Could someone tell me how to make a kick "KICK"???

D

DVZON

New member
Man, I've been asking all around the web and looking at articles and techniques and is useless. They all speak chinese to me. gate this, and threshold that and compress this with 7:1 and blablablabla. All I want is someone to speak english to me please. How do I make my kicks 'kick'. I make Dance music and cool edit pro has a lot of compressing options. I just want someone to tell me, 'do this'. Simple as that. Just tell me how to exactly do it. Please don't go into using the right terms for the words. maybe something along the lines of..."You have to go into the dynamics processor and then click on 'whatever', and then put the following numbers in, and then put the fololowing number on the other box'...I mean, as simple as that, why can;t anyone do that? why does everyone have to speak chinese..so formal.

Please, someone be exact with me and tell me what to do.

I beg you man, Im desperate to learn.
 
It is not funny man. You laugh because you might know and that is wrong. There is no need to be inmature. If you don't want to reply with a constructive answer then don't reply at all.
 
Sorry my friend but there is no one size fits all formula other wise there would be a button on the compressor labeled kick. If it was easy, everyone could do it. What kind of mic are you useing on the kick?
 
Mic??? I record the drum from my synth to cool edit pro "a/d" in wav format. Then Im stuck..I'd just like a few tips on how to start or something. I mean, I can't make anything kick because the sounds get distorted (too loud or too much bass) or sometimes when I do the cool edit pro 'dynamics' thing it takes off bass...so how the hell do people make kicks kick. I mean seriously. It either distorts the sound because it goes troo loud, or it takes off power offit. I make dance music by the way. thats why I need my kicks to kick, and it is frustrating when people tell you to do something and then you try it but the damn kick is disorted or too low.
 
Well,

For a project I worked on, I ran the Kick and Bass on the same mixdowned track through the preset "Vocal Compressor" in Cool Edit 1.2 It worked great!

It was like a, "One more time" feel though, over compressed, but fun and hard. It pushed and pulled nice.
 
Re: Well,

parkbirds said:
For a project I worked on, I ran the Kick and Bass on the same mixdowned track through the preset "Vocal Compressor" in Cool Edit 1.2 It worked great!
Click to expand...
Man, I've never tried that setting on a drum before, but I seem to remember the output gain is like, 20db or something. LOL. I bet that kick wav looked like a brick after you did that. Now I have to try it.

Oh yeah, back to the question at hand. I know it's frustrating, but it's also frustrating to try to answer a question with so many variables. That "TrackRat" guy that responded; he's damned good, and I'm sure if your question could have been answered easily, he would have done it. I don't do dance music or anything close to it, but I do know a little bit about EQ'ing live drums. I need to know what you mean by making it "kick." If by "kick," you mean, "thump," then I'd try going into the "Parametric EQ," and bumping the kick at 50Hz in small increments until it distorts, then pull back a little. If by "kick" you mean "click," I'd also do the same thing at about 1K. There are little check boxes that you hit, then fill in the first box with "50" with a "Q" of about 2...then do the next check box and fill in "1000" with a "Q" of about 2.

THAT'S WHERE I'D START. I'm assuming if you're using a sample, then compression's not really much of an issue. But I have no idea what your sample sounds like. If it's one of those "trendy Kik" samples, like a NIN sounding thing that you're going for, then you just have to kinda' jack around with the EQ until it sounds good. 99.9% of this is trial and error...with heavy emphasis on the error. Don't you have any samples that "kick?, or at least, get close to it?"

Oh yeah, if the wav file of the kick sample is already maxed out (i.e., no room to increase volume without distorting), then go to the "Amplitude" setting and make it less loud...this'll give you some room to jack around with different EQ settings without distorting. Once you get a sound you can live with, then just make the whole sample louder again...you can do this with either "Amplitude" or "normalize" or (my personal favorite) "hard limiting" at -.5db with an output of probably 3 or 4.

I tried, dude. If you wanna' post a sample of the kick sound you're working with, I'd be happy to fuck it up for you.

Chris
 
Ok, so I guess that for every drum there arfe different ways to make it kick. No one way. Ok, I understand that, BUT! people always talk about using dynamics and compressing it that way. Not to mess with the eq because giving it more bass won't do the trick. I read that somewhere. People say is all about the compression. Let me ask you one question though, and this might be easy to answer. Whenever you are trying to make a kick 'kick' ( and by kicking I mean stomping! you know, THUMP!) do you have to let it get distorted and then compress it? Does it matter if it gets distorted if at the end you are gonna compress it anyways? Is it true that people layer 3 or more kicks together to make a single kick? Im sure these are normal and quite easy questions someone could answer for me. With these answered I could maybe get started. Thank you so far with your input!:)
 
who are you trying to "kick" like? going for the 303 or 808 ringing bass? Or chest kicking hard impact, not much ringing bass?

Experiment with EQ along with your compression. Be sure to take into account things like harmonic frequencies. You can add a lot of phlava' to a sounds that way. Maybe only compress certain freq. of the kick. Just some thoughts and things to try. Another good tool is some sort of bass enhancement effect. those basically highlight the bass harmonics and sub-harmonics. A little goes a long way with those tools.
 
This'll save time...

gimme' a song title and artist of a tune that has, in your opinion, the kicking-est fucking kick that ever kicked... something commercial, if possible, so that we can...um..."Go out and buy it to get a good idea of where you're coming from"

Do this, and all will be revealed...
 
Hard chest impact is more like it. Here is a link to a website where they demonstrate how to do it. But you see, is not the same because the way the guy explains it is chinese to me. Maybe you guys could help me out.

Here is the link

http://www.trancesystem.com/content/production/eufex-bass-help/eufex-bass-4.html

(There is also a sample of a beat he compressed. He has the original version and the final one)

If this guy could explain the stuff better, I would understand. Instead, what he does is goes "The ratio controls the threshold which gives it a 7:1 ratio which then lifts the blablablablabla". Why can't he instead just say "The ratio is what gives the drum more 'whatever' or less 'whatever', and like that the threshold which is what gives the drum more 'whatever' or less 'whatever'". Why can't anyone explain it like that. What does the ratio do? what does the threshold do? I mean what do they exactly do. don't give me numbers or scientifice explanations. Just keep it simple. If the ratio gives a drum less power or more bass, just tell me that, don't go into using all fancy words and numbers.
 
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