW: That Corpus idea works great