panda said:
i'm having problems getting a really nice kick drum. all the samples i have of kicks are shit too. i know how to make them in wavelab but i can't seem to get them sounding nice. anyone got some tips or samples?
Panda
I made the kik on my last tune, if you liked that then my tips may be of use. If you thought it sucked, stop reading
Making the kick*: Start with a 1sec 50Hz sinewave, use pitch envelopes repeatedly until it starts to sound good (like the infected tutorial above). This is really a "try it for yourself" kinda deal, but have a few goes until you get the idea. The kick you make will probably have a really high freq 'snap' at the start. Don't worry about that for now.
Playing the kick: I think that there are two essential fx you need on a kik - filter and EQ. Sometimes I compress the kick to bring out the punch, sometimes it's not needed.
I use Kontakt for kiks, because it's LPF is really handy for taming the high freqs I was talking about. Try varying amounts of resonance for a more 'knocky' sound. Use the amp envelope to prevent the decay of the kik from 'ringing' for too long.
Tune the kick to your bassline. Not easy, but I find if you just wind the kick pitch up and down alongside the bass, you'll soon find the sweetspot where they work together.
Eq the kick and the bass individually. Generally I remove all the sub from both, say everything below around 50Hz. Also use eq to ensure that if the kick is low then the bassline isn't or vice versa. Both kik and bass occupying the same frequencies will be a mess of distorted mud.
If you want I can mail you some kiks, or the kontakt patch if thats useful to you.
:cool:
(* Credit where it's due. Thanks to ColinOOOD for putting me onto this in the first place
