How-To Make Trance Kick Drums by Quasar

8/13/2019 How-To Make Trance Kick Drums by Quasar

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How-to: Make Trance Kick Drums

The first part in our series deals with the most simple, yet most elusive, aspect oftrance musicThe Kick Drum!

Waimea, HawaiiAs the rain pours in buckets, I sit here on my vacation, typingthese articles for you. And like all bad analogies, the kick drum rains down on thetrance song, literally dripping every beat.

But what is this kick and how do you make it? If you have heard a trance kickdrum, especially through good speakers, then you know what I am talking about.Big. Tight. Powerful but not overpowering. Along with the bassline, the kickmakes up the basis and basic tone of the track. Alas, a good kick is rare andpossibly hard to come by, if you dont know any other trance producers. It maytake much experimentation, so dont get discouraged if an hour of tweakingbears no fruit. At first you may be happy to use a decent kick, while pursuing a

longer-range goal of acquiring/producing solid kicks.

Some tips on that end: Look for synthesized kicks first. While you can probablymake or combine actual bass drum samples, it is often hard to get the properfrequencies in the sample. If you have a hardware synth such as the Nord Lead,you may find success. A good virtual synth may also do the job, but I have foundit hard to achieve the desired results. Otherwise, use the internet as a resourceto get you started. Heres how to synthesize a kick drum.

First of all, I am assuming you know how to program your synth well, otherwise,please see the article called How-to: Program a VA (virtual analog) Synth. Now,

there are two basic methods that are used, so try both and see which works bestwith you and your synth.

Method One

One of your oscillators will create the bass thud, while the other oscillator willprovide the click (of the virtual beater). Oscillator 1 should be set to a sine wave.The fundamental frequency of the oscillator should be set to about 60Hz. (I wouldrecommend a spectrum analyzer for this, such as Voxengo SPAN.) Thisfrequency will change as you tune it to a bassline in your song, but it usually livesbetween 58 and 100Hz. For oscillator 2, you will need to detune it one to three

octaves above the oscillator 1 frequency. Each synth does this in a unique way,so you may need to search for the knob/button. Then you can play with differentwaveforms and octaves to achieve the click.

Of course, this wont sound like a kick drum unless you play with the envelopes.Trance kicks are fast, so set the A, S, and R to 0, and then play with the D untilyou get a kicky sound. The total duration of the kick should be no longer than ahalf a second, unless you are planning to do something special. This way, the


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kick finishes properly before the bassline note starts in a song. If you measure it,the kick only needs to be about a quarter of a second long, but it is good to havea little extra room to play with. (If you make a sample of your kick, then you cando the final shaping in a sampler to make it match the bassline.) It may seemtrivial, but subtle changes in bass response at this stage will have large effects

on the overall tone of the kick, bass, and indeed, the whole track. After you get agood basic kick form, you can play with the S (sustain) to give more body to thekick without compression. In order to perfect the click, you may need to set thefilter envelope shorter than the amplitude envelope, and play with the cutoff andresonance of the filter to get the desired effect. For the most bass, low resonancesettings work well, as higher settings tend to attenuate the bass frequencies, thuscreating a dead kick sound.

Method Two

Ive taken a break for coffee; please enjoy your favorite beverage. You may need

it for this next trick. Some synthesizers have a self-oscillating filter. This meansthat if you turn up the resonance on the filter all the way, it will make a sound allby itself, even if the oscillators are turned off. You can then shape this soundusing the cutoff and filter envelopes, in a similar way to Method One.

For either method, you may further shape the sound using whatever lfos andmodulation envelopes have on your synth. The lfo works best when you can syncit to key, which means the lfo will reset each time you play a note. This will giveyou a consistent kick sound. If you have mod envelopes, set one to pitch andthen play with the decay. With this you can achieve the deeeeeiw sound of thegoa kick, as the sound is pitched down very quickly into the bass range.

When you are satisfied with a result, make a preset. Because of the subtlechanges mentioned before, you may lose a sound you like just by moving a knoba little bit. Even with midi, you may have a hard time getting back to the soundyou liked. So make presets.

At this point, you can put the kick directly into the song using the synthesizer, butmost producers will make a sample of the kick to save processing power or tofree up the synth for other things, like the bassline! Heres how you do it.

The Kick Mixdown

Open your sequencer program, if you havent already, and create a one- or two-bar pattern/event. Put a note on every downbeat so you have four beats to themeasure. Play with the note and note length until you get the sound you want.

Again, a spectrum analyzer will give your ears a second opinion, and catchfrequencies that your speakers/monitors may not produce properly, if at all.


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You may also add some effects at this point. Nothing fancy, maybe just anequalizer to tone the frequencies. You can add compression at this stage, or youcan wait until you create the sample. Sometimes it is nice to have the visual cueof the waveform to tell you how compressed it is. The first few milliseconds, thatis, the click, can be compressed until you flatten the waveform. The remainder of

the waveform, which constitutes the bass frequencies, should remain rounded. Ifthe peaks of the waveform are flattened, you probably compressed too much.But of course, your ears are the ultimate judges!

After you got it all vetted out, it is time to do the bounce. Create a 24-bit 44.1kHzMono sound file if you have the computer resources to run at 24-bit, otherwiseuse 16-bit. If you do use 16-bit, make the sample as loud as possible withoutclipping. If using 24-bit, you can leave yourself some headroom. Now we areready to open with your favorite sound editor.

When opened in the editor, you will notice that you have four or more kick drums

in a series. Make sure they are distinct, that is, they do not bleed into oneanother. Otherwise, go back and shorten the decay on the synth or remove everyother note and re-bounce it. Listen to all the kicks. Sometimes, the first one getscut off a little. Otherwise, you may notice a modulation in the tone of the kicksdue to the analog or virtual analog circuitry of the synth. Find the one or ones youlike best and copy and paste them into a new file. This way you have one solidkick in the file. At this point, you can equalize again if necessary and compressand/or normalize the file to make it as loud as possible without clipping.Remember not to flatten out the bass portion of the waveform.

Now you are set. You can save this file and import it into your song. I recommendusing a sampler, but some programs let you place wave forms directly onto audiotracks, so you can try this if you like. It is harder to do kick fills, but you get areally convenient visual feedback of the waveform. If you put it in a sampler,make sure all of the modulations are turned off, as this will color the kick sound inunpredictable ways. The kick is a very predictable part of the song, and rightlyso, as it serves to ground the other sounds, which tend to be rather wild. In otherwords, it gives the listener/dancer something to follow if they get lost in all of thesounds.

When you get the kick and bass in the track, you will need to tune everything, butI will cover that in the article entitled How-to: Make a Trance Bassline.

Finally, there are a few extra tips for the experienced. Try combining two kickdrums together. Equalize the bass out of the first one and the highs out of thesecond one. Then mix them together and try to make it sound good. Sometimesit is trial and error, but sometimes the rewards are worth the effort.

Another trick is to try an EQ cut at 315Hz or so by about three to six decibels.Then play with the Q until you eliminate or minimize the boxy sound in the kick.


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This frequency range, centered around 315Hz, is hard for the human ear tointerpret. Removing some of these frequencies can decrease the muddiness ofkick while leaving frequencies that your ears think are Yummy!

If you enjoyed this article, please be content to remember that there are more

good people than bad people in the world. Otherwise, we would be extinct bynow!

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How-To Make Trance Kick Drums by Quasar