Finding/transposing kicks for keys far away from C without ruining it

Yumid

Yumid

New member
So I have a little problem Im not sure how to solve.

Battery 4 comes with a bunch of drum samples all set to the root key of C by default.

So if I'm writing in C or C# or D or something its easy because I can just turn on key trigger and transpose the root note of the sample a couple semi tones and it still sounds good. But what do I do if I'm writing in F or F# or something? If you transpose the kick sample too far it sounds ridiculous. I want to write something in F# minor but when I transpose any of the kicks from C to F# (in either direction, i tried both) by the time I get to F# the kick is ruined.

What do you do about your kicks when you're writing in a key far away from C with a bunch of samples rooted to C?
 
Use the idea of root and 5th to tune your kicks

i.e.

KeyRoot5th
CCG
C#/DbC#/DbG#/Ab
DDA
D#/EbD#/EbA#/Bb
EEB
FFC
F#/GbF#/GbC#/Db
GGD
G#/AbG#/AbD#/Eb
AAE
A#/BbA#/BbE#/F
BBF#

This is tonality neutral as both major and minor chords of teh same root note have the same root and 5th
 
in other words if its too far to transpose to the root i want transpose it to the 5th?
 
If you can't transpose the kick sample up to get to the key you want to achieve, you can always transpose it down.
With some highpass, it should most of the times sound good, but the sample will be shorter, and you might also need another kick sample to fill out the gap you've created in the highend by pitching the sample down.
Though if you want a longer kick than that, you ould always experiment with adding a sub bass and shape so it glues to together with the kick and makes it longer (bet it's harder than it sounds).

Otherwise, you could always pick a kicksample with very little pronouncing on a certain key, and then tone-wise with EQ "create your key" - meaning finding the frequency of the key, and giving it some boost, then doing some cuts with notchfilter on any peaking frequency that may mask your new key of the sample.
Then if you lowpass the kick sample, ans then bring in another sample as a "topkick" which you tune to the right key (normally without any issues since it's highpassed), that should make pronouncing even more obvious.
 
And then there's also synthesising your own kicks, which is ridiculously easy to do. I know it's not what was asked but really.. It's simple beyond anything else.
 
so its always recommended to transpose kick to the 5th note of the scale?.so if choose a kick of root note of the songs scale, is it wrong? i and what about snare and clap?
 
Last edited:
Reezy said:
so its always recommended to transpose kick to the 5th note of the scale?.so if choose a kick of root note of the songs scale, is it wrong? i and what about snare and clap?
Click to expand...

This was only a suggestion if pitching the sample down from the original pitch to the wanted one sounds funny.

Also, no such thing as wrong in this.
 
agreed - however, we have heard some examples of wrong recently in a major release track, where the tuning was off by a large degree, so as with all things about "there are no rules" the full sentence should be "there are no rules except does it sound good"
 
bandcoach said:
agreed - however, we have heard some examples of wrong recently in a major release track, where the tuning was off by a large degree, so as with all things about "there are no rules" the full sentence should be "there are no rules except does it sound good"
Click to expand...

Agreed! Too many newbies get caught up in the technicalities and forget about the only "rule" that actually matters :)
 
nice chart for the root and 5ths, will be trying this out some more

agree with making your own kicks on synths, ive tried it a couple times and can see it isnt as hard as i first thought

bandcoach said:
agreed - however, we have heard some examples of wrong recently in a major release track, where the tuning was off by a large degree
Click to expand...

which track was this? im intrigued!
 
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