Tips on getting that 'transparent forefront kick sound'

by **DwaneHollands** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:27 am

Hi guys,

Can anyone give me some advice on how to process my kick drum in order to get that transparent forefront kick sound. You know how it's able to sit 'over the mix'. Not harsh and clicky in an attempt to try and get some punch to the track. Linkin park seem to have this type of sound. Obviously many, many others.

I'm using BFD2 samples and have a "Kick in" and "Kick Out" mic of a DW kick drum. No kick in Overhead or Ambient or Room mics. The "kick in" and 'kick out" are quite 'clicky'. I'm thinking I might need to swap it out with another kick drum which isn't so harsh.

I've been using TRacks Linear Phase EQ to try and clean up the bottom end on "kick in" and "kick out" which feeds an Auxillary channel. Then I've tried t-racks multi-band compressor to try and get it less harsh. Then Maxim. More Linear phase EQ. Still sounds ordinary at best. I have a fairly busy mix and really need this kick to play ball.

Any tips or suggestions or best pratices?

by **Mark Bassett** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:54 am

I suggest a combination of compression, EQ and most importantly making room for the kick in the mix.

by **jkhuri44** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:00 pm

side chain compression over the bass guitar so the kick silences the bass for a split second while the kick sounds.

you'll hear the kick as if its in solo ....big and phat.

that + good EQ and processing.

also, layering kick with something like a well EQ'd LM-1 kick, is ballsy as shit too :-)

by **DwaneHollands** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:40 pm

1. So I put a compressor on the bass with side chain from the kick to ensure that it's ducked for an instant? Do I use a high ratio on the comp for the bass with very fast attack setting and fast release time?

2. I'm not sure what a LM01 kick is? Is that Linn Drum that I've heard mentioned?

3. I've been experimenting using a slightly longer attack time on the compressor to attempt to process more of the tail of the sound and less of the Initial beaterhead (transient?). Do you tend to use very fast attack times on your compressor or longer one's generally when working with kicks?

by **Chinagraf** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:56 pm

Sloooow attack on a kick. Fast release. Sometimes on the kick out you can go faster on the attack and slower on the release to make the bottom end bloom or swell but it really only works best on slower stuff like dub or reggae.

With the sidechaining thing you only want to nock a couple of db off, not pull the bass way back. Lower ratios, quick release then set the attack to where you hear the comp working the least. I'm not the biggest fan of this method as it is something you should usually be able to address with eq by reserving specific octaves for each ie - kick in octave 1, bass in octave 2, but I know some stuff in particular dance calls for it to achieve a certain 'sound'.

by **Kurt** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:34 pm

Tried playing with a transient designer type plug? They allow you to change the ratio between attack/sustain levels. Turn up attack for "in your face" turn up sustain for a nice "thud".

Stillwell transient monster, Flux sweet and sour are a couple of freebies (the stillwell one is uncrippled shareware not free)

If the direction you've been taking isn't working, I prefer to strip all fx/odd routing and start again.

Are the BFD sounds all pre-processed like the toontrack ones? If so remember they've already been compressed and eq'ed within an inch of their lives. Subtlety may be the key ;) Try routing them all to a stereo buss and having a gentle eq/compressor/limiter(?)/reverb(?) over the whole lot, might be all it needs.

by **DwaneHollands** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:31 pm

Andy. Thanks for the tips about having a slow attack on the kick. Just a few DB reduction with the side chain technique. When you talk about Octave 1, and Octave 2 I'm a little confused. How do I know what part of the eq is in which octave?

Kurt. I've never knew the transient designer plugins existed. I downloaded the RTAS Flux Bitter Sweet plugin since I'm Protools. Will defintely give that a go aswell! Nice tool to add to the arsenal!

The BFD sounds are generally raw recordings. However mentioning that has reminded me that I did apply processing within BFD2 which I had forgotton. I think I stripped a lot of bass out of the kicks. I might re-track (from MIDI data) the kick with zero processing in BFD2 and start from scratch!

Thanks for all the tips and techniques guys!

by **Chinagraf** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:05 pm

Dwayne, have a look at this :
http://www.moultonlabs.com/gallery/image_full/130/
it will give you a rough guide of the octaves in the spectrum and their centre and boundary frequencies. I actually meant octave 2 and 3, but am a bit slow today. In the lower octaves in particular it's good to pick one instrument to be the star of that octave. So kick @60 Hz (octave2), bass @100Hz (octave3). What I've just said is a very basic explanation, you can discuss it for days, and the kick doesn't have to be below the bass, sometimes it is above it depending on the style of music, the style of kit and the personal taste of the mixer. It's more about not 'over stuffing' any one octave as that's when things start to get messy.

by **Chinagraf** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:07 pm

Can't edit my post so as a PS I'll add that frequency masking is not always a bad thing and can be used to your advantage but generally it is not desirable in the lower octaves.

by **DwaneHollands** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:31 pm

Andy,

Thanks for the graph on the octaves. That's very useful! Now I can begin to understand the audio spectrum. I particularily like the 'centre' frequency given so I know where to "point and shoot". I was also fascinated by the 'mudrange' terminology. To know that as frequencies change from low range to midrange there is the tendency to get muddy. But it is also where the thump is.

This should help me eq my instruments a lot more systematically as a starting point which may solve a lot of my problems to begin with.

I think I'm going to laminate that graph print out and use it has a quick reference!

by **Mickstape** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 12:10 am

Sorry i can't really add to the plethora of helpful hints here Dwayne, i'm in the same boat as you. Well, maybe i am. Just wanted to say thanks to China for the helpful link. So yeh, thanks China.

by **ChrisW** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:46 am

Kurt wrote:Are the BFD sounds all pre-processed like the toontrack ones? If so remember they've already been compressed and eq'ed within an inch of their lives.

The BFD sounds are not processed, and Toontrack Superior samples are 'lightly processed', certainly no compression on anything other than perhaps ambient mics. Not 'compressed and eq'ed to within an inch of their lives'.
EZdrummer is more processed.

by **Kurt** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:59 am

I've only used Ezdrummer..

ChrisW wrote:
Kurt wrote:Are the BFD sounds all pre-processed like the toontrack ones? If so remember they've already been compressed and eq'ed within an inch of their lives.

The BFD sounds are not processed, and Toontrack Superior samples are 'lightly processed', certainly no compression on anything other than perhaps ambient mics. Not 'compressed and eq'ed to within an inch of their lives'.
EZdrummer is more processed.

by **heathen** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:43 pm

I pretty much always use parallel compression and eq on drums, just gives me more to play with and balance out. Also when you're fiddling with deep subs they can get pretty messy very easilly if the tempo speeds up, so you really want to blend different kicks together also so you can drop the ones with the deepest subs if needed.

As suggested by Andy, slow attacks and fast release seems to work best a lot of the time. Also with things like drumagog you can add a LF sine wave to hits as well which you can tune to suit the track properly, which is great and pretty easy.

Seriously though I find myself struggling using plug ins on drums, it can really take a while to get them right. With 2 good analog eq's and 2 analog comps I can get it done heaps faster usually with them on 2 paralleled stereo busses while still using plugins on individual tracks.

Also if you need extra impact on a certain hit or accent, slice it out and put it on a separate track and process it separately.

by **DwaneHollands** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:33 pm

Thanks for the tips Heath!

Been a bit crook lately so haven't been mixing or o the forums for a little while. Tried a bunch of other things on the kick. The bitter/sweet transient editor was very interesting which Kurt mentioned. Nice little free tool to remember.

Still haven't mastered the 'transparent kick' thing yet. However, I realised that this mix wasn't really suitable for it. Since the bass is quite transparent the kick and the bass aren't really fighting for space - which helped I think.

I ended up stumbling across what you do ....kinda. I tried using the Pultec EQ1A on the kick. (Also used an OH version of the kick instead of direct) I also used the MEQ - can't remember number. Which gave me the midrange adjustability. Found the nasty 'abrasive/muddy' frequency and pulled that down. Used the 3K on EQ1A to clean it and gently pulled down from 30hz to control the amount of bottom end. Made it work for this song I think. (well that's very subjective).

I'm uploading a 16bit Wav to my site and will post a new topic looking for comments on my first real mix. (man it's hard!)

Tips on getting that 'transparent forefront kick sound'

Tips on getting that 'transparent forefront kick sound'

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