How to make my kicks really thump hard?

mr meh

mr meh

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So I've been checking out this and other forums for advice on making kicks, i have tried layering a couple of kicks up, one subby kick and one punchy kick, then eqing any high end off the subby kick, and eqing low end out of the punchy one with a 2-3db boost at 100hz on the punchy kick. But they still end up sucking and sounding really flat, no matter what combination of kicks i use, i can still never get them really thumping?

How to achieve this? I want to make the most thumping kicks possible! :lol:
 
Buy Vintage PSP warmer, the best plugin in the history of plugin's and also try layering 3 or four kicks too (two low 1 mid and 1 high.)
 
Try cutting the tail end off your kick samples, this can have some promising results, making the kick quicker, thus more punchy! Mild compression can help with this too. Sidechaining your bass to your kick so it ducks when your kick hits also gives the feel of it being more punchy
 
eq 200 and 1000 hz out with a lil notch, pitch the layers right to each other and cut off tails. add some tubeamp, distortion and compression, done! :)
 
groelle said:
eq 200 and 1000 hz out with a lil notch, pitch the layers right to each other and cut off tails. add some tubeamp, distortion and compression, done! :)
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this! you can't just pick any 2 kicks they need to work well together pitch wise as well so that they sound like 1 sample rather than 2 layered... Transient shaping also helps I find...
 
ok thanks guys, plenty of ideas here for me to try

so do i add all these effects to each kick layer?
 
mr meh said:
ok thanks guys, plenty of ideas here for me to try

so do i add all these effects to each kick layer?
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You might find that if you bus them together and apply the light compression/distortion it will help glue them into one sound.
 
Kicks wants to be peaking around 80-100hz, so try selecting kicks with alot of frequency content in these areas to begin with, you cant turn shit into gold! If your layering kicks and you'll main kick is missing alot of mid range for example you'll need to eq out some lows and highs of your layed kick to stop it conflicting. Dont eq out the highs on your kick, you're looking to get a flat frequency response accross the top. sometimes i will layer kicks with closed hihats to give it a sharp top end like a sutble click. Also on kicks you'll want a pretty aggressive highpass around 50-60Hz so your sub will be as clean as possible otherwise you'll end up with horrible spikes when your bass and kicks conflict.

Same applies to snares really except they want to be peaking around 160-200Hz. I'll usually give snares abit of a boost above 6Khz and make them abit more snappy.

usually i work with them on two seperate mixer channels and route them both into a 3rd where'd i'd use abit of compression and usually a soft clipper to act abit like a digital limiter, i find it sounds abit more like what i'd hear after i've exported and mastered it.
 
Standard procedure is to actually send the audio of kicks and snares to an Aux, not busing them out. Then add PSP warmer, use semi-tape driven and tweak until happy. If on Logic, you can use Overdrive to actually increase the loudness of the kicks without actually increasing the gain, very fucking handy for that little extra punch.
 
i always have the attack set to max & release set to minimum on compressor on the kick aux. this is then layered ontop of my normal kicks to add punchyness. Might have to give PSP warmer a try tho see what kinda results i can get :)
 
Freek said:
i always have the attack set to max & release set to minimum on compressor on the kick aux. this is then layered ontop of my normal kicks to add punchyness. Might have to give PSP warmer a try tho see what kinda results i can get :)
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if i want the kick to punch, i use quite a long attack, so the peak is missed and a long release with hard compression to quiten off the tail... the whole effect basicly drives the transient bit (the punch)
 
richie_stix said:
if i want the kick to punch, i use quite a long attack, so the peak is missed and a long release with hard compression to quiten off the tail... the whole effect basicly drives the transient bit (the punch)
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What kind of Ratio / Threshold / Gain are you using?
I haven't really been able to use compressors well much as I don't really know what's best for each sound :P
 
cant remember off the top of my head... but i know ratio is between 3.5-4.5 (normally, each one is specific)... i'll put an average up later ;)
 
Attire said:
What kind of Ratio / Threshold / Gain are you using?
I haven't really been able to use compressors well much as I don't really know what's best for each sound :P
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45ms for the attack is usually around what i use, but it depends completely on the effect your after and your original sample. just play around with the parameters and make a mental note of the difference it makes. only way to learn is to experiment yourself really, you'll soon get the hang of it...
 
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