Kickdrum EQ'ing

[Stomper]

drums in general needs a very fast decay and most subtractive synths dont have those

i'm sorry but this is nonsense.

most of the sounds including drums that weve been listening to for the last 30 years were made with subtractive synthesis.

i meant to say fast envelopes
but i do think that most all purpose subtractie synths sucks for drums.
personally, i make the kicks with three layers. low end, body and transient. i would never be able to achieve a good result without an exponential decay.

as for kick eq, i learned that a cut in 170-320 and wide bell around 500 give good result to my taste and free up some mid for other instruments.
and some low ct 6/12bd around 30-40 and hc up to 12khz. that changes by source of course.
i usually use transient designer before the eq and tube saturation after.
dont see the purpose of compressor if theres no difference between one kick to the other.

[jessejames]

Different ways of working, folks. I synthesize my kicks and I use EQ and compression liberally. Kick always gets paralleled for me. Maybe even several parallels.

The idea of never using EQ or compression is fine. But not for me. I guess we can chalk this up to me not synthesizing "correctly."

[steevio]

i never EQ or compress a kick, and ive no idea why anyone ever does, if youre synthesizing a kick just make it right in the first place.

have to disagree. there are sounds that simply cannot be achieved without eq. here is a simple example - you have an SH101, but it has only a low pass filter. you make a bass sound but you dont want the low end rumble that comes from closing the filter all the way down. what do you do - you hi-pass/shelf it. this is eq, no? and that is one really simple example.

steevio, i think that you are so used to the way you work (with a hardware mixer), that you simply take eq for granted hehe. did you not say numerous times that you have some channels on your mixer eq'ed for kickdrums and they've been like that for years? imo, people who use hardware often do not realise how much it does for them. i say eq is essential, and it took me a long time to learn that.

youre welcome to disagree mate, is that not what forums are for ? discussion.

however what you say isnt going to change my mind, i've been using an SH101 for bass for many years and in all that time ive never once EQ'd it.
what rumble are you talking about ? if i want to make a bass note of E 42Hz that is the lowest frequency the oscillator will produce for that note, i close down my filter till maybe only the fundamental of 42 and the second harmonic of 84 is audible, and thats my bass, where's the rumble coming from ?, its just two sinewaves, the ones i want to hear in the bass sound. if theres a rumble i'm using the wrong note in the first place. if i use the sub oscillator, i have full control of its volume, this is a precise way of determining what frequencies are heard, unlike EQ.

i can assure that if you look at my mixing desk, every single channel has the EQ button in the up (off) position.
i may have said in the past the thing about the kick EQ, because i only ever used to use a 909 kickdrum, but we are talking about synthesizing kickdrums here, you have no control over how the 909 kick is synthesized, i personally think the 909 kick isn't synthesized particularly well, its good but not perfect by any means.
if you read my post again, i emphasize 'synthesizing'.

i know exactly what EQ does for me as a hardware producer using a hardware mixer, and right now that is - nothing.
i'm not saying i have never ever used EQ in the past, but right now i dont use it at all. when i was a recording engineer, i used it on every instrument in a band, it is absolutely essential to live recording, thats what it was designed for. its also essential for people who use samples, but synthesists no.

[steevio]

EQ and compression is totally unnecessary to make any component of electronic music if you synthesize your sounds correctly, and that takes practice and experience.

i dont see how this is true too. do you set all eq's on your mixer linearly, never boosting or cutting even the slightest? i thought so. doesn't a mixer overdrive, and is this not compression? does the same job nontheless because in a DAW if you boost you would normally use compression afterwards to even the response. you get my thoughtflow.

who can say where synthesis ends? i say EQ and comression are part of synthesis. so yes - synthesize it right!

edit: just to add to that slightly - many analogue synthesizers have slight eq/compression of some sort on the output. so if it's in the box it's synthesis, but if you use outboard - you're not synthesizing anymore? i would expect a more open thinking from someone with a modular setup. btw steevio, i always liked your sound man

i dont even have the EQ's switched in on my mixer. so please dont patronise me with 'thought so'

edit - i lied, i have one EQ switched in, this is for a HH88 808 hithat module, again this synthesis is out of my control, i have no control over how Analogue Solutions synthesized this sound, i'm not synthesizing it myself, and i dont like the sound of it.

no overdrive is not compression, its overdrive. you know what i mean by compression, dont try to twist it round to your argument.
again saying analogue synths have EQ on the output is irrelevant, as you have no control over this. we are talking about we can do with technique as synthesists here, this argument is weak.

and no outboard isnt synthesis, its outboard. you may have noticed that very few analogue synths ( if you know of any, please post ) have a controllable EQ on board. there has usually always been a seperation of the two processes, synthesis and recording process.

its exactly because i now use a totally modular set-up that i have come to the conclusion that EQ isnt necessary at all for me.
as far as i know there is no eurorack modules designed purely for EQ, i have 60+ modules, non of them are EQ modules, and i have never heard of any. if EQ was a major component of synthesis, dont you think there would loads available ?

its my opinion that anyone who thinks that EQ is totally essential to synthesis has not really explored synthesis deeply enough, but thats all it is, my opinion, just as yours is mate.

thank you for the kind words about my sound, you can be assured that no EQ was harmed during its construction

[::BLM::]

its exactly because i now use a totally modular set-up that i have come to the conclusion that EQ isnt necessary at all for me.

Did you use EQ before you had your modular then and making dance music?

You say the 909 kick is not synthesized perfect? What did you do to it then to make it perfect? Did you just leave it how it is?

[steevio]

its exactly because i now use a totally modular set-up that i have come to the conclusion that EQ isnt necessary at all for me.

Did you use EQ before you had your modular then and making dance music?

You say the 909 kick is not synthesized perfect? What did you do to it then to make it perfect? Did you just leave it how it is?

i gradually stopped using EQ as i became more experienced at synthesis, but i used to use EQ to sort out things that i didnt synthesize myself, like 909 kick, 909 snare, 909 hi-hats etc. if i didnt like their sound.
but now that i synthesize everything myself i dont use EQ at all.

this is the point i'm trying to make, i've never said at any point EQ is useless, i'm only saying that if you synthesize your sounds from scratch, you dont need EQ... and that is something that i gradually became aware of with experience, i think in terms of waveforms, harmonics and filters, when the sound comes out of my synth / modules it's exactly how i want it to be.
i dont think software synths should be any different to be honest.

thats how i do it, and i dont mind if people dissagree, but if you buy a steevio record it wont have any EQ or compression on anything, (apart from those damn HH88 hats) i guarantee.

[s.k.]

cool explanation steevio, good to know we're not all thinking the same ways.

to clarify my point a little and get a bit constructive on the topic too - i'm advocating the use of EQ in conjuction with synthesis, and i think it can be a very precise technique if used with knowledge and cleverly.

my main tricks i'm not sharing, but for example one not so obvious way of using EQ for me would be to boost with up to 30dB (yes no typo) at 50Hz with an average Q, and then to run two things through this - a hi-passed kick at around 200Hz, and a bass with a fundamental at about 100Hz. this way the very tall EQ boost provides that low bass sinelike fundamental, while the 100Hz bass plays kinda the role of a harmonic. try it, you may be surprised how it sounds.

these settings will vary with different EQ's and surely with the different waveforms you feed them with. just one way of doing it..., and my 2 cents, respect everyone elses way.

edit: i also find cool to use two equalizers serially. it is not the same to boost 50Hz and 150 Hz with one EQ, and to boost 150Hz on the first EQ and then 50Hz on a second EQ chained after it, this way you are boosting the once already equalized signal... IMO running both kick and bass through similar setups gels them together better...

[s.k.]

about the SH101 thing, i meant this - lets say you filter down a high saw (c4 to c5) with quite a lot of resonance, and set the filter to close quickly all the way down (since the resonance is high, there will be some very low freq's). this way you obtain a quite solid "flap" sound, which contains almost the entire frequency range happening very quickly, but with even volume across the spectrum. a rather obvious eq job would be to boost with a wide-ish Q somewhere in the bass range (50 to 100), and it starts sounding more kickdrum-like. another, narrower Q boost would add a nice sine bass to this. theres no need to even hipass that because the boost makes the 50 to 100 range more prominent so everything below is left with lesser volume.

sure, you can sinthesize the boosted "thump", and the sinewave bass, but chances that phases will lock tightly are slim. in my humble opinion, eq can be mighty fine.