5 Tips For Big Fat Kick Drums | Cubase Secrets with Dom

hello everyone dom here in this video i'm  going to show you five ways to get big punchy   thick kick drums let's dive into it   so let's start with tip number one in this  case i'm going to use an acoustic kick drum   in the context of a full drum  kit so let's have a listen so this kick drum sounds fine but it lacks a  bit of oomph a little bit of low end and we   can enhance it so that it thumps a bit more in  the mix so what i'm going to use in this case   is a variation of the poltec eq trick now if  you don't know what a poltec is it's a legendary   vintage analog eq that is really famous for its  shelving bands it does something really really   special and we're going to try and emulate  this but i'm going to use a very specific   technique in order to make this kick drum sound  bigger okay right now it's a little bit papery so let's try and enhance this in order to do this  you want to go and add a scent effect as you can   see i've created a scent effect and it's right  here pultec kick and the one thing that i want   to make sure is that this send effect is set to  zero and i want to make sure that it's pre-fader   why because we're going to have a compressor in  this eq i want to make sure that the compressor   is going to be triggered exactly the same  way no matter where i set my fader level on   my kick drum so this way i'm making sure that  the compressor is going to be fed a consistent   level no matter if i do any automation here or  not now let's go and check out our effects channel   there we go so let me show you what i've done  here i'm going to turn everything on one by one   first i have the studio eq and this eq is just a  filter i'm cutting everything above 136 hertz so   let's listen to the effects channel in isolation  in cubase if you have control room activated   it's very easy to do that by just hitting the  l button for listen okay let's have a listen   so this way i'm keeping just the low  end information and i'm filtering out   everything else now the next thing i'm  doing is i'm adding a vintage compressor   and with this one i'm compressing this  channel to death okay let's have a listen so what i'm doing here is i'm adding quite  a bit of input to drive the compressor   i have the punch activated so  that i get a really punchy sound   and i have a 20 to 1 ratio so really really  high compression ratio and a medium release   now one of the tricks that i want to show you  is that when you compress so much you get all   this nice attack and punch but you might also  get a little bit of the tail of the kick drum a   little bit of rumble maybe some bleed from the  other elements and a very clever way to treat   this is to go to your channel strip and use  the envelope shaper and turn down the release   this way you will get a way more focused sound  that's cleaner as well so let's have a listen hear that so now we have a very clean sound  that just has the low end attack okay and then   here comes the magic now we're going to use  our studio eq to emulate the poltech sound   and what i have here i have a studio eq with  a shelf 3 band so this is a low shell filter   that emulates the poltec eq curve you  know as close as possible so i have   this big bump here and i have a cut right here and  this i can adjust with my cue as you can see so   this gives me a pulte key sound and in this case  don't be afraid you can exaggerate you can add   tons of low end because this is how we're going  to use this channel we're going to use this for   our low end thumb the only thing you need to be  careful about is to make sure that you don't clip   the output of the eq okay this is the only thing  that i would suggest that you keep it clean   so now we have our chain completed  and now i can start introducing   this poltic kick channel to  my mix let's have a listen so this is the first trick that i wanted to  show you and this trick is extremely useful   because what it does is it gives you the only  thing that you need you need low end punch   you need a very clean low end and this way you  also avoid a very common problem that comes when   you just add all this low end with just regular  eq which basically just makes the low end a little   bit muddy it's less focused and you have to boost  a lot but when you start boosting a lot then you   also affect the tonal balance of the kick drum in  this case because this is all parallel i'm leaving   the kick drum alone the original channel but i  can just blend in just a little bit of punch okay   this works great with kick drums that are weak  that are papery even if you have a very thin   kick drum when you apply this trick you're  going to get a much bigger a much fuller sound   so this is a variation of the poltech trick and  especially with multi-track drums that you cannot   add plugins are going to change the face this  is the right tool for the job tip number two   is using dynamic eq this works on solo kick drums  but it works incredibly well and might be the only   way to salvage a stereo drum loop where you  don't have all the different elements of the   drum kit in separate channels for example  i have this loop here let me show you so in this case if i start adding a lot of low end  to enhance my kick drum i'm also going to bring up   all the rest of the low end that is  there when the kick drum doesn't play   and this will result in a muddy sound  it will make the low end a bit confusing   and it will make the low end less focused instead  if you use a dynamic eq like what i've done here   you can just enhance the low end only when the  kick drum hits and this is achieved of course   by using a band where you activate the dynamic  section in frequency 2 that i'm using right here   so if i turn it off it's going to  sound like this let's have a listen and now let's turn on dynamic mode it's a subtle difference but it will make a  huge impact in your mix because if i don't   use the dynamic eq in this case you  will hear there's a lot of ringing   when the kick drum hits there's like a little  bit of resonance and a little bit of a tail   in the low end that kind of lasts until the  snare and the next kick drum have a listen   it's very very confusing but when we add  the dynamic eq that means that the dynamic   eq will pick up when the kick drum hits by just  setting the threshold here let's have a listen and it will only boost when the kick drum hits  this is extremely useful and this might be the   only way to enhance a loop like this that's  basically a stereo loop and you don't have   control over the individual elements in this  case it's very important to listen to the music   and determine what kind of attack and release  times you're going to use for your dynamic eq   in this case i have a very fast drum loop so i'm  going to have a very fast attack so that the kick   drums are picked up straight away and the dynamic  eq immediately boosts and the release is also very   fast because i want to make sure that the boost  will go down fast enough so that we don't have a   confusing sound and this low end doesn't last for  much longer than we need to so let's have a listen so i can see exactly what's going on right here  so i can see that this only gets boosted when we   have a kick drum present it boosts really  fast and then it goes down really fast as   well which is exactly what we want and in  this case i can be generous with my gain   of course listen see how it  sounds and then adjust accordingly tip number three is using the multiband   envelope shaper this is one of the miracle  plugins that we have in cubase in my opinion   and it's just the right plugin to use for  thin kick drums let me play this track for you so this is a nice drum machine like kick drum  i really like that but i would totally enhance   this in the low end department in order to get  a punchier sound and the multiband envelope   shaper is just the tool for the job so i'm  going to use the multiband envelope shaper   compared to a regular transient designer the  multiband envelope shaper splits the signal into   four bands and then you can shape the transients  and the release of each band separately which is   great for kick drums because what i can  do now is i can go to my kick drum here   and say i want to enhance the attack of  the low end so let's go ahead and do this i can even change the release   so i can make the kick drum tighter or longer now let's enhance the knock and let's try and boost the low end as well so now it's much thicker it's fatter  there's a lot of punch in the low end   let's listen to it with the rest of the drum kit so and if i want to add a little bit of snap you know  i can even enhance the attack of the high mids or   the top end this is a really really powerful  plug-in and you can use it for kick drums for   snares for toms for pretty much everything but  on kick drums it's really really special i'm   going to stick with the same kick drum now and i'm  going to show you the next tip tip number four is   duplicating your kick drum with a synth and this  is extremely easy to use in cubase i'm going to   show you all the steps right now let me show you  how you do this let's say that this is our kick   drum and let's say i want to duplicate it with  a synth in order to do this i'm going to use the   swiss army of synth in cubase a retrolog 2 and i'm  going to show you exactly what kind of sound i'm   going to create in order to duplicate this kick  drum but first we have to create the notes for   this kick drum and this is super easy to use like  i said we just double click on our kick drum event   and we go to hit points and as you can see cubase  does a very very good job of detecting all the   kick drum hits but in case you need to adjust this  you just go here and adjust the threshold like   that but in this case it's very well defined  so now i'm going to go ahead and create midi   notes and in this case i can select a velocity  mode it can be a fixed velocity or depending on   how loud every kick drum hit is it will give us a  different midi velocity in this case i'm gonna go   for fixed velocity because i want the low end to  be consistent so i'm going to keep the pitch at   c1 and i'm going to send this midi to the first  selected track which is my retro log so there we   go now we have our notes right there and we're  ready to go the next thing that we need to do   is of course create a suitable sound in retrolog  and let me show you what sound i've created for this so this is it it's a very very simple sound  it consists of one oscillator in sine wave mode   i have 300 milliseconds of decay time just a  tiny bit of release and then i set my filter   envelope this one here to control my pitch so  in this case as you can see filter envelope   controls my oscillator one pitch and  now i can start tuning it a little bit and now let's play it with the original  kick drum and bring it in gradually and because we've added these  subs with a synthesizer we have   total control over the pitch we can change  the attack we can change the release   it's very easy to shape the sound  let me try and change the pitch first a distortion so as you can see i have lots of flexibility  and i can build the foundation of my kick drum   with total control that's really really important  and this will work pretty much on every kick drum   so depending on the kick drum that you have  you can shape the sound and make sure that   it blends well with it and now let's move on to  tip number five tip number five is a high pass   resonant filter yes you heard right high  pass that means it's going to cut low end   but let me show you because this is a very  very popular trick and a very well kept secret   when it comes to creating really big kick drums  even if your kick drum is not so powerful to   begin with so what i'm gonna use in this case  i'm going to use my studio eq and i'm going to   use button number one in cut mode so this means  that it's a low cut filter and what i'm gonna do   is i'm going to turn the cue all the way up so  i can create a resonance right here pretty much   like what a synth would do when you raise the  resonance control on your filter and then i'm   going to play with the frequency until i find the  point where my kick drum sounds big check it out and the great thing with the studio eq  is that it has an auto gain function   which means that even though  we add all this low end   our levels are going to be just right  okay so let's have a listen again so so as you can see when i remove it everything  falls apart the kick drum sounds really thin   really papery and in the context of a mix  it would totally get lost it wouldn't give   us the thump that we need so this trick  is just right for the job especially for   some genres of music where you need  these big resonant kick drums this is   just the right recipe so there you go  these are five tips to make your kick drum   sound big fat and punchy i hope you enjoyed  this video and i'll see you next one bye you

Channel: Cubase

Views: 8,896

Rating: 4.9429927 out of 5

Keywords: Fat kick drums, big punchy kick drums, music production dom sigalas, cubase tutorial, acoustic kick drum, vintage analog eq, compressor automation, using studio eq, envelope shaper, clean drum sound, emulate vintage compressor sound, affect balance of kick drum, using dynamic eq, solo kick drums, multiband envelope shaper, transient designer, thick fat punchy sound, auto gain function, music software, cubase daw, song wrighting, music tipps and tricks

Id: 0Fg0hroKtew

Length: 19min 32sec (1172 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 24 2021