Create Kick Drum Sounds in Tune

When choosing the right kick drum for your track, sometimes you get lucky by randomly picking a sample that immediately sits well with the bass and other rhythmic elements in the mix. But more often than not, various equalizers, compressors, and other processing tools can't help you achieve the desired low-end mix. The good news is that you can change the tuning of most drum samples. In this tutorial, we will go through this process.  

Tune It Up

A good starting point that can help you determine the base key of the kick is a spectrum analyzer like SPAN by Voxengo. First and foremost, I will find a sample of a proper-sounding kick and import it into a project. I have already made a basic setup with the bass and other rhythm elements.

Now, let's hear how the unprocessed kick sample sounds. Firstly, with the bass and then with the bass and rhythm together.

~Unprocessed Kick Drum and Bass

~Unprocessed Kick Drum, Bass, and Rhythm

The mix between the kick drum and other elements is not good. The kick has punch and some decent low-end, but it is not in the mix. In order to fix this, I will open a new instance of Battery 4 by Native Instruments and drag and drop our sample into a new cell. The part of the interface marked red will be the section I will pay attention to while tuning the kick drum.

The Amount parameter sets the degree to which the envelope affects the pitch. The Decay parameter edits the time needed for the envelope to go from its initial level. The pitch parameter will translate the input velocity to semitones (with an underlying minimum value of 0 st. and a maximum value of +12 st.). I would advise you to trust your ears and speakers to tune the kick drum properly from this point. Checking the spectrum analyzer too often could confuse you instead of helping you. So, after experimenting with the values of the three parameters I have described in the upper section, our kick, together with the bass, sounds like this:

~Tuned Kick Drum and Bass  

Tweaking the Kick to Perfection

We are on the right path now, but I am still not totally satisfied with how it sounds. For this reason, I will process it further with a built-in equalizer and compressor found in Battery 4. Too much energy exists in the low and mid part of the frequency spectrum so I will attenuate it for a couple of decibels. Furthermore, I will use the compressor to make a final polish.  

Finally, let us hear how the tuned kicks sound with the bass and other elements in the mix.

~Tuned and Processed Kick Drum and Bass

~Tuned and Processed Kick Drum, Bass and Rhythm