Make a Perfect Kick Drum

 

Besides bass, the kick drum defines the backbone of the rhythm in every musical genre. Today's electronic music cannot exist without a solid pumping kick drum, so it is safe to say that the kick drum is a critical element of any dance track. Read the following tutorial and learn how to make a perfect kick drum from scratch.  

Punchbox by D16 Group

The "Punchbox" is an impressive engine with many sophisticated algorithms allowing the user to produce high-quality kick drum sounds. Furthermore, it saves time and energy to make a great kick drum. This is because it possesses everything needed to process the sound. So, in the following tutorial, I will try to give you a closer look at this awesome plugin and guide you through some of its main features.  

Let's Start

I have made a short SoundBridge track that sounds pretty full. However, the kick drum from the main drum loop lacks the energy in the frequencies of the low spectrum. Therefore, I will layer it with a new kick drum from the "Punchbox. " Firstly, let's listen to the whole track.  

~Full track without Punchbox  

Now, let's open a new instance of "Punchbox "and place it on the new MIDI channel within SoundBridge. The default sound sounds excellent, but I will process it further to fit better with the track's other elements.  

~Punchbox - Default sound  

After opening, we can see a genuinely straightforward interface with many sections that can be easily tweaked. The units are set in parallel order. So it is easy to navigate.  

 

Kick Section

In the center of the interface, there is a "Kick" section. Its purpose is to create a solid low end, or the base of the kick drum, if you will. Multiple modes are available to choose between clean sine wave, 606, 808, or 909. You can even load your sample to start with. In this case, I have selected the sine wave. Below are controls for manipulating the signal, and the central part for tuning the kick drum is the middle section with start and end frequencies and sweep time.  

Layering

LET'S MOVE TO LAYERS since I have dealt with the "Kick" section. The layers can be found in the left part of the Punchbox interface, and there are 3 of them marked as "Click, Tops, and Tools. "I will use just one additional layer for this kick drum since it is enough. In the bottom part is a browser where you can choose a sample. Every single layer possesses controls for tuning, decay time, volume, and more, and these controls are genuinely essential for mixing the layers with the base sine wave layer from the "Kick "section. Now, let us hear how all two layers sound solo and together.  

 

~Punchbox - Kick layer

~Punchbox - Tops  layer

~Kick & Tops layers  

Additional Processing

This sound needs more processing so that I will use some of the modules in the right section of the Punchbox interface. To start, I will spice the sound a bit with the Bitcrusher. Moving forward, I will cut some mid and high frequencies with its built-in EQ and boost it with the limiter.  

~Punchbox - Full processed kick drum

~Full track with Punchbox kick drum