Hard BD (Patch Explained)
You have seen an earlier “Patch Explained” for how to make a Smooth BD (Kick Drum). Let’s try and design a Hard BD without using any external processing. You should have in mind that we’re gonna work on Harmonics injection now.
Oscillator 1 settings
1/ This is the baseline for almost every kick drum patch I write. I really like this way of doing things and I usually reserve OSC1 for it’s feedback capabilities. In this example I am aiming for a hard hitting kick with a level of 75. You should setup this OSC like this and work on the level adjustment for later.
Oscillator 2 settings
2/ This time around instead of using the clean Triangle Filtered let’s starting with a Buzzy Pulse for extra harmonics. What we are looking for is a hard kick here. So let’s go!
AMP Envelope settings
3/ The shape number 3 is very well suited for kick drums, I really like this one. Decay: 53, Sustain: 12, Release: 28
Filters settings
4/ Again this is a similar concept we used for the Smooth BD we made earlier. We used the Peak of the multi-mode filter (F2) to bring some boost like an EQ FRQ: 28,45 and RES: 17 the intensity of the boost is set by the amount of Resonance. (Do you remember the cutoff point? If not, come back too this post on Filters then.)
The removing of frequencies in terms of subtractive synthesis is done by the Ladder filter (F1) FRQ: 52,28 – and as it is a Hard BD (stand for Bass Drum or Kick) We pushed the Overdrive here +24 on mark two (try -24 on mark one)
And Envelope amount, respectively +17 and +9
Filter Envelope settings
5/ We shape the envelope with only a bit of decay: 52 and the shape number 11
Envelope 2 settings
6/ The traditional Pitch modulation for the kick drum sound design is to set PM2 (Meaning Pitch Modulation OSC2) : +26, add some decay: 20 and use the shape number 11
What we can do from there ?
Maybe experiment with separate output for this kick and trying to find some effects pedals chain well suited to shape this sound even more. The more you want a kick drum that is hard and memorable then you will need to add more external processing.
