4x4 kick hat

goomba · Post by **goomba** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:07 pm

basic question..i always have trouble fitting in my 808 kick drum and hats the volume always goes to red when i play all the other elements on top. whats the simplest way to fix this with out having to turn the volume down.

goomba · Post by **goomba** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:14 pm

im using ableton. i know this is preety basic stuff. but i always compress the my kicks and they never sound clean. they always sound like they are being drowned by the hats and melodies

lcvl · Post by **lcvl** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:43 pm

you already know the answer.
just turn the volume down.
why wouldn't you want to do that?

AK · Post by AK » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:58 pm

Keep your levels a lot lower, turn your monitor up. No reason to get anywhere near the red. For the kick disappearing, you could try a number of things:

Enhance the top end so the transient cuts through the mix.
Subtle sidechaining everything via the kick.
Re-pitch the kick.

Could even be that the kick is just too low - another reason not to go near the red because if you turn the gain on the kick up everything starts to clip and you have to start messing around with the levels of everything. Keep plenty of headroom and you'll have lots of space to experiment with levels.

Opuswerk · Post by **Opuswerk** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 8:59 pm

Turn the volume of all channels down ?

On a second note, do you know why you're compressing your kick ?

vinnie pine · Post by **vinnie pine** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:00 am

how bassy is your kick, too much at the low end can swamp the whole track, sometimes a hipass filter or eq to remove the verry lowest frequencies can help. and always compress it.

goomba · Post by **goomba** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:05 am

its just a 808 sampled kick.. but when i turn down all the levels the trqack doesnt sound so good.
"Enhance the top end so the transient cuts through the mix."
how do i do that?

"Re-pitch the kick." i have tried this.. it changes the sound of the kick leaving it sounding muddy or the frequency is to high and sounds terrible

AK · Post by AK » Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:46 am

goomba wrote:its just a 808 sampled kick.. but when i turn down all the levels the trqack doesnt sound so good.
"Enhance the top end so the transient cuts through the mix."
how do i do that?

"Re-pitch the kick." i have tried this.. it changes the sound of the kick leaving it sounding muddy or the frequency is to high and sounds terrible

That's just placebo, turn up the monitors instead. Hard to say what's up with your kick but you can sometimes just enhance the top end of them by using something like BBE Sonic Maximizer or a good EQ if it just needs pulling up to poke through the mix a bit.

Some people use NY or parallel compression to pull the kick through a bit as well - I don't bother with that personally but you can do it with a compressor with a dry/wet knob or by sticking a compressor on a send. Hit the compressor hard so you get a lot of attack, then just allow a little f the signal through. Something worth trying anyways.