Mixing Trap Kicks To Sound HUGE

Wallengard said:
Eeeeh no?! That's not going to make anything sound HUGE!
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actually going mono will remove/bury spurious stereo information in the sample and allow you to actually give the sound a specific location in the stereo spread by using other tricks like subtle reverb, short one shot delays and some creative eq

the other single word would be dynamics
 
bandcoach said:
actually going mono will remove/bury spurious stereo information in the sample and allow you to actually give the sound a specific location in the stereo spread by using other tricks like subtle reverb, short one shot delays and some creative eq

the other single word would be dynamics
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I agree w/ Bandcoach.
 
And if there is no stereo information in the sample to begin with? Every single technique here could be mentioned as a single word..

@BrightLen, of course you do.


I will wait and see if the OP comes back after a while with the results of his bass drum being put in mono. I have never contested the idea of putting your drums in mono, I do it all the time and I think everyone should. But I can't see how it's going to do what you say it will. Honestly this whole conversation has made me feel like I'm dreaming and I think it's because we don't understand each other.
 
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Fuadm said:
2) Top end (attack) - this is so extremely important..
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If I may add to this: You are going to get that kicks' lowend replaced by the sub/808. The 'bigger' the kick sounds is how much body & top-end is being received. You don't necessarily have to be concerned w/how you mix your kick. Concentrate on layering a decent body of a kick that compliments the Sub. Hi-pass is all you really need to do, if need be. Then layer it w/some air or click/perc fancy halo stuff.

Just something to consider.
 
Ametrine said:
I appreciate the explanation, and I'll say I 100% agree with that. There def isn't an end all be all; I don't really mix that way, but I do tend to put my low end in mono when it comes time to start mastering. I do think doing that usually does make a mix as a whole sound tighter.

To answer the OP's original question, it also depends on the genre you're in. A huge kick in hip hop might mean a heavy one with lot of subs (and hittin hard at 50hz), while a huge house kick might hit a lot higher (100hz+, with a lot of mids and highs).

Anyway, I was mislead before because your first post seemed to suggest just putting it in mono was the solution, which was why I commented. With that said, I guess I don't really understand your comments toward Wallengard because you're both technically saying the same thing.
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I refuse to be confused...While BrightLen has finally explained that setting your kicks in mono is a step in the right direction, what's this about putting low end in mono in or at the mastering stage? Please expatiate...
 
@tod, Yeah,
A lot of people will mono everything below a certain freq in final mix/master stages...
Afaik, it is mostly just to make it work better on mono systems like in clubs, but it does help in placing stuff in a mix like bandcoach mentioned.
Its done "again" in the final stages to catch everything. Some stereo info might creep in the low end from a reverb or delay or whatever and mono-izing the final mix or on the master catches everything.
 
This isn't a big kick... and pretty much untreated.

Trap, just use untreated 808's pretty much... don't compress them, that'll just flatten them. Rather use saturators, tube amps etc, to get a bit of fuzz.

Or go wild and make your own sub-kicks using a synth like Massive for more original sounds. Massive is a trapman's best friend really.
 
1. Often kicks that are sampled, have a full potential and quality.
2. Try layering (using) couple kicks, and play with the beginning and sound of each kick and reach the maximum of it. Record this kick as "your" kick for the track. (some kicks have that punchy part, you can use this effectively).
3. Do not eq and compress that much but sidechain your sub and leads to the kick so the kick is better to hear.
4. You can saturate it but do this carefully since it may lead to negative results. (Also see the reaction of ' localspace ' here above).
5. Again don't override the limit otherwise your kick will not sound the same on every system. I try to use the full potential of the kick and make it able to be represented well on any system.
6. Always make your kick mono, I do this by using the utility tool in Ableton and drop the "wideness" to 0%.

This is what I mostly do when "creating" kicks for my tracks.
 
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