Creating a tight kick.
I’m looking to recreate a really tight, ‘TOCK’ style kick. I’m trying to learn how to do things from scratch, rather than just sampling a track, s that I can better understand how things work. Can anyone give me any pointers?
These are the sort of kicks I mean:
Kane Roth - Suspicious Mind (Monolog Remix)
This one has a super tight kick.
Evil Waves - Funkytown
And…
Aka Aka - Woody Woodpecker (Original Mix)
Im listening on very crappy pc speakers here at work so I cant really speak for the low end of the kicks but im hearing the initial snap of the kicks coming through. For the attack of the kick I think its down to some careful sculpting with an EQ (could be a bell cut or high shelf) on the transient frequencies, its more of a click than a snap that punches through with a slightly dulled high end. When im making a tight kick I find playing with the sustain and release times so that they pull back enough on the kick before the next kick hits, its a delicate balance - if you over do it they start to sound too pulled away from each other or too quiet on the sustain. If you are using samples you could also play around with the fade envelope in ableton to really sculpt you kicks - sometimes a little opening up on the front of the sample can reveal alittle more on your attack this can take a lot of freezing and flattening to pull those evelopes back enough to make it work (especially on the tail). Again im listening on terrible speakers but I hope some of what I said helps or at least points you in the right direction
EDIT - also I love mololoc 
buy Kick 2 from the sonic academy…its the best vst for creating any kick you want
Maschine 2.0 Drum synth is decent for designing kicks too.
My mate’s got one of these for kick design… heavy
http://www.juno.co.uk/products/jomox-mbase-11-analog-bass-drum-module/458818-01/