BASS DRUM
Wesen’s ‘warm’ BD settings:
Wesen’s ‘warm’ BD 2 settings:
Strong kicks:
TRX-BD; Dec: 50-59
Pitch: 40-59
Low-pass filtered with a little Q to eliminate the small click on top.
To create strong kicks: * Adjust decay until it’s long as possible that you can get (and want) without clicks.
* Route kick to separate output.
* If you want to adjust tail, use gate on your mixer or ext. efx that closes and opens quickly (assuming your kicks are solid ie. not varying with amplitude from kick to kick). This used to solve the problem with MD’s envelopes having only decay without hold/sustain phase.
* If you want to bring bass back, use compression (put it after gating if you use one). First set attack and release to zero, max ratio (inf) and bring threshold down so that you compress the shit out of the kick.
* Open attack until you get kick attack you want (snappy).
* Open release until you get body you want (boom)
* Set ratio for compression you want
* Set threshold so that gain reduction is able to go to zero dB.
* You might need to go back to MD’s decay at some point in this process so think it as a iterative process.
Alternatively:
1 - Go into the master effects section and do a teeny tiny little boost on the low end.
2 - Then, go to the one labeled “p” and pull it down a bit. Make a medium width q, and sweep it down near the low end to about 200-250hz. Listen to how it clears out headroom for the low frequencies.
3 - Go into the dynamix part and turn the output gain up while lowering the comp threshold.
Compression on individual outputs is what gives me punch; or try the
dynamix with short attack, long release, hard knee, hp set so that the
kick does not over trigger the compressor, threshold and ratio to taste.
Dynamics: 1. First problem was that I was trying to do beats that sound somewhat like what you hear on the records: I was trying to get dynamics of the beat match the finished records. This was wrong from me; I’ve found out that to make good beat, it has to have pretty much more dynamics than what you hear with common records. Kick and the snare needs to have a lot of volume, a lot more than others. Then when you add some basslines, melodies, harmonies (if you do any of those), the kick and snare will settle to be right amount punchy. If you don’t have enough dynamics, kick and snare will drown under other sounds; you lose the punch.
2. Machinedrum gives me a starting point, different from using samples. Usually I put some reverb to whole drum pattern (rounds the kick) and one one-band compressor after it; makes reverb pump a bit and enlivens the drums. What I’m trying to say, that working with Machinedrum is a whole drum production route (with its compressors and reverbs and stuff you might add), unlike using samples (where you can do useful stuff by just making the balance right (other people have done the other work for you)). It is a longer route, but at the end the day when you have mastered it, you can make pretty much anything work.
3. Using trx-kick I used to be in this mindset, that trx-kick needs to be sound right with its machine parameters. I tend to think it’s odd to use for example lpf for it, because the originals didn’t have it. So using the trx-kick with the way I think the original tr-machines were used, I should get good results. This was also wrong thinking of me. Trx-kick will sound a lot more analogue, if you use a lpf on it a bit. Just get the dynamics right and it will work (see number 1). You can experiment a lot, just get the dynamics right in the end.
4. To get good bass end to song does have a lots more than a kick (or even bass). What I mean to say, stuff that sounds shit on it’s own, can and will sound terrific with right material glued on top of it. Then how to find what works and what doesn’t. I just try different things (mainly from mnm), till I get the right one. Then I program it to fine tune it. If I try to program stuff to sound good from the scratch, it tends to sound too weak at the end of the day (night that is).
You can simulate hold/sustain phase using LFOs:
Set your LFO to square and route it to Decay of your BD.
Choose trigger mode Trig and put Depth to max.
Now you have ‘Hold’ for your BD and can set its length by choosing right amount of speed for the Square-LFO.
Chaining:
One way to add some beef to your kick might be to add a GND sin machine and chain it to your kick.
Alternatively you could use two different bd machines, for example trx-bd2 and trx-bd:
Bd2 is lp filtered so only the low boom is heard.
Bd however is hp filtered so you only hear the higher frequencies
Now you have independent control over high and low frequencies / pitch / volume which is great for sculpting your bassdrum into something unique.
\\Pseudo-gatingadrumsound Square LFO on decay with rhythm to taste. Once note has decayed (from square wave),it will not re-open when square wave returns to original phase.
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