Stereo widening the kick drum

timothyallan · Post by **timothyallan** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:46 am

I bet the trance records you speak of just spread out the top end of the kick, but the thud is still center.

Just split the kick using filters + multiple instances of the sample and widen the top end by various means

vanheusen · Post by **vanheusen** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:42 am

Layering samples does it. also some kind of short stereo delay/reverb effect with a HP filter can do this.But the best and simplest way to make something stereo is to simply have slightly different sounds coming from the speakers.

Illumin · Post by **Illumin** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:42 am

yea...I'm on the same page....lotta the played out kick drum samples have layers of higher freq snaps from snares and whatnot....so def makes sense

forge · Post by **forge** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:59 am

timothyallan wrote:I bet the trance records you speak of just spread out the top end of the kick, but the thud is still center.

Just split the kick using filters + multiple instances of the sample and widen the top end by various means

they'd have to

there's still enough mono club sound systems around that they'd have major phasing issues otherwise

Illumin · Post by **Illumin** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:13 am

yea that's for sure....

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:11 am

main kick: mono
secondary kick: bit of distortion and whatnot, widened. Low in the mix.

Illumin · Post by **Illumin** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 6:36 pm

alrighty....

so what I did:

created 3 bus tracks with the kick routed to each from impulse....1st one plays the sample just as is, 2nd one I have a filter capturing/emphasizing the bottom end, plus this helped fatten it up to as a double layer, the 3rd one has filter for the mid/hi (for the snap) with some saturator, eq + utility to widen....ran those 3 in to another bus with light shelving eq.....

equally what I was looking for

thanks all for the enlightenment!

Robert Henke · Post by **Robert Henke** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:10 pm

main question is what you want to achive.
a mono bassdrum like from a classic drumcomputer will stay mono even after some eliptic EQ tricks. a stereo sample with some stereo info in it can be widened to any degree, till it cancels out in mono.

the "use two microphones" trick points in the right direction.
for a long period of time it was kind of common sense that a bassdrum needs to be mono, 100% dry and centered. however, recent productions, especially in the dubstep area, show that some filtered short reverb on it will make it huge, even in a club situation. unfortunately there is no recepie for this. what works in one musical context will become muddy in other contexts.

the classic tarnce bassdrum is short and dry for a good reason: there is so much else going on that there is no room for more.
but if you aim more towards a bristol style massive attack kind of sound with lots of air, some well adjusted reverb on a bassdrum can do great things to the mix.

try out the Reverb in Live with a small or very small room size and decay time, and lots of EQing, maybe followed by a compressor.

Robert