Creating Kicks - best way?

[Loophole01]

Hi there,

I would like to know what is the best way to create quality kicks for melodic techno or psytrance. What are the best plugins for this and why?

Thank you!

[osiris]

There are a billion sampled kicks. If you want to make one tune a simple sine low, fast attack, fast release, filter.

[andymcbain]

Hi there,

I would like to know what is the best way to create quality kicks for melodic techno or psytrance. What are the best plugins for this and why?

Thank you!

I haven't tried them all, but Kick 2 by Sonic Academy is a good choice once you've taken some time to learn it. It gives you really precise control over the amp and pitch curves.

That said, I would still use a decent preset pack to get you started. Futurephonic have a good pack for Psytrance here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3tmeChr7ec

[HOTF]

ableton's DS Kick, S.A's Kick 2 and D16's Punchbox are all amazing to create kicks. Having some samples of recorded kicks for analog drum mahcines is also a must for techno adjacent music.

[eLawnMust]

I recommend the northern styles of Chinese Kung Fu...such as Eagle Claw or Northern Shaolin, which specialize in kicks...

[roman.i]

You'll need a synthesizer with a precise control over envelopes and a sine wave oscillator.
You can use a free synth like Vital to do this.
But usually it's easier with a synth that was created to make kicks, like Kick 2 or Bassizm.

[Biome_Digital]

Hi there,

I would like to know what is the best way to create quality kicks for melodic techno or psytrance. What are the best plugins for this and why?

Thank you!

Usually kick samples are best, depends on genre though.

[cryophonik]

+1 for Kick 2 (... wait, does that make it Kick 3?)

OK, but seriously, it's everything you need to make kicks for dance music, it combines synthesis with samples and gives you excellent control over tone, blending, compression, etc. And, it's fairly priced.

https://www.sonicacademy.com/products/kick-2

[kritikon]

1. Samples - loads of good ones available, even DAWs have a good selection of them. TBH I didn't expect Cubase to have much of that kind of thing, but when I had a proper search through Groove Agent they've got some serious thumping techno kicks.

2. Get a 909. Not a real one unless you've got more money than sense. The Behringer 909 is pretty damned good and only obsessive no-lifes would spot any difference in real life. Not silly expensive either.

3. If you're going to do it with synths, then most analogue style ones should do it, though quick envelopes work best. TBH most styles of VST should be able to do it They're not that complicated - simply any-old-oscillator then put a huge quick pitch envelope on it working down. Similar filter envelope as well will add to it, and some kind of amp envelope to shape it to personal taste. TBH you don't even need that many envelopes - the old AlphaJuno had a cracking kick as preset which sounds distorted (was probably the origin of that craze for distorted kicks in the early 90s). When you go in and analyse how it's done, it's basically just that quick pitch envelope doing all the work with filter giving it the distortion. No Eq, no extra envelopes, no fancy stuff. I followed that with most analogues I've had and they can all do it to some degree but the speed of envelope is important, for example MS20 can do it but it sounds a bit sloppy as the env is slow. Junos are crap at at it...because Junos are crap. ProOne and 101/202 were pretty good at it. VSTs can do exactly the same but most IMO just sound weak, with unison being what makes them strong. But put unison on quick envelope sounds and it makes them mushy.

[holmosapien]

I made a kick from scratch for a track I'm working on right now using this technique. I'm really happy with it; after filling out the effects chain similarly to the video, I've managed to create a deeper and wider kick than I've been able to get from canned instruments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNS9VF59kac

[napkinthief]

If you are into dnb music, psylab seems like a good choice, but I have no personal experience with it. Seems like you can get a pretty tight mix with it.

[chk071]

Hi there,

I would like to know what is the best way to create quality kicks for melodic techno or psytrance. What are the best plugins for this and why?

Thank you!

As with many things of a certain complexity, it's neither possible to summarize that in two sentences, nor is there a one click plugin which automatically produces good kicks.

As others have said, there are two ways: Use samples, or synthesize them yourselves. If you don't want to spend time and effort -> samples.

[The Peu]

I've been using the Gum Cuisine plugin for a couple months. I find it really easy to find the sound I am looking for.
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/gum-cu ... um-cuisine

[Mr D]

Here's another vote for PsyLab.

I was using Kick 2 but got frustrated by some of the limitations, especially when trying to create longer, envolving types of kicks (so, a sound where the kick and bass are basically the same sound that evolves from kick to bass).

I stumbled on PsyLab and it totally blew me away. Frankly, Kick 2 is like a toy in comparison. Don't get me wrong, K2 is fine and can create great kicks, but PsyLab is a whole other level of tweakability. It can do things that K2 can't even dream of. Think of it more like a kick synthesizer project that got totally out of hand and became probably the best monosynth plugin ever made!

I can't honestly think of one thing that K2 does that PsyLab doesn't do 10x better.

The only factor where K2 wins is how quickly you can learn it, but this is of course a function of its lack of features. The reason PsyLab will take you 5+ hours to learn is because of it's incredibly deep feature set.

Someone said there are a million kick samples available, and this is true of course, but once you become an expert in kick synthesis, it's much quicker to create a kick that fits your track like a glove than it is to go through auditioning a million kicks! And by the way, PsyLab has some amazing tools for analyzing and re-synthesizing a reference kick WAV.

[Jac459]

Always surprising how KVRist don't like to answer the question asked

So, to create a kick (and not get a sampled one or buy a dedicated plugin):

1- Take a sine wave oscillator.
2- identify the pitch you want the tail to have (should be around F to have the best low end impact, there is a theory around that as F and around F is about 40hz which is exactly where we want the low end to be.
3 - attach an envelop with no attack and quick decay to the pitch of the oscillator (the envelop should pitch positively the sine wave).
4 - tune both the amount of pitch and speed of the decay. At one moment you will have like a cheap lazer sound, if you continue to shorter the delay, you should hear the kick. If you have a synth allowing mseg or to change the curve of your decay you will want to choose this one to have a perfect control.
4b - spend at least 10 min playing around with the parameters lol.
5 - tune also the AMP envelop with no attack and slightly longer decay than the pitch one. That's the moment you decide for a short quick kick or an 808 style one.
6 - layer a click if you want. A sample of click or an oscillator with white noise and a very very short decay (no attack) should do the job.
6b - optionally add a waveshapper to the sine oscillator, most probably a distortion and see if you like it or it fit your genre
7 - add an eq and play around the parameters. Create a curve band with like 6db gain and play with the frequency to taste.
8 - add a compressor to blend the whole and play with the parameters.
9 - optionally layer another kick to get your final kick. Be mindful of phase cancellation if you have a layered kick or a deep bass.

10 - optionally, check the impact of your kick compare to its volume compared with other kicks... Kicks have huge impact on the mix.
11 - optionally listen to your kick with a high pass filter cutting the first 150hz to check it still has some impact (as your listeners may have crappy systems). Generally I wouldn't be shy of having a kick playing on the mid range also.