Ways to make dnb kick

Quotec

Active Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2013
Yo

I am getting hang of snares but kicks are still fairly mysterious for me. Somebody once mentioned that kicks are the hardest part to get right(with the bass ofc) in a dnb tune, I didn´t believe it(I thought snares were the hardest). Boy was I wrong. Anyway, I am looking to make a nice dnb kick that is not really overdriving the mix but giving decent punch and presence in the mix. Something like Mind Vortex make, kick is not in-your-face but giving low-end a decent weight. Experimenting with "subby" kicks that are more suitable for house or whatever(Vengeance´s UK Trance Kicks if somebody knows) do not produce a nice result. Been trying to completely cut off low-end at approx. 90-100Hz and still got no kick that I need. Been experimenting with pure dnb kicks that are in nature punchier but with little action in the very bottom and problem with them is that they do not give a much needed weight to the low-end. Been trying to pitch, layer and combine different samples but it seems I am not really doing it the right way. So here I am - how does one make a proper dnb kick?

Mucho appreciado
 
You can always high pass at around 60 - 80Hz then side chain your bass to your kick so that the low end of your kick drum punches through the mix.
 
you can do two separate kicks (different kick samples), layered

- "punchy" kick EQed with low cut at 80-100 hz

- "muted" kick with high cut at 500 hz, low cut at around 40-50 hz

sidechain the bass with the MIDI notes of the kick

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I find this whole hipass at 100hz to be a very questionable practise. I'd rather say put Your kick through a spectrum analyzer and put a steep highpass just at the low-end of the fundamental peak, add some mild side-chain to your bass and it should fit just as well. A boost around 10khz can add a lot of perceived punch. I'd also recommend some sort of limiter/clipper to give it more perceived loudness (I usually favour Melda's free MLimiter for kicks).

If you've turned the sustain down on the kick and set the decay right you should be able to keep the punch without the tone (which is far more key-dependent), even then sometimes pitching up a semitone or two can help it fit more comfortably and clearly. A lot of this depends where you get your kicks from though, something aimed at 128 is gonna be too long for the fast paces of D&B and will need a lot more work.
 
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SRSLY GUYS, stop using samples.


And ffs stop high passing kicks, sort the tail with volume enveloping, if you cut at 90hz it's guna sound weak as fuck
 
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I'm actually quite fond of Sonic Academy's Kick plugin (for all its faults). Usually I work with a sample until the track is more or less finished then create my own kick in its place, making slight variants for each velocity.
 
I find this whole hipass at 100hz to be a very questionable practise. I'd rather say put Your kick through a spectrum analyzer and put a steep highpass just at the low-end of the fundamental peak, add some mild side-chain to your bass and it should fit just as well. A boost around 10khz can add a lot of perceived punch. I'd also recommend some sort of limiter/clipper to give it more perceived loudness (I usually favour Melda's free MLimiter for kicks).

If you've turned the sustain down on the kick and set the decay right you should be able to keep the punch without the tone (which is far more key-dependent), even then sometimes pitching up a semitone or two can help it fit more comfortably and clearly. A lot of this depends where you get your kicks from though, something aimed at 128 is gonna be too long for the fast paces of D&B and will need a lot more work.

Nice! The idea of using ASDR on kick and 128BPM kicks might not be as good for dnb is very insightful! Cheers!
 
Nice! The idea of using ASDR on kick and 128BPM kicks might not be as good for dnb is very insightful! Cheers!

I guess, you have understand him wrong, a 128 BPM kick works aswell, just shorten the sustain with ADSR, a drum n bass drumloop needs more room in between to breath then a house or dubstep drumloop. So at first set up the pitch and envelopes, then use EQ's compressions etc if still needed !
 
i did read a funny bit on doa about sidechaining the snare so the 200 hz knob on the eq popped hard and quick when triggered (but youd have to do lower freqs so as to apply to a kick) and then a quick pitch env in the first bit of the kick to create a transient, and then i guess volume duck everything else in that area. i think sidechaining is most effective when combined with careful eqing though. im not sure what i use personally, i dont really make much music.
 
I'm only a year into producing and this is what i do... Find a good kick with a solid punch around 100Hz. Compress very gently just to tidy it up a bit or ADSR it. Add a small +3dB boost at its peak and low cut any flabby bass that might come through on your kick and EQ any nice or not so nice parts higher up the spectrum. After those basics i parallel process (make sure the send is Pre Fader though). I like to (sometimes) EQ a little more and definitely add quite a good amount of compression and then bring the fader up until you get the sound you're after. Finally, i like to add a very slight side chain to any bass lines that are playing over the same frequency range. I don't want any big interruptions in the bass so make sure that its a fast compression with only 1-2dB reduction otherwise your bass line could lose its flow.

It might not be to everyones taste but the kick on the track I'm mixing down now has just the right amount of punch and pokes its nose through the mix nicely.
 
Its really so important? Because I dont see that a drummer on concert to tune drums differently after each song played. And dont tell me its because all songs are in the same key :D

Yeah it makes a massive fucking difference if you tune your instrument or not. Toms are tuned a fifth or a third apart for the most part. The interval between your kick and snare is pretty important to get right. True that you don't do tuning to a kit between songs, but thats cos the kit has been tuned to ge the best compromise between sounding in tune (e,a,g,c and d are common guitar keys, d# less so...), resonance and damping. For the keys that DO suit, you need the drums tuned to some note, not just any random pitch. Better to be a semitone off than 38.2hz or something. Now, you're using a sampler, so you don't have to make those kinds of compromises, so quit being lazy and start to use your ears. It's r ally easy to notice when the amateurs ignore this.
 
I've begun synthesizing kicks with an FM synth (Sytrus specifically, doesn't really matter though) and then layering them under another kick without its low-end for character. I'm really enjoying the results gained from designing the heavy aspect of a kick because I have control over where the bass ends and I also have control over where it begins which is important for an initial thump, pop, bang, or whatever onomatopoeia you happen to desire. Being able to tune and envelope the meaty tail as well as the initial punch is excellent.

Also, when making a kick with an FM synth: Set an operator to have full attack and immediate decay, no sustain or release. Just a click. Modulate the sine or whatever shape you're using for the body of the kick to get a transient which you can pitch up or down to adjust the timbre of the transient from anything between a thud to a click.
 
Its really so important? Because I dont see that a drummer on concert to tune drums differently after each song played. And dont tell me its because all songs are in the same key :D

So i'm not sure if it's fact what i'm saying but recently i discovered that i have to pitch my kick while it plays in the mix. I think it mostly depends on what instruments you use and how well it fits to the snare.

That's by the way the most important thing. Use the right samples that fit well together. You can have the most wicked DnB kick and the punchiest snare on the planet, but if they don't sound good together, your whole mix will sound worse.
 
you can also try the opposite.. take a tune you've made which you think is well mixed and everything sits naturally together, and then randomly tune each drum up or down by a few tens of cents, and then ask yourself if tuning matters.
 
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