Kick & Sub Key relationship to Melody Key

D

Dylan_KL

New member
Hi guys,

Quick question about "kick & sub" key and its relationship with the melody key.

For example, a melody is in Fm. Which key the kick and sub should be in? Major G#/Ab?

Is there a general rule about matching kick & sub key and melody key?

Thank you for your help.
 
Kick should be either the 1st or 5th degree of your scale so either F or C in your scenario. The Sub usually plays the tonic note of whichever chord is playing for that bar. The sub, underneath the bass, will determine the key of your chords and indirectly your melody. So if your melody is based on a 4 chord progression that goes F > D > Bb > C for 4 bars, then your sub would be playing a sustained note 1 bar long under each chord going F > D > Bb > C..

Thats the most basic way of doing it.
 
I'd actually argue that if you are going to tune your kick you should be using the current bass note as the tuning reference so that it sits well with that bass note rather than an arbitrary scale based tone that may or may not appear in the bassline at all

- the oldschool rock mantra was kick is tuned to the tonic of the home scale snare to the 5th and toms tuned as 8ve, 5th, and 3rd
 
Matching a kick with a sub is all about using your ears and pitching the kick sample up or down until they glue together nicely, but a good start is setting the kick to the same pitch as the sub and take it from there.
The final sound of the kick and sub should at least be in the same scale as the root note of the track (depending on the genre of course), preferably use obvious keys in the scale such as the root note simply, or the 5th, etc.
But in the end it's all about what the track needs. The concept of the key of the kick in context with the key of the track is that the kick will get invoved in the final bassline of the entire track, and if you use another key on the kick than the rootnote the bass will jump between different keys - and sometimes this will sound awesome, and sometimes not.
 
bandcoach said:
I'd actually argue that if you are going to tune your kick you should be using the current bass note as the tuning reference so that it sits well with that bass note rather than an arbitrary scale based tone that may or may not appear in the bassline at all

- the oldschool rock mantra was kick is tuned to the tonic of the home scale snare to the 5th and toms tuned as 8ve, 5th, and 3rd
Click to expand...

But then your kick is changing based on your bass note. In dance music anyway you want to keep your kick constant generally. Let the sub follow the bassline and let the kick keep the groove going. Different for every genre obviously though so theres no point in debating about it.
 
Unless you're using a kick with a long decay, like an 808, it really doesn't matter much, if at all. A short stabby kick can be any note, regardless of the key of the song, and it will work just fine.

If you are using something like an 808, or any other drum that has a decay in which the pitch is detectable, it's best to make it work with the rest of the track.
 
You can change whatever key your kicks are in on the "Kick Synth" plugin by Nicky romero. :) I would recommend it to any who is trying to make a new kick drum and stuff.
 
If i am making music by myself and mixing it in my DAW is it better for me to transpose all my melodies to kick or is it better to pitch kick to my root scale note?

I mean for example my root key is A.

But my kick (sample) has 49Hz the most louder freq, so its note G.

Its ok to transpose my melodies to G root note to fit with the kick?
 
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