Quick question re: Kick drums

danvandamn · Post by **danvandamn** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:31 pm

Hi everyone

Anyone got any tips for improving the presence or 'feel' of my kick drums? I have a nice, fat sound but it doesn't 'feel' powerful enough. Any tips?

Thanks
Dan.

kabuki · Post by **kabuki** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:37 pm

A good "Kick" is two parts: a tight, punchy kick with a sharp attack, COMBINED with a low, sustained bass drum or sub tone to underline the "mass" of the hit.

Run it through some compression.

IMO anyways. This always works for me.

forge · Post by **forge** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 3:29 pm

this is where eq-ing and the importance of mixing comes in - one of the most common reasons individual components of a track get lost or lose power is because more than one sound are fighting for frequencies. The power of your kick depends largely on what else you have going on in the mix - sometimes you'll want to give it centre stage and have the bass as more of a lead or acid line - in which case you may need to take some bottom end OUT of the bass to leave room for the kick - so you might listen to the bass sound on its own and think it sounds great with a powerful bottom end, but put it in the mix and it loses it. It can also help if the kick and bass are on different beats in the bar (like bass on off beat with 4/4 kick) so they're not competeing

Especially if you have other drumloops or percussion loops that have a bit going on down south as well

Generally I find that I EQ by deciding what part or frequencies of each sound give it the characteristics I like about it and try and roll off everything else in that track - so if the particular bass sound I'm using is really beefy around 400 Hz then I might boost it a little around 400 and then roll off between 150-250 and over 6-700+ (then compress after eq) this then leaves loads of space to really get the kick pumping around the 80-100Hz mark which is where I find alot of the power is for pumping 4/4 beats - but then in another mix I might have a really subby bass sound, in which case the kick will want to leave room for it by maybe being more of a toppy tight kick sound - sometimes even rolling off some of the low end (particularly in some D&B or Breaks with bad ass bass sounds where you just want the kick as more of a punctuating rhythm and get alot of the low end power from the bass)

If you look at it more like that you'll be amazed at how much you can bring a mix to life in all areas

david122 · Post by **david122** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 4:01 pm

Crucial to getting that commercial kick is invisible compression. Where you duplicate your kick track and apply eq boost and compression to one of the tracks then mix both to a bus with a limiter.

There's a good article on SOS that explains how to do it in Logic but you can use the same method in Live.

millionVALVE · Post by **millionVALVE** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 4:25 pm

The above tips are dead-on, especially the don't have your kick and bass "stepping" on each other.

Also, don't be afraid to layer drum samples. On top of making a more original sound, you will be able to have more "raw material control" over frequency choices.

What I mean by that is that if you want to EQ some snap into your kick sample, what do you do if your sample has little or no frequency information where you need it? You layer in another sample that has the frequencies you want., then tweak it up!

Be careful about compressing too much. A little goes a long way, and chances are that your track is going to get some compression applied to the 2-buss during mastering, also.

best-
.nick

danvandamn · Post by **danvandamn** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 5:59 pm

Thanks guys, you've all been very helpful and I'm now on the right track!