Kick

Operator kick from scratch (pitch envelope technique)

The canonical synthesized kick. One sine, pitch envelope with a fast decay, amp envelope with no sustain. Learn this and every other recipe is a variation.

1. Load Operator. Osc A Sine, Level 0 dB, Coarse 1. Oscillators B–D off. Voices 1, Retrigger on (every hit restarts from phase 0 so the attack is consistent).
2. Osc A envelope: Attack 0 ms, Decay 250 ms, Sustain −inf, Release 50 ms. Release only matters if the note is shorter than the decay; write 1/16 notes and the release will truncate the tail, so for a free-running tail set Release equal to Decay.
3. Pitch envelope (the Pitch section in Operator’s global shell): Amount +100%, with the envelope Initial at +36 st, Peak at +36, Decay 40–60 ms to 0 st, Sustain 0. The initial level is the "pitch start"; 3 octaves above the resting pitch gives a hard click, 1 octave gives a softer thump.
4. Play C0 (32.7 Hz) and tune with Transpose or Coarse. For a 50 Hz tail play G0 (49 Hz) or set Transpose so C0 lands there.
5. Pitch envelope decay is the character knob: 20 ms = tight and clicky (hard techno), 40 ms = punchy (techno/house), 100+ ms = boomy 808-style drop.
6. Saturator Analog Clip, Drive 4–8 dB, to clip the first cycle and add a harmonic edge. EQ Eight: high-pass 30 Hz, bell −4 dB at 350 Hz Q 1.2 to remove the boxy region, optional +2 dB shelf at 4 kHz for click.

Variations: Osc B as a sine at Coarse 1 modulating A with a fast-decay envelope (B level −20 dB, decay 15 ms) for FM click instead of a noise layer; Osc A Square with the filter low-pass at 120 Hz for a woodier tone.

Analog kick (two oscillators, filter drive)

Analog’s pitch envelope and filter drive give a rounder, more "analogue" kick than Operator; two oscillators let you tune a body an octave up.

1. Load Analog. Osc 1: Sine, Octave −1 so C2 plays around 65 Hz; tune to taste. Osc 2 off for now.
2. Osc 1 pitch envelope: in the oscillator section set Pitch Env amount to +48 st and envelope time (the pitch env decay) around 30 ms. Analog’s pitch envelope is a simple decay-to-zero, which is exactly what a kick wants.
3. Filter 1: LP 24, cutoff around 300 Hz, resonance 10%, Drive on at a moderate setting (the filter drive section adds analogue-style saturation inside the filter). Filter envelope: amount +30, decay 60 ms, so the cutoff opens for the attack and closes.
4. Amp 1 envelope: A 0, D 200 ms, S 0, R 100 ms. Exponential slope in the envelope display if offered.
5. Optional Osc 2: Square, Octave +1, level −20 dB, same pitch envelope, through Filter 2 low-passed at 800 Hz, for a woody "knock" layer tuned an octave above the fundamental.
6. Drum Buss after: Drive 20%, Crunch 10%, Transients +30%, Boom off.

Drift kick (envelope 2 to pitch, filter drive)

Drift’s mod matrix makes a kick in about ten seconds, and its MS2 filter drive gives a soft saturation that sits perfectly in dub and deep techno.

1. Load Drift. Osc 1 Sine. Osc 2 off, Noise 0. Voice mode Mono, Legato off.
2. Envelope 1 (amp): A 0, D 220 ms, S 0, R 80 ms.
3. Envelope 2: A 0, D 50 ms, S 0. In the mod matrix, route Env 2 to Pitch with amount around +40 st (the full range of the pitch target is wide; dial it until the start of the hit is a clear click-chirp).
4. Filter: MS2 low-pass, cutoff 250 Hz, resonance 15%, Drive 40%. Route Env 2 to filter cutoff at +30% so the filter opens at the hit.
5. Drift amount 0 (a kick with drifting pitch is a problem, not a feature).
6. Saturator Soft Sine 5 dB after. Done.

Variations: Osc 1 Shark Tooth with the filter at 150 Hz for a 909-ish bite; Noise at 10% with Env 2 on the filter for a dusty attack.

Wavetable kick (Distortion tables, Sub osc, MS2 filter)

Wavetable lets you scan through a harmonic-rich table during the pitch drop, so the kick starts bright and ends as a clean sine. The Sub oscillator gives a guaranteed clean fundamental under it.

1. Load Wavetable. Osc 1: category Distortion (or Harmonics), pick a table with a sine at one end. Osc 2 off. Sub on, level −6 dB, Tone 0 (pure sine), Sub oscillator an octave down if the table is played at C2.
2. Mod matrix: Env 2 → Osc 1 Pitch +36 st (and Sub pitch too, so they stay in tune; mapping the global Transpose is simplest). Env 2: A 0, D 40 ms, S 0.
3. Env 3 (or reuse Env 2) → Osc 1 Wave Position, from the bright end to the sine end, amount −100%, decay 80 ms. The spectrum collapses along with the pitch.
4. Filter 1: MS2, LP, cutoff 400 Hz, Drive 30%. Env 2 → filter +40%.
5. Amp env (Env 1): A 0, D 300 ms, S 0, R 60 ms. Unison off. Voices 1 in mono mode.
6. Roar after it: Single stage, Hard shaper, Drive 6–10 dB, post low-pass at 3 kHz. EQ Eight notch at 400 Hz.

Drum Sampler layering (12.1)

Drum Sampler is the fastest layering tool: one pad, one sample, with built-in Sub, Punch, Noise and Ring, so a thin sample becomes a full kick without any extra devices.

1. Drum Rack. On C1, load your body kick into Drum Sampler. Tune with Pitch so the tail reads the key root. Decay to taste. Sub knob 20–40% adds a sine an octave below the detected pitch for guaranteed low end.
2. Make the pad receive from the same note on two more pads: in Drum Rack you can set multiple pads to the same Receive note (pad input note). Load a click sample into pad 2, a room/ambience into pad 3.
3. Click pad: Punch up (it is a transient enhancer on the sample start), high-pass the pad’s filter at 1 kHz, Decay 40 ms.
4. Room pad: low-pass filter at 3 kHz, Decay 300–500 ms, volume −12 to −18 dB. Keep it mono or use Utility width 40% max.
5. Set all three pads to the same Choke group so a retrigger cuts all layers together.
6. Drum Buss on the rack output. Transients +20%, Drive 10%, Boom at the tail pitch if the sub still needs help.

Transient + body layering in Simpler / Sampler

Classic two-layer kick: a sampled transient (first 30 ms of a 909 or an acoustic kick) on top of a synthesized or sampled body. Simpler One-Shot mode with a fade-out gives precise control over how much transient you take.

1. Instrument Rack, two chains. Chain 1 "Transient": Simpler in One-Shot mode, Warp off, start at the sample start, end marker at 25–40 ms, Fade Out 5–10 ms. Filter high-pass 300–500 Hz so the transient brings no low end.
2. Chain 2 "Body": the Operator kick recipe, or a sampled body with its own transient trimmed off (start marker 5–10 ms in, with a 2 ms fade-in).
3. Align them. Put Align Delay on one chain and offset by 0–3 ms until the sum is loudest and the waveform does not show cancellation in the first cycle (see phase alignment below).
4. Glue Compressor across the rack output: 4:1, attack 1 ms, release 100 ms, 3 dB gain reduction. This glues the two layers into one event.
5. In Sampler instead of Simpler you get zones: put a tight transient on velocity 100–127 and a softer one on 1–99 for a kick that changes click with velocity.

Techno rumble kick (the "rumble bus")

The rolling low-end carpet under a techno kick is not part of the kick: it is a send. Reverb on the kick, low-passed, saturated, then sidechained to the dry kick so it ducks when the kick hits and swells in between.

1. Create a return track "Rumble". Send the kick to it at −6 dB (post-fader is fine).
2. Hybrid Reverb: algorithm Dark Hall or Tides, Decay 0.8–2 s, Size large, pre-delay 0, Dry/Wet 100%. Low-pass the reverb’s own EQ as well if you like. Alternatively the Convolution side with a large room IR, blend 50/50.
3. EQ Eight: high-pass 35 Hz (the rumble must not go below the kick tail), low-pass 24 dB/oct at 150–250 Hz. The rumble is a low-mid wash, not a sub.
4. Saturator Analog Clip or Roar Diode, Drive 10–15 dB. The distortion creates the "grinding" texture; the reverb tail is now a sustained tone cluster.
5. Compressor with sidechain from the dry kick: Ratio 8:1 or higher, Attack 0.3–1 ms, Release 100–180 ms, enough threshold for 8–12 dB of gain reduction. The rumble disappears on the kick and breathes back between hits at the tempo.
6. Utility: mono, level so the rumble is 8–14 dB under the kick. In a break, automate the send up and the compressor off and it becomes a drone.

Variations: Echo instead of reverb, 1/8 dotted with feedback 60% and the Reverb section on, for a dub-techno rumble that is rhythmic; Spectral Time in Freeze mode, retriggered by the kick, for an industrial sustained smear. See deep techno and industrial techno.

909 and 808-style kicks (synthesized)

The two reference kicks. 909: short, clicky, a filtered pulse hit on a sine with a fast pitch drop. 808: a sine with a slow pitch drop, long decay, and almost no click, basically a tuned bass note. Both come out of the Operator recipe by changing four numbers.

1. For the 909 click, enable Osc B as Square, Coarse 2, Level −12 dB, Osc B envelope decay 8 ms. Use an algorithm where B is an additive (parallel) oscillator, not a modulator, so it adds rather than FMs.
2. For the 808, see the 808 page for the full melodic treatment; as a kick it is the same patch with no pitch tracking and a fixed note.

Distorted hardcore / industrial kick (Roar, Saturator, Pedal, Overdrive)

A distorted kick is a clean kick whose tail has been clipped into a square wave. The long tail becomes a pitched tone, so the kick plays the bassline. Different distortions give very different tails.

1. Start with a long kick: Operator sine, amp decay 350–500 ms, pitch start +24 st, pitch decay 50–70 ms. The longer the tail, the more of it becomes tone after clipping.
2. EQ before the distortion: a +6 dB bell at the tail frequency (80 Hz region) so the clipper hits the tail harder than the click. What you boost before a clipper is what it squares off.
3. Pedal: Fuzz mode for gabber (nasty, gated), Overdrive mode for hard techno (rounder). Gain 60–80%, Sub switch on so it keeps low end, Bass +2, Mid −2, Treble −4.
4. Roar Serial: stage 1 Hard (clips), stage 2 Fold (adds the industrial buzz). Post filter low-pass 2–4 kHz. Feedback section off, or 10% for a resonant growl.
5. Overdrive (the classic device) as an alternative: Drive 60%, Tone 30%, Dynamics 0% so it clips hard; its band-pass filter centred at 300 Hz with width wide gives the "hoover-ish" mid.
6. EQ after: high-pass 35 Hz 24 dB/oct, notch −6 dB at 400–600 Hz (the clipped tail generates a boxy harmonic there), optional +3 dB shelf at 5 kHz.
7. Saturator Digital Clip at the very end with Soft Clip on for a hard ceiling; gabber kicks are flat-topped.

See hard techno and hardcore and saturation and distortion.

Click layers (Noise + Erosion / Corpus)

The click is what makes a kick audible on a phone and what makes it cut through a wall of hats. Synthesized clicks are more controllable than sampled transients and never phase-fight the body.

1. Operator: Osc A Noise, Level −6 dB, envelope A 0, D 4–10 ms, S −inf. Operator’s filter: high-pass 800 Hz–2 kHz, or band-pass at 3 kHz with some resonance for a pitched "tick".
2. Erosion after: mode Noise or Wide Noise, frequency 2–5 kHz, Amount 30–60%. Erosion modulates the signal with filtered noise, which roughens the click and makes it less "digital".
3. Corpus optional: resonator type Membrane or Plate, Decay very short (10–30 ms), Tune to the kick fundamental’s octave (say 2 octaves up), Dry/Wet 40%. The click now has a pitched ring that matches the kick.
4. Layer under the body as a separate chain or Drum Rack pad, −8 to −14 dB relative to the body. High-pass at 800 Hz so it contributes nothing below.
5. Alternative: Osc B sine at Coarse 8 with 4 ms decay modulating A (FM click) gives a pitched click that tracks the kick note automatically.

Kick and sub relationship

Two models: the kick owns the low end and the sub fills around it (techno, house), or the sub owns the low end and the kick is a short punch on top (dubstep, trap, DnB). Decide, then build both to match.

1. Model A, kick owns low end: kick tail long (250–400 ms), tuned to the root. Sub plays the off-beats and high-passes slightly higher (35–40 Hz). Sub ducks 4–6 dB under the kick. Deep techno, house.
2. Model B, sub owns low end: kick tail short (100–150 ms), high-passed at 40–50 Hz so it has body but no sub, with a strong click. Sub sustains, ducked 6–10 dB under each kick with a fast release. Dubstep, trap, DnB.
3. In both: tune both to the same note or a fifth. Spectrum on the master, 8192 FFT, slow averaging: the two should produce one peak, not two.
4. Check mono. Check with the sub muted, then the kick muted; the remaining element should still have a clear low end on its own in model A, and in model B the kick alone should sound thin (that is correct).

More in sub bass and sidechain and ducking.

Phase alignment of layers with Align Delay

Two layers with low-frequency content that start a fraction of a millisecond apart cancel each other at some frequency. Align Delay shifts one layer by samples, milliseconds or metres and fixes it precisely.

1. Put Align Delay on the layer chain (not the body). Mode: milliseconds (or samples for finer steps). Start at 0.
2. Loop a single kick hit. Watch the rack output on Spectrum at the tail frequency and on a peak meter.
3. Sweep Align Delay from 0 to 3 ms in 0.1 ms steps. The sum peak and the low-frequency level will rise and fall. Stop at the maximum.
4. If the maximum is at 0 but the waveform still looks like the two layers’ first cycles oppose, invert one with Utility Phase Invert (left and right both) and re-sweep.
5. Freeze/Flatten or Bounce in Place (12.2) the result; a layered kick should become one audio file so it can be sliced and reversed without the alignment drifting.

Transient design with Drum Buss

Drum Buss is five kick tools in one box: Drive (saturation), Crunch (high-frequency distortion), Transients (attack boost or softening), Boom (a tuned resonant low-frequency generator) and Damp (low-pass). On a single kick it is usually all you need.

Full transient-shaping options including Multiband Dynamics in transient design.

EQ curves for a kick

There is a standard kick EQ shape. It changes by genre only in where the body peak sits and how much of the 200–600 Hz region to carve.

1. High-pass 24 dB/oct at 25–35 Hz (techno) or 40–50 Hz (when the sub owns the low end).
2. A narrow boost (+1 to +3 dB, Q 1.2–2) at the tail fundamental. Only if the kick needs it; a well-tuned Operator kick does not.
3. Cut 250–500 Hz by 3–6 dB with Q 1–1.5. This is the "box" region; almost every sampled kick has too much of it.
4. Click: +2 dB bell at 2.5–4 kHz, or a high shelf, if the kick is not cutting through hats.
5. Low-pass 12 dB/oct at 10–14 kHz; a kick has nothing useful up there and it keeps the Drive fizz out of the cymbals.
6. EQ Eight in Oversampling mode when the kick is going into distortion next; EQ before distortion in Mid/Side mode is pointless since the kick is mono.

Deeper in EQ strategies.