Kick Techniques Every Music Producer Should Know

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1. ThE Source Material (change the sample dummy)
The first thing to focus on is the source material, the sample you've picked. If you have a Kick, that is dog pee; then you will need more than just Sausage Fattener to get it going. We shouldn't be doing more than just a bit of compression, eq, and saturation on a kick. If you find yourself IN A FOREST TRYING to get your kick to sound good, then just pick a new Kick!

2 Layer Your Kick Properly

It seems like layering kicks in today's age is like a newly turned 21-year-old man trying to get his smash count up. We use as many as we can, leading to meh kicks, not great ones. If you will be layering, do it safely and use no more than three kicks. The reason for 3 is we can use 1 lift for the principal body/bass of the kick, another for the transient, and finally, the last one for that uniqueness factor. Add in a cowbell?

3 Anchoring Your Kick
When we start doing sessions, I first teach my students to Anchor the kick and revolve everything around it in the mix. This technique helps keep the kick at the forefront of the track and also sets in stone a fundamental leveling technique in a world of unlimited choices.

4 The NotchNESS Monstah
As a sound designer, I want to craft a kick drum using an array of proper design techniques when I create a kick drum. These techniques don't care that I don't like the cardboard box sound that comes with the kick. Fun little title for this section, but the notch is an EQ you will see in almost every music producers Kick EQ which means half the population is doing this. Some sound designers leave this in the final kick just in case it might work on your track. However, I'm not too fond of it and usually end up removing it with EQ.

5 Progress Your Kick drum

This one is simple and done by a lot of intermediates to advanced producers; however another way to progress your Kick drum in the song is by omitting specific layers and frequencies in verses/breakdowns of your song. This will lead to more moments in your track that will help make your track more memorable rather than dull and boring

6 When processing for "fatness" KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

As state good source material is needed and once you have that kick that is 80% there you should be doing slight alterations and saturation not putting half the WAVES Catalogue on your kick with random presets expecting Martin Garrix to come down from the heavens and bless you.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:04 The Sample Matters
01:07 Layering Properly
02:39 Anchoring The Kick
04:50 The Notch EQ 400HZ-500HZ
06:13 Kick Progression
08:35 When PROCESSING KISS IT
10:41 Outro

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[doga]

That 500 hz EQ made my kick sound way way better .Thank you man !

[PRODUCEMUSICNOW]

"It seems like layering kicks in today's age is like a 21 year old dude trying to get his smash count up" hahahhahah What an awesome metaphor. Per usual, great video!

[shubhrasinha]

Hard/Soft clipping also helps a lot. Instead of over-saturating the sample to increase perceived loudness, slipping a few dbs off and boosting the gain can help make that kick smack harder, without too much coloration...

[MARTINKRMA]

That tech house bassline is GROOVING hard, great tutorial my man <3

[slzzzzzzzzz]

As always, direct to the point, NO BS NEEDED 🚀

[Skribbles]

Gain staging isn’t mentioned here and I think that’s kind of strange. If you use a utility gain and make sure that on every instrument it’s the first thing in the chain …and you bring that instrument down to -18 dB that is the sweet spot for an instrument or a sound to be put through any type of processor whether it is delay reverb distortion etc.
Quality of your sounds is extremely better if you gain stage at -18db

[EDMsHero]

Congrads getting a track signed. Thats awesome

[ordinarypablo]

thank you zen papi, that second song is a banger fs

[guiloutz]

Thanks mate, appreciate the straight to the point approach. One of the problem i'm facing more & more is my biais for "clean" kicks. I end up cutting -47530db the mids, especially 200hz. I then enjoy the "roundness" of the final product at the price of a serious lack of punch & character. I've heard other people struggling with this trade off aswell. Cheers

[JonnyProperly]

I used to use -6db in the early 200's but around 2007 I started using -10db for my Kicks and mixing everything around that and a few years ago I starting using the Katz -14 loudnes system for Tech house and It leaves so much head room for mastering, I'm usually at around -9db to -7db when I bounce my pre master, I'm lucky enough to have been doing this since the early 90's working in studios in Philly and NYC so Ive accumulated a metric shit ton of gear over the years but a few years ago I finally had to admit that software has finally just about caught up, I have a real SSL Bus-comp and a set of Pultec EQP-1As that I used to run my pre master mixdowns through but now I just use the new SSL Bus comp 2 and my UAD Pultec plugins and maybe I'm getting old but I can't really hear a difference on my monitors (Maybe if I had some Barefoots but I don't have 20k per monitor HAHA. Great videos Zen. I'm of to record my new a very special vintage mono synth from a company that was owned by this guy named Bob, .... Hey wait, I think you know his Grandmother? Anyway the volume knob on this unit is It goes to 11 just in case I need that extra little bit 😂

[AngeloDecaro]

Thanks for this video wish you all the best

[coolcoolj]

when you showing the effect (EQ, Compression...) on Kick, could you please solo Kick track, so we can hear the difference better?

[luisalbertosaraolavegoya]

What d you think about Sonic Academy Kick2?

[LightAsylumOfficial]

Where can we download the song in this tut?

[Semperf]

Ahh very interesting ima try some of this man 4:32

[goochisessions]

Great video, will definitely be using the notch eq on my. next track.
What do you think about filtering everything below 30-40hz in order to avoid sub-bass clashes?

[AnirudKollegal]

kick and bass tut for this track plz..

[johnplacca]

When you process a sound, pre-mixing, should you want everything at -18db on the fader? You suggest -6db for the kick at the mixing stage? Thanks for the clarification

[fvcvbvcbccbc]

you have any good kick sample website? To me, kshmr pack and vengence pack are doing well. But I just dont see any other options

[djkebbe]

want i video how to make the best clap / Claps. cheers!