Kicks Sound weak! Help!!

A

Afzal

New member
My kicks sound really weak! .. How do I make em sound tighter?
I have Eq'd em. I use 2-3 kicks. But all of them are giving a lil bass-y tough, if you know what I mean.

Please help me out.
 
No EQ will make them better if the source sound (being a mic or a sample) sucks.
Well ok EQ will make it better but you'll never reach your 100% professional sound as you imagine it.

Start with sources. Play with the sources.
If you need to layer things, layer with great sources.

Then proceed with EQ and Compression.

Since your title is "kick weak" I suppose you're asking for more "punch".
Use compressors as 1176 or dbx160 which work greatly for the punch of the drums, with slow attacks and medium to fast release to let punch go through.

You can also use a transient designer as a last resort to add some attack to your drums (kick, snare, toms etc)

But as always try to get the best sound as possible without adding EQs and Compressors first, and "you 'll get there" quicker.

Good luck
 
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Yes! I am talking about more punch. There isn't enough thump in em.

Do you usually add a couple of kicks to get the thumping effect?

When I'm doing that, they're not that effective. They're very bassy.

Will those compressors help the sound? I'm kinda confused!
 
If your layering kick samples then try to use samples that occupy slightly different ranges. The very "bassy" result that you are getting to me sounds that you have layered kicks with a lot of bass in them.

If that's the case, I would pick 1 kick with the best sounding bass and either put a filter or shelf on it to take out a lot of the high and mid range. I'd do the same for kicks with more mid range and higher end sounds in them, except I would instead remove the bass in these kicks. Determine how much you remove by ear.
 
Okay. That clears a lot of my doubts.
Thank you.

Do you have have any links for higher end sounds kicks?
 
Yes, the samples themselves determine the quality of the sound.

But mixing still has its impact.
If I had a kick that I wanted to be punchier and tighter, I'd start by highpassing it with the steepest cutoff possible to remove any rumble and the worst part of that "woof". A gate can also help cutting away the anooying rumbling tail.
I've also discovered I personally often use an EQ boost on that gap between the bass hit and the woof in the kick to make it tighter.
If you lack punch in the kick, try boosting slightly around 200-300 Hz, either it will get better or it will get boxy, and then it doesn't work for that kick.
For even more punch, make sure you have enough power in the transient of the kick.

Also how you deal with the samples is essential. Having a subkick that isn't tight enough and have this annoying woof, why not try pitching in down so the bass attack which often lie around 100 Hz, gets down to 50-70 Hz? Then when you highpass and maybe gate it, the woof disappears completely, and you have a short and tight kick (if that's what you want).
 
Don't get me wrong, i am all for grabbing great sounds off rip but it cracks me up when people say that is the only way to achieve that sound. I mean seriously, how do you think those "better source sounds" got that way? Magic? No, they was processed and created that way.
 
Afzal said:
Yes! I am talking about more punch. There isn't enough thump in em.

Do you usually add a couple of kicks to get the thumping effect?

When I'm doing that, they're not that effective. They're very bassy.

Will those compressors help the sound? I'm kinda confused!
Click to expand...

I prefer to use 1 track for the low end.

1 QUALITY bass-low end track.
If it's hard to control the low end it's even harder to fix it with 2.

But still, that's just me you may be able to use 10 tracks if you wish, if you can make it work, then it works.

I am just a guy that prefers to have as much as quality possible with as less tracks as possible.

Quality Tracks > Quantity Tracks (for me as always)
 
I use FL studio. Is it cool if I increase the channel levels about 100%? Or will the sound get distorted?
 
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