Help with Kick Drum

mdoomsday · Post by **mdoomsday** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 10:36 am

I am having some trouble mixing a song and would welcome any sort of help.

I have minimal experience in mixing drums and am trying to mix a song in which the kick drum sound is horrible. There is a lot of clicking sounds going on and in general sounds dead. I have a decent amount of knowledge about music production but once again not much in terms of mixing drums. I use REAPER as a DAW and am looking to at least improve the sound through VSTs (I know there is no way to fully "fix" a poorly recorded sound). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

the finger genius · Post by **the finger genius** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:28 am

It's a little hard to give you any helpful advice without actually hearing what you have to work with (both the drums and the whole mix.) If there's any way you could post some audio, I think you'd probably end up with some good, useful feedback.

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 2:59 pm

I really like using a distortion plugin on kick. My favorite is "QuadraFuzz". As the name implies it lets you add different amounts of "drive" on 4 different sets of frequencies. It's like a 4-band fuzz eq. It usually doesn't come out sounding "distorted", to my ears, just bigger and boomier. Like the other guy said, your question is pretty vague...

digitaldrummer · Post by **digitaldrummer** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 4:02 pm

just leave it out of the mix. kick drums are overrated.

Chris_Avakian · Post by **Chris_Avakian** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 4:06 pm

snares too.... im all about toms, and cymbals... toms, and cymbals....

roygbiv · Post by **roygbiv** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:19 pm

Here is some generic advice for helping to improve bad kick drum sounds in Reaper (I should know, 'cause I generate lots of bad kick drum sounds)

Option 1:
1. Gate the kick (with ReaGate)
2. run through Blockfish compressor, select one of the kick drum pre-sets, tweak to taste. (Blockfish is a free VST, not native to Reaper - Google for it).
3. EQ to taste.

Option 2 (caution - this may purists):
Read the following thread, then download and use the DrumReplacer VST off the Cockos site (Drumreplacer is basically a free Drumagog type JS module (not a VST, it only works in Reaper). You can use to trigger samples. You'll have to find some kick drum samples of your own - the thread has links to one:

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php? ... umreplacer

firesine · Post by **firesine** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 2:19 pm

I would try EQing first. Find a frequency band to suck out, possibly somewhere in the low mids. Try to find the boxy frequency that is covering up the tone of the drum.

Then, try compression. If you aren't getting a sound you like from a compressor in series, try parallel compression.

Sending the kick and snare to a compressor, which is returning to another channel, can provide lots of options for tone shaping without mussing up your original sound.

Also, try to get your hands on a sub frequency synthesizer, which may or may not help your kick sound.

farview · Post by **farview** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 7:20 pm

Several of us could tell you exactly what to do with that kick sound if you would post it somewhere and tell us what genre of music you are dealing with.

Rabbit · Post by **Rabbit** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 7:35 pm

by clicking sounds are you talking something mechanical with the pedal or the beater or are these possibly clicks caused by clocking issues between your A/D and DAW? Yeah files would be great to listen to.

casey campbell · Post by **casey campbell** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 8:29 am

roygbiv wrote:Here is some generic advice for helping to improve bad kick drum sounds in Reaper (I should know, 'cause I generate lots of bad kick drum sounds)

Option 1:
1. Gate the kick (with ReaGate)
2. run through Blockfish compressor, select one of the kick drum pre-sets, tweak to taste. (Blockfish is a free VST, not native to Reaper - Google for it).
3. EQ to taste.

Option 2 (caution - this may purists):
Read the following thread, then download and use the DrumReplacer VST off the Cockos site (Drumreplacer is basically a free Drumagog type JS module (not a VST, it only works in Reaper). You can use to trigger samples. You'll have to find some kick drum samples of your own - the thread has links to one:

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php? ... umreplacer

we have a winner folks!

you could also try camel phat free on it. it's a free vst that should work in reaper.

you could also reamp it through a bass amp and cab.

but i think using a drum replacer like the one mentioned on the cockos site, or drumagog (if you can get it) would be the best option if you cannot salvage the kick.

you could also key a gate and feed a low tone to it. you'll just have to get the release right and tweak around with the source to get the right low end freq.....

studjo · Post by **studjo** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 1:28 pm

I had the exact same problem with a kick where the rec eng decided he wanted to produce the next Black Album - too bad the song asked for some roots sounds. So I really had a hard time getting that kick to work. I used some distortion and parallel compression (sans amp).
Distortion is your friend (sometimes)

Jo

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Help with Kick Drum

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