5 Tips to Make Your 808 Kick Drum Cut Through The Mix

Creating and fitting the 808 kick drum and other drum sounds in the mix can be a challenging task. This is because the 808 kick drum competes for the same frequency range as the bass and different drum sounds, so it can be rather difficult to blend everything in the mix together. Fortunately, kick drum processing evolved a lot since the birth of the Roland 808 drum machine, so now we have various tools that allow us to shape it in the way we want. Check out the following five tips, which will be of great help if you want to make your 808 kick drum sound big, clear, and punchy.  

1. The Choice of the Right Sample Is Essential
   There is no point in processing something if it has terrible quality. Like an excellent cooking recipe, you should start with the right ingredients. Try to look for samples that are clean and punchy from the start. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of unnecessary time trying to shape them and fit them with the rest of the elements in the mix. Today, there are numerous good-sounding samples in various sample packs, which are a good investment for your money.  
2. Make Some Space for the Kick Drum
   Adding massive amounts of low-end distortion or tape saturation to your 808 kick drum will often make your work even harder, so remember - less is more. It would be best to concentrate on shaping the surrounding sounds around your 808 kick drum. In this way, you will find it easier to cut through the mix and to dominate the sound image in the right way. By doing this, you will give your 808 kick drum room to breathe.  
3. Distortion!
   The kick drum sound usually consists mainly of low frequencies, and therefore, it's a bit tricky to mix it. You can hear it correctly on the prominent speakers and feel its power from the subwoofer, but when it comes to laptop speakers or small earbuds, all that low-end power disappears. Here is where distortion, a trusty ally,  jumps in. With this effect, you can add harmonics that can be heard on small speakers. Consequently, it will also sound good on a massive sound system. However, being reasonable with the amount of distortion is the key.  
4. Pay Attention to the Length
   In many cases, 808 kick drum samples are too long. This results in a muddy mix since the low frequency of the kick is swallowing the whole spectrum. If you are dealing with the 808 kick drum in the sampler as MIDI, pay attention to the decay and release parameters. On the other hand, if you use it as an audio sample, size its length using fade out or even try to automate the volume.  
5. Transients
   If you are layering 808 kick drum with some other kick drum sound, as many producers do, pay special attention to the relation between these sounds. For example, if your standard kick drum has a sharp transient, there is no need for the 808 kick drum to have the same. The first sample will be in charge of the initial punch, while the 808 will tend to have body and sustain. To make a good mix between these two, try to use some of the transient shaper plugins that are widely available. The best option would be to use the one offering multi-band controls. Therefore, you will be able to carve it in the best possible way precisely.