Advice on Making Powerful Dubstep Kicks

[Casporb]

So I feel like all the popular, "good" dubstep songs have really powerful kicks. It's probably done by EQ'ing I guess. I don't really like mine. Any advice?

[Yoshiii343]

layering is something i notice people suggesting

try having 2 different kicks playing together, and see what works

[SkankyMojo]

Are you using samples or a synthesizer? And what's your current workflow with your chosen method?

[Casporb]

At 3/13/23 06:59 PM, Yoshiii343 wrote: layering is something i notice people suggesting
try having 2 different kicks playing together, and see what works

OK. I'll try that!

[Casporb]

At 3/13/23 09:57 PM, AkioDaku wrote: Are you using samples or a synthesizer? And what's your current workflow with your chosen method?

I'm using samples. And currently I just drag it into the daw, mix it so it's not distorted, add some EQ'ing to remove the low end (which I probably shouldn't do) and then... done. It always sounds trash.

[SkankyMojo]

At 3/14/23 03:55 AM, Casporb wrote:

At 3/13/23 09:57 PM, AkioDaku wrote: Are you using samples or a synthesizer? And what's your current workflow with your chosen method?

I'm using samples. And currently I just drag it into the daw, mix it so it's not distorted, add some EQ'ing to remove the low end (which I probably shouldn't do) and then... done. It always sounds trash.

It'll be the samples you're starting with more than anything then. If the source audio isn't want you want, then no amount of eq and compression will bring out of it a quality it didn't already contain.

I'd get sampling some new source sounds or make your own with a synthesizer, FM Synthesis is really good for big aggressive drum sounds. A freeware VST and some youtube tutorials should solve your problems.

[Casporb]

At 3/14/23 05:06 AM, AkioDaku wrote:

At 3/14/23 03:55 AM, Casporb wrote:

At 3/13/23 09:57 PM, AkioDaku wrote: Are you using samples or a synthesizer? And what's your current workflow with your chosen method?

I'm using samples. And currently I just drag it into the daw, mix it so it's not distorted, add some EQ'ing to remove the low end (which I probably shouldn't do) and then... done. It always sounds trash.

It'll be the samples you're starting with more than anything then. If the source audio isn't want you want, then no amount of eq and compression will bring out of it a quality it didn't already contain.
I'd get sampling some new source sounds or make your own with a synthesizer, FM Synthesis is really good for big aggressive drum sounds. A freeware VST and some youtube tutorials should solve your problems.

Thanks for the help! It is much appreciated.

[wpzkx]

At 3/13/23 11:59 AM, Casporb wrote: So I feel like all the popular, "good" dubstep songs have really powerful kicks. It's probably done by EQ'ing I guess. I don't really like mine. Any advice?

in lmms you just need c*clip and tap reverberator no comb filter on sine getting pitched down

[wpzkx]

At 3/14/23 03:55 AM, Casporb wrote:

At 3/13/23 09:57 PM, AkioDaku wrote: Are you using samples or a synthesizer? And what's your current workflow with your chosen method?

I'm using samples. And currently I just drag it into the daw, mix it so it's not distorted, add some EQ'ing to remove the low end (which I probably shouldn't do) and then... done. It always sounds trash.

dude don't remove the low end, the low end is litterally the most important part of a kick, are you trolling dude?

[Casporb]

At 4/8/23 07:24 AM, wpzkx wrote:

At 3/13/23 11:59 AM, Casporb wrote: So I feel like all the popular, "good" dubstep songs have really powerful kicks. It's probably done by EQ'ing I guess. I don't really like mine. Any advice?

in lmms you just need c*clip and tap reverberator no comb filter on sine getting pitched down

I don't use lmms

[Casporb]

At 4/8/23 07:25 AM, wpzkx wrote:

At 3/14/23 03:55 AM, Casporb wrote:

At 3/13/23 09:57 PM, AkioDaku wrote: Are you using samples or a synthesizer? And what's your current workflow with your chosen method?

I'm using samples. And currently I just drag it into the daw, mix it so it's not distorted, add some EQ'ing to remove the low end (which I probably shouldn't do) and then... done. It always sounds trash.

dude don't remove the low end, the low end is litterally the most important part of a kick, are you trolling dude?

Maybe. The tutorials I watched said I should. idk

[slowfreq]

COMPRESSION COMPRESSION COMPRESSION!!! Compressors allow you to control and shape the transient of your drums (transient = the click at the beginning of the sample that make it go boom), and you're going to have to do a lot more of it than you'd think to get that really professional-sounding dubstep drum mix. Compress all of your drums individually to taste, then route all of your drums to their own mixing bus and compress that.

If you don't know how to work a compressor, look it up. It's seriously night and day when you learn how to finesse it.

ALSO!!! If you're gonna compress the shit out of everything, be sure to cut the low end in things that don't need it (i.e. everything except the kick drum and bass). There's a lot more low end in samples than you'd think, and it'll muddy up your mix real quick if you compress the fuck out of everything without fixing this.

[Casporb]

At 4/8/23 10:23 AM, slowfreq wrote: COMPRESSION COMPRESSION COMPRESSION!!! Compressors allow you to control and shape the transient of your drums (transient = the click at the beginning of the sample that make it go boom), and you're going to have to do a lot more of it than you'd think to get that really professional-sounding dubstep drum mix. Compress all of your drums individually to taste, then route all of your drums to their own mixing bus and compress that.

If you don't know how to work a compressor, look it up. It's seriously night and day when you learn how to finesse it.

OK! Thanks for the advice!

[Casporb]

At 4/8/23 02:34 PM, acheney wrote: i'm not sure whether the question is asking about how to make kicks from scratch or make existing ones sound good; i'll just cover both here

a good dubstep kick is at its most basic is a sine wave with a downwards pitch envelope in the bass region, a good noisy but snappy transient, and lots of post-processing. pretty much any good synth can do this; i know serum and vital both let you layer a synthesized sine with a sample; use these for the body and transient respectively. you can use acoustic drum transients, or you can make your own by sending a short noise burst through an ir reverb

now: post processing. the first thing i do is saturate it. not too much, we're probably not looking to make a gabber kick. just add some mild harmonics. next, eq it to cut the mids a bit. then, add a compressor with a low threshold (around -40db-ish), an attack of ~20ms, a release of ~100ms, and a ratio of around 3:1. lastly, clip it with around +4db gain. clipping is how i make my kicks and snares punch in the mix. and don't just turn up the channel fader, use a dedicated clipping plugin like kclip. don't forget to sidechain everything else in the mix to the kick!

if you're using an existing kick, make sure it has a solid fade out envelope (shaped like a dorito, in the words of baphometrix); clipping kicks with weird envelopes won't sound good. if you can't find a suitable kick, as a last resort just apply a fade out envelope to the kick.

hopefully these tips help

I appreciate the advice

[Allinatormusic]

good sample selection is key. i dont recommend cymatics bc they just sound like shit.

find something good from a sample pack made by a real dubstep producer and go through those drums.

also waves has a good plugin called 'smack attack' which is great for making transients pop in kicks.

[Casporb]

At 4/13/23 02:05 AM, AllinatorBEATS wrote: good sample selection is key. i dont recommend cymatics bc they just sound like shit.
find something good from a sample pack made by a real dubstep producer and go through those drums.
also waves has a good plugin called 'smack attack' which is great for making transients pop in kicks.

Thanks for your help!

[Daru925]

Imagine having a shitty equalizer with a set of curves in your ears, that is tricking you all the time. See graph below:

For instance, the blue curve tells you that to PERCEIVE a 100 hz sine as being AS LOUD AS 1khz sine at 40 dB, you must in fact output the 100 hz sine at 50db (10 dB louder than the 1k sine), at 30hz it's almost 80dB!

All the while, our brain/ears think and hear: " Oh! These sines are all 40 dB loud!" REAL vs PERCEIVED.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour#/media/File:Lindos1.svg

This is by no mean an ideal eq curve to throw on your sounds, at best it would make the bad parts of a sound sounding as loud as the good parts. It shows human ear response.

Our ears are shit and brains kinda slow.

Thats why we hear baby cries so easily (and annoyingly sometimes)

The duration of a sound (adsr in synth terms) and its frequency also change the perceived power.

Things like vu meters give a pretty good representation of perceived volume power, because they are slow like humans^^, so used in conjuction with peak meters, you can tame the super fast & loud transients without the PERCEIVED loudness changing, without the sound quality getting worse/badly distorted, which in turn gives more room to boost the overall level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFrfdqCXXe4

Maybe this helps. It's not just about the saturator, but also peak to rms balance.

[SpeedoRH]

At 3/13/23 11:59 AM, Casporb wrote: So I feel like all the popular, "good" dubstep songs have really powerful kicks. It's probably done by EQ'ing I guess. I don't really like mine. Any advice?

In my personal experience, to make a powerful kick, you don't necessarily need to add a bunch of compression and call it a day (especially if you have no idea how they work or have no idea what you are doing).

Simply find a kick with these two things: a clean, clicking start and a respectable amount of bass as the kick ends.

I think I should explain why I recommend these two things in particular in a kick to give the full picture:

Without the click, the kick won't be easy to push through your mix, and it will end up sounding muddy and weird. With the click however, the kick has that loudness at the start that more easily would push through the mix, and thus makes other aspects easier to take care of such as sidechaining, for instance.

Without an appropriate amount of bassy stuff at the end of a kick, the kick might begin to sound really thin, and yes it will push through the mix most of the time, but it will simply not sound great, as it doesn't have that powerful feel to it. With the bassy stuff at the end of it however, a kick will end up sounding deeper and fatter, which 90% of the time will sound good in a dubstep track.

P.s. Make sure that the kick you are using doesn't have too much of either of these two things, as it may have an odd sound to it when used in context.

Hope this post helps! Good luck on your next projects!

~SpeedoRH

[Casporb]

At 4/13/23 04:05 PM, SpeedoRH wrote:

At 3/13/23 11:59 AM, Casporb wrote: So I feel like all the popular, "good" dubstep songs have really powerful kicks. It's probably done by EQ'ing I guess. I don't really like mine. Any advice?

In my personal experience, to make a powerful kick, you don't necessarily need to add a bunch of compression and call it a day (especially if you have no idea how they work or have no idea what you are doing).

Simply find a kick with these two things: a clean, clicking start and a respectable amount of bass as the kick ends.

I think I should explain why I recommend these two things in particular in a kick to give the full picture:

Without the click, the kick won't be easy to push through your mix, and it will end up sounding muddy and weird. With the click however, the kick has that loudness at the start that more easily would push through the mix, and thus makes other aspects easier to take care of such as sidechaining, for instance.

Without an appropriate amount of bassy stuff at the end of a kick, the kick might begin to sound really thin, and yes it will push through the mix most of the time, but it will simply not sound great, as it doesn't have that powerful feel to it. With the bassy stuff at the end of it however, a kick will end up sounding deeper and fatter, which 90% of the time will sound good in a dubstep track.

P.s. Make sure that the kick you are using doesn't have too much of either of these two things, as it may have an odd sound to it when used in context.

Hope this post helps! Good luck on your next projects!
~SpeedoRH

The advice is much appreciated!

[Tapestoppa]

Layering, boost your transients, multiband compression and just a small amount of distortion.

[xHeiDax]

At 4/8/23 10:11 AM, Casporb wrote:

At 4/8/23 07:25 AM, wpzkx wrote:

At 3/14/23 03:55 AM, Casporb wrote:

At 3/13/23 09:57 PM, AkioDaku wrote: Are you using samples or a synthesizer? And what's your current workflow with your chosen method?

I'm using samples. And currently I just drag it into the daw, mix it so it's not distorted, add some EQ'ing to remove the low end (which I probably shouldn't do) and then... done. It always sounds trash.

dude don't remove the low end, the low end is litterally the most important part of a kick, are you trolling dude?

Maybe. The tutorials I watched said I should. idk

tbf I've seen the same advice thrown around

[Tapestoppa]

At 4/21/23 10:26 AM, Tapestoppa wrote: Layering, boost your transients, multiband compression and just a small amount of distortion.

Realized I left something out, make the kicks more shorter by tightening the width of it. That'll make them more punchy

[50Steaks]

At 4/8/23 10:23 AM, slowfreq wrote: COMPRESSION COMPRESSION COMPRESSION!!! Compressors allow you to control and shape the transient of your drums (transient = the click at the beginning of the sample that make it go boom), and you're going to have to do a lot more of it than you'd think to get that really professional-sounding dubstep drum mix. Compress all of your drums individually to taste, then route all of your drums to their own mixing bus and compress that.

If you don't know how to work a compressor, look it up. It's seriously night and day when you learn how to finesse it.

ALSO!!! If you're gonna compress the shit out of everything, be sure to cut the low end in things that don't need it (i.e. everything except the kick drum and bass). There's a lot more low end in samples than you'd think, and it'll muddy up your mix real quick if you compress the fuck out of everything without fixing this.

That’s interesting. I think I might be able to pull this off on FL mobile using their somewhat new FX channel feature. Will give it a try.

[slowfreq]

At 6/28/23 10:07 AM, 50Steaks wrote:

At 4/8/23 10:23 AM, slowfreq wrote: COMPRESSION COMPRESSION COMPRESSION!!! Compressors allow you to control and shape the transient of your drums (transient = the click at the beginning of the sample that make it go boom), and you're going to have to do a lot more of it than you'd think to get that really professional-sounding dubstep drum mix. Compress all of your drums individually to taste, then route all of your drums to their own mixing bus and compress that.

If you don't know how to work a compressor, look it up. It's seriously night and day when you learn how to finesse it.

ALSO!!! If you're gonna compress the shit out of everything, be sure to cut the low end in things that don't need it (i.e. everything except the kick drum and bass). There's a lot more low end in samples than you'd think, and it'll muddy up your mix real quick if you compress the fuck out of everything without fixing this.

That’s interesting. I think I might be able to pull this off on FL mobile using their somewhat new FX channel feature. Will give it a try.

I should emphasize for everyone readingthis that you shouldn't just go wild compressing the ever loving fuck out of everything. Sometimes your drum bus might only need a little.

[BarbierDoesMusic]

Try EQing up a bit around the 4-5k. That area usually has the punch of the kick drum. I read down that you EQ the low end as well, if the resonance is too big, you can lower it a bit as well, this gives you a much more drier kick with a lot of attack power.

Don't overdo it, though, it should probably still sound as a kick after all :V