A way to boost the drums ?
hi, i wanted to know if there was a way to boost the sound or the bass of the drums (in my case of the kicks).
I am using the Kick 909 (i don’t really now if it’s a good one). but when i blend all my clips together, the sound of my kick is very low. so i’d like to know how can i rise it (without saturating the sound) ?
Try this:
I’m not exactly sure what you’re using, like which 909, but use the Spectrum (in Live Devices > Audio Effects) on the ‘Accurate Fast’ preset to figure out which frequencies your kick is centered around like so:
Try using EQ 8 and/or Multiband Dynamics to boost those frequencies.
have you tried using a compressor?
Layer 2 kicks, one is subby and one has a high end click, compress them and gel them together.
Basically, get 2 kicks, filter the subby one to only get bass frequencies and other one, filter out the bass frequencies so you have the best of 2 and compress them together to make a 1 fat kick.
or easy way, find a song that you like the kick of it and sample it, and use it on your track. Don’t feel like you are cheating by doing this because most of the producers who has top 100 beatport tracks, does this most of the time.
I dont like to ever compress the main kick drum sound if its all sample/drum machine, different story for live drummer. If you compress it you lose its dynamic range, the reason why it sounds the way it does. To trick the ears you can use what is called parallel compression. Your kick drum sent to an auxillary channel which will be compressed on the auxillary channel. This overly compressed kick is then mixed in underneath the other one to give it a perceived compressed sound. Use google and search for examples and how to’s. That will give the best result other than that its eq on other sounds and adjusting volume.
Parallel compression for drums is nice, especially acoustic drums. Drum machine drums and samples are already pretty much compressed. You could add a little more, but basically what you are encountering just now is that the kick is battling for hearing space with other parts in the lower registries.
There are many ways to solve this. Either eq out anything else that should not belong in the lower registry such as various synth sounds, hihats and so on. Secondly you could do ducking compression so any other elements are dampened while the kick triggers. I’m not talking about the over-the-top sidechain compression that was vogue some years ago, just a little bit will do fine. Thirdly you could eq some of the higher frequencies in the bass in case you just want it to be heard more, especially with ipod headsets that don’t go that low, anyway. Fifthly, simplify the arrangement of the track, dance music seldom is that complex and complex arrangements just trip the dancer. And then there are more tricks, too.
layer the kick > eq > compress > adjust mix volume
This works on every single 909 kick. Coming from a hardstyle/core genre background working with a layered 909 distorted kick with with compression and eq every single day i know almost every way of getting a kick right, I mean I do genreally mess about with a kick for 2-3 hours before I get mine just right haha.
Just make them yourself with Operator. Grab a 909 Kick in Operator’s presets and you’ll see how it’s build up.
turn up the volume of the kick, or even better, turn down the volume of everything else. then use an eq to trim away the freqs the kick doesnt need, boom youre ready to go.
Thanks for the advise, i’m gonna try them and tell you if it works as soon as i have a decent internet connexion
You really shouldn’t need to reach for FX yet. Turn down the other drum parts and turn the bass drum up. If you look at the waveform of dance tracks you will see the bassdrum is usually double the volume of most other sounds. Hence everything else needs to be mixed at 50% or below. Yes some FX can help but it will sound a lot better if you just set all the levels relative to the bassdrum first rather than trying to ram the bassdrum through everything with unnatural boosting via EQs. Think of compression and eq as spices to add to taste, not as a way to fix a fully imbalanced mix.
parallel compression is awesome
Well i’m back !!!
and I use the compressor, the basses of the kick are awesome. i can do wathever i want with them.
Thanks Guys !
Best advice you’ll see in here, I like to do with with my whole drum kit. If done right, it will make it sound phatter and fuller with out adding any db (or very little) to the master.
Just makes it sound solid, plain and simple
