Hey there, all!
Since the muse in charge of my composition abilities seems to be taking a vacation, I've just been having a lot of fun fooling around with creating synth patches, on my new GAIA SH-01.
I was listening to some Hi-NRG, Hardstyle, and Hands-up esque stuff- you know, 90s/early 2000s dance music- And realized that I didn't have any of those nice, heavily-synthesized kicks in my sample collection despite Maschine having 1072 samples all by itself (and yes, I've auditioned all of them ;p)
So, I figured- why not synthesize my own ^^?
I've created a few various kicks, and I'm still experimenting. I start with usually a square, and modulate the pitch via envelope to get my initial thud before going into very low sub-notes; or, I'll put a resonant 24 dB/oct low-pass filter on it and modulate that with a decaying envelope instead (with high resonance, although this destroys any tuning) to get my thud. I'll add in a clicky decay with slightly less than full sustain on the amp envelope, and perhaps add in some release as well. I add in a noise oscillator and high pass or peak filter it before running it through a no-sustain, quick decay amp envelope, then experiment with its level in relation to the oomph of the kick. Finally, I've been experimenting with running my results through the GAIA's built in distortion to add in some final crunch, though not too much unless I wish to lose my sub-range.
Anyways, there are a lot of controls I need to take into consideration to get my perfect kick- the cutoff and resonance of the LPF and wether it should be in 12dB or 24dB mode, perhaps using a resonant and open HPF filter instead of that, or maybe even a BPF; I need to keep track of the filter envelope's decay setting and how much it modulates the cutoff; I need to decide which oscillator to start with and which of my 3 built-in waveform variants to use, how much pitch modulation to apply and how fast the decay on that should be, what the amp envelope settings should be for this and how long I should play or hold a note to trigger my kick with a boomy gate, how much distortion to dial in, how loud the noise should be and how fast it should decay, and many other settings-
As you can see, it becomes a bit much!
So, gurus of production who are out there- when synthesizing your own dance kicks, do you have any go-to methods of getting what you want? Or is it just hours of knob tweaking until you stumble upon that one golden kick?
Thanks!
Synthesizing kicks- tips and tricks?
Moderators: Sharp, X-Trade, Pepperpotty, karmathanever
Synthesizing kicks- tips and tricks?
Current: MS-20 Mini, Minilogue, SY77
Past: Korg R3, Volca Bass, X50, Mg Slim Phatty, Rld Gaia SH-01, Yamaha TX81Z
Have my freebie granular plug-in: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewt ... p?t=192886
Past: Korg R3, Volca Bass, X50, Mg Slim Phatty, Rld Gaia SH-01, Yamaha TX81Z
Have my freebie granular plug-in: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewt ... p?t=192886
Besides knob tweeking for hours, which is always a good thing to do, you can also study the fundamentals of acoustic drums and mixdowns. You can think of the synthesizer like wood or metal/machine tools. Even with the best tools, the more you know about the materials, the better you can work them. Think of all the technigues that drummers and sound techs use for recording and live shows, like deadening the kick, mic placement, placement of drums in the sound field, and processing like gates, compressors, limiters, EQs, FX (phasers, flangers), delays, and reverb (pretty much in that order). Studying the classic analog synth drum kit machines helps too for emulating those sounds. You can get a lot of this information online from audio/mixing magazine articles.
I spent days of tweaking just getting a couple of kicks to my liking on the DS10.
I spent days of tweaking just getting a couple of kicks to my liking on the DS10.
Agreed, the ds10 is a great tool to use for synthesizing drums. You can learn a lot from tweaking on it. There was a period where I was only looking for drum patches, because I wasn't too interested or experienced with drums.
But, and not to go off on too much of a tangent here, learning different styles and elements of music can only help you in the long run. For me, that meant growing musically and becoming much better with rhythmic elements in music.
As for synthesizing your own stuff, even better. I myself am still mastering the kick - but one thing I've learned in the process is that there is no "golden" kick. It all depends on what style you're doing, the mood of the song, etc. Sometimes you need a more subdued kick, sometimes you need one with more oomph.
On the ds10, when I get a good kick going, I like to sometimes switch off the EG and use the gate to experiment with. I find this results in more interesting rhythms. It also helps to patch the EG into the VCA - i find this gives it a nice boost.
I don't have any experience with the GAIA, but it sounds like you're on the right track in terms of your synthesis workflow. When you find a sound you dig, obviously you should save it or make a quick note of some basic settings you use. It also helps to focus on a few parameters at a time and then slowly build upon your findings.
But, and not to go off on too much of a tangent here, learning different styles and elements of music can only help you in the long run. For me, that meant growing musically and becoming much better with rhythmic elements in music.
As for synthesizing your own stuff, even better. I myself am still mastering the kick - but one thing I've learned in the process is that there is no "golden" kick. It all depends on what style you're doing, the mood of the song, etc. Sometimes you need a more subdued kick, sometimes you need one with more oomph.
On the ds10, when I get a good kick going, I like to sometimes switch off the EG and use the gate to experiment with. I find this results in more interesting rhythms. It also helps to patch the EG into the VCA - i find this gives it a nice boost.
I don't have any experience with the GAIA, but it sounds like you're on the right track in terms of your synthesis workflow. When you find a sound you dig, obviously you should save it or make a quick note of some basic settings you use. It also helps to focus on a few parameters at a time and then slowly build upon your findings.
How a kick sounds in the context of a specific song is one of the most important things, as has been said. However, I am curious- so far this is the best kick I've been able to generate, aiming for a four-on-the-floor, rave/club feel where the kick drum provides most of the low-end. How does this sound?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715217/gaiakick_gtuned.wav
What are specific weaknesses or potential problems you notice that I might need to address?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715217/gaiakick_gtuned.wav
What are specific weaknesses or potential problems you notice that I might need to address?
Current: MS-20 Mini, Minilogue, SY77
Past: Korg R3, Volca Bass, X50, Mg Slim Phatty, Rld Gaia SH-01, Yamaha TX81Z
Have my freebie granular plug-in: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewt ... p?t=192886
Past: Korg R3, Volca Bass, X50, Mg Slim Phatty, Rld Gaia SH-01, Yamaha TX81Z
Have my freebie granular plug-in: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewt ... p?t=192886
There seems to be way too much of a snare quality to the attack. A kick has no sustaining white noise element. The only noise element is the very brief impact of the beater/mallet pad against the drum head, and most of that will be attenuated because the kick mic is usually not on the impact/pedal side of the drum but on the other/resonant side. At most, it should sound like a whack/thump that is extremely short in duration, with the main kick sound coming from the vibration of the drum head, not from the impact of the mallet pad. Ideally, the sound should be broken up into two elements, the mallet and the drum head, because the mallet hit will have some noise while the head will have none.
Drums are more complex than they might seem to be. A kick is a non pitched drum, so it is not a single pitch or white noise, but a complex combination of dissonant pitches together. This is unlike a pitched drum like a timpani, which is tuned to a specific root pitch and resonant harmonics. However, many classic analog synth kick sounds are pitched due to the limitations of the synth engine, where the drum machine perhaps had only one oscillator and a noise source.
Using a snare sound as a contrasting example, it has at least 5 elements: the top drum head, the resonant head and snare rasp, the rim, and the kind of stick (hard, soft, brushes, rutes). It seem natural to think of a drum hit as being one event without elements, but really the one sound is made as the result of the combination of various elements in unison. On synthesizers, we tend to think in terms of the synth engine we have, rather than the construction of the instrument we are modeling, but in doing so we lose some of the authenticity of the real instrument when we over simplify the acoustic sound based on the limitations of a VA synth. Sometimes the difference between an acoustic sound and the electronic oversimplified sound leads to a new timbre that we prefer, like the 303/808/909. So I am not saying that a more realistic synthesized drum sound is good, bad, better, worse, right, or wrong, as they are just different. But when you are trying to recreate a particular kind of sound, it is the accuracy of many elements that contribute to the accuracy of the result.
One technique that helps is to start the process with a specific sample to use as the model/goal of the patch you are trying to recreate. This gives you a definite point of comparison to determine how close the patch is to the original goal. When you cannot hear any difference between the model and the patch, then you have succeeded. Sometimes you end up with a different sound that you like, so be prepared to save those intermediate patches with a descriptive name so that you can get that sound back at a later time, even though that was not the goal you were trying to achieve. One great thing about synthesis is that we occasionally get happy accidents while in the process of creating a specific sound.
Drums are more complex than they might seem to be. A kick is a non pitched drum, so it is not a single pitch or white noise, but a complex combination of dissonant pitches together. This is unlike a pitched drum like a timpani, which is tuned to a specific root pitch and resonant harmonics. However, many classic analog synth kick sounds are pitched due to the limitations of the synth engine, where the drum machine perhaps had only one oscillator and a noise source.
Using a snare sound as a contrasting example, it has at least 5 elements: the top drum head, the resonant head and snare rasp, the rim, and the kind of stick (hard, soft, brushes, rutes). It seem natural to think of a drum hit as being one event without elements, but really the one sound is made as the result of the combination of various elements in unison. On synthesizers, we tend to think in terms of the synth engine we have, rather than the construction of the instrument we are modeling, but in doing so we lose some of the authenticity of the real instrument when we over simplify the acoustic sound based on the limitations of a VA synth. Sometimes the difference between an acoustic sound and the electronic oversimplified sound leads to a new timbre that we prefer, like the 303/808/909. So I am not saying that a more realistic synthesized drum sound is good, bad, better, worse, right, or wrong, as they are just different. But when you are trying to recreate a particular kind of sound, it is the accuracy of many elements that contribute to the accuracy of the result.
One technique that helps is to start the process with a specific sample to use as the model/goal of the patch you are trying to recreate. This gives you a definite point of comparison to determine how close the patch is to the original goal. When you cannot hear any difference between the model and the patch, then you have succeeded. Sometimes you end up with a different sound that you like, so be prepared to save those intermediate patches with a descriptive name so that you can get that sound back at a later time, even though that was not the goal you were trying to achieve. One great thing about synthesis is that we occasionally get happy accidents while in the process of creating a specific sound.