It’s human nature to come at this from your own production window, but please remember that there is enormous variety in music production. We are here to cover everyone, not just a small slice of club music production. All live bass parts have random phase, all owners of older Moogs (that have no phase re-trigger), all owners of every new Behringer synth, every Roland Cloud user, and the users of the synths and patches that do not re-trigger phase (90%) face this issue every single day. So let’s now say you do re-trigger the oscillator phase so you can later lock them - now your kick drum is making production decisions on your bass sound - This is not how it should be. You now use a scope to shift it and align it - now your kick is making groove decisions on your bass part. This is definitely not right. If your bassline is anything more than an off-beat pulse (hard quantised), you will have to do the same to every single additional beat position within the bar your bassline occupies, as phase is a function of time. Also now, you may find any other notes you want to use slightly weaker, as phase interactions are synergistic, and the positive phase you have carefully engineered can even modulate levels as well as weaken the other notes. Also, you are potentially creating one long subsonic drone that, in the wrong-sized venue, will just create a horrific set of standing waves (seen this a few times). And even after all of this, during mixing or later in production, if you apply any of 95% of EQs that are not phase-linear to either the kick or the bass and EQ below 100 Hz, you will change the phase of that part, and you will have to start all of your alignment again, note by note, beat by beat. The same goes for many distortions and harmonic generators. Lastly, many plugins do not send the DAW the correct latency values, and even a few samples is enough to break all of the phase work you’ve done. Let me be very, very clear - you do not need to go through any of this. Just forget this entire, flawed, and dangerous concept. Get some form of monitoring that will go down to under 30 Hz (sub or a really decent set of headphones - I have a pair of Focal Clear MG Pros that can reach 5 Hz) and use your ears. We cannot hear pitch below about G1 - it’s because we cannot vocalise notes that low. There is no need. To humans, everything becomes beating waves, not harmony anymore, and it’s the reason for all the “your 808 is out of tune” memes - we cannot hear the pitches anymore, and it’s why the TR-909 kick has been so massively successful. It’s tuned to a note from the factory about 40 cents sharp of the nearest note of a Western equal-tempered scale. This will undoubtedly be the reason it’s worked so well on tracks across every key imaginable. You only have to detune things a touch down in the subsonics for the phase issues to disappear, and it’s why you should tweak the tuning of your kicks, not hard-tune them to a note. One last point - heavy sidechaining is already an unfashionable sound in some genres - this is the inevitable march of production fashions. As you can see, I’ve been through all of this on multiple threads here - I’m a fully trained engineer from the last era of major studios in London, not a YT random, and I can say hand on my heart - if you dump all of this ridiculously complex procedure of hard-tuning and just find/make some great kicks, then tweak the length of them to make them as short as possible for your preferred genre, you’ll be amazed at how much more productive you can be. A friend didn’t believe all of this, so the other month I downloaded the entire Beatport Top 10. This included work from artists that swore they used keyed kicks. Using Vision 4X from Excite Audio, we could see that not a single track had a kick hard-tuned to the prominent note of the track. The reason - if you do the same to the myriad of commercially available kicks with keys in their file names, you will find that less than 5% are actually labelled correctly - even in the biggest packs out there. Why? - people often look at plugins like KICK 2 (now 3) and think the dots on the pitch curve are actual pitch values, but they are actually breakpoints on a pitch envelope where the pitch of the kick tail is constantly in motion - this means the pitch is a vector (a value in motion) and is not ever at a single pitch. Also, producers of sample packs often throw things through Mixed In Key - this is designed for full tracks, and given the power in the subsonic area of our audio, it’s tuned to look at higher notes as it would get distracted (and the designers know kicks are often way away from a Western scaled note). This means it gives results based on upper harmonics and not the fundamental. Mixed In Key always gives a result, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Now - what’s interesting is that a load of us, including the best stem mastering house in the UK - Wired Masters - have all found that kicks with a tail that dives downwards slightly are often the best - they can have real magic. There’s a good reason - as their pitch is in motion, it cannot cause the kind of phase issues a kick with a static tail has. I’ve even found that adding a tiny touch of pitch bend to the tail of a kick in a transient-friendly sampler (MPC, my weapon of choice) can help a kick that’s nearly there instantly bed in. I encourage everyone to make their lives simple. Putting your kick in the precise place that causes the most phase issues and then working constantly to fix everything is not simple - I have in the past described it as placing a landmine under your lawn and then asking your family to avoid it constantly ) You have to be aware and consider constantly every single thing that could screw your hard work on phase alignment up, and that is mental space you should be spending on the music. DJs, clubbers, and labels will forgive the engineering. They will not forgive the art.

@@F9Audio Thank you for taking the time to give a well reasoned and well explained response, really appreciated. What you say does make sense. I haev been veering towards using non-root kicks recently anyway as some have said to use 3rd or 5th notes instead and it seemed to work better for me the couple of times I tried it. Perhaps what you're saying is part of the reason for this?

Thank you - the UK agreed - it was the main radio edit that took it to Number 1 nationally here - amazing times

This is an interesting topic with a more nuanced answer than it might seem at first. The effect will only impact the initial transient of a sound. For a percussive sound, this may be pronounced, but for sounds with longer sustaining tails, only the initial attack will experience a gain. Thus, the overall RMS level may not change significantly. So, why would you want to do this in the first place? Modern mixing often involves controlled distortion. With limiters, clippers, and dynamics processing at various stages, we’re constantly elevating the power and presence of individual sounds. However, there are times when you need certain sounds to "poke through." This is why transient processors are so popular-they let you enhance the initial attack of a sound, which the human ear is particularly attuned to. When we reassembled our F9 kit, I was struck by how similar the decay tails of kick drums looked compared to their transients. It seems that the brain interprets the essence of a sound within the first 100 milliseconds, almost as if it’s primed to look for the next sound instead of focusing on the decay. Mastering transient processing can elevate productions to an impressive level by capitalizing on this phenomenon. Modern mixes often encounter limiting at multiple stages, so understanding how to hit these limiters with particular sounds is crucial. Although the peak volume might increase momentarily, it will likely be compressed downstream. This technique is entirely free and available to anyone using Ableton 11 or later, making it a valuable addition to your toolkit. Of course, this won’t work for everyone. After 25 years in this field, I’ve realized that each person hears sounds slightly differently. It’s essential to understand how individual your perception is. For example, I compare it to video games-I struggle with fast-paced games because my hand-eye coordination isn’t as quick as others. Similarly, I prefer slower compressor times, while other engineers I know gravitate toward fast attack and release times, which don’t seem to work as well for me. In short, treat this as an experiment to see if it resonates with your workflow. If it doesn’t work for you, you’re not doing anything wrong-just set it aside. But if it enhances your production, it’s knowledge you can rely on going forward. As for level compensation, simply adjust the output afterward. Nearly every plugin these days includes an output control. In Ableton, any plugin in a chain can be grouped, allowing you to adjust the group’s output to compensate. Personally, I prefer a slight gain increase while processing, but I know others prefer to keep levels consistently rebalanced. This individuality in approach should be celebrated. As always in audio and mixing-do what feels right for you and serves your music best.

@@F9Audio What a fantastic reply, especially early in the AM ha. Final Q, would you also use this to soften transients if needed too? Thanks again. PS new guitar pack is great as usual

Yes absolutely ! _ try it on anything, not just again ! ... send a vocal sidechain to a synth buss and use it to duck out some 3-6Khz making some room for your vox to cut through

We’ve included it in this release Ron - Trying to do that going forward

Hi Joe - We try to add as many tricks and tips to all of the product videos. In terms of individuality, your best bet is to learn to mangle and re-edit audio. Please don't forget that a lot of our releases are template based so it's midi-triggering multisampled instruments - you are then in free reign to make your own parts

Thank you ! ... ever so please with this one and for Robin too as we put a lot into this

How about the content of the video ?

Thank you Guys - means the world

Ws just editing one of the live hi hat recordings this morning !

We created a Logic project with all the Logic patches in place for this purpose - The Apple Loops will have to go across manually as well as the loops but the instruments are perfect for use

Hi - Could you email us ? - the classic house pack has Keyrgoup instruments inside meaning the patches are set to run all across a midi keyboard - there is no need to do what you are saying ... [email protected]

It works a treat Chris - also resets you a little bit mentally

You’ll run into major phase issues depending on the process and the band splitter - Best to use a dedicated tool but sometimes the phase shift might be just the ticket Logic does not have a band splitter that’s simple to set up but to can be done with multiple channels - again you must watch phase

I've neever started a project without this pack - so proud of it ... V2 in the works and will use Spatial audio techniques - loving it so far

@@F9Audio Sweet! Really looking forward to V2. Meanwhile, Will dig into 1.5. If you use it all the time in your projects, that’s really saying something.

Thank you Thomas .. more coming !!

@@F9Audio looking forward to it 😀

So glad it’s helpful this is a really emotive topic and if you scroll through some of my replies on the comments you’ll see just how cross people get about all of this as they’re absolutely convinced that they understand everything about this and in so many cases they really don’t I must admit this was a deliberately triggering video as I wanted to know how on earth this fallacy about hard tuning kicks to prominent notes in your record ever came about and I’ve been stunned by what I’d learn answering everybody on these videos. It’s made me realise just how prevalent the Dunning Kruger effect is in engineering knowledge. There’s a top 10 kick drum tips video here as well as an extended video on phase which you could consider the follow-up to this one. I hope they’re useful for you too. I’m mobile at the moment but when I get a minute I’ll link them directly on this comment.

@@F9Audio Thanks! I've watched the one on phase and even shared that video with some friends who play/mix music on their spare time.

More coming ! ... The V3 functionatlity has changed everything in terms of Keygroups - We'll show all end of this year

@@F9Audio awsome , hope it for standalone aswell. Greetings from the netherlands

OK - Let me rephrase that part - "I'm going to engage the phase invert switch on this plug which will actually invert the polarity of the audio signal passing through, which results in a signal that for all intent and purposes appears 180 degrees out of phase to the original" .. For anyone curious about this point - For years, mixing desks, channel strip hardware and more recently plugins have blurred the lines between "phase" switches and polarity inversions ( a perfect example of which is switching the wires over in the terminals of an old Hi-fi Speaker - something that was done accidentally for years in low-end hardware stores and even at stereo system' user's homes, despite clear cable markings ). If you reverse these metaphorical cables, you technically invert the polarity of the audio signal. Audio is an AC signal with a ground ( base ) central state and fluctuations positive or negative from this position ( either as a voltage or a digital number ). Inverting the polarity will invert these movements so what would be a positive move from this base state now becomes negative and vice versa. However, this appears for all intent and purposes identical to a 180-degree phase shift and the resulting audio will react as if it were so. Many suggest that a 180-degree shift IS a polarity switch as viewing phase as circular and measuring in degrees, 180 degrees takes you from one pole to the other, but for others it's heresy. As the KZbin viewer here rightly points out, technically it's a polarity switch I'm using here but that might well confuse you as it's not always how the control is marked or written up ( as shown on this Logic Pro Plugin ) Either way, for the purposes of actually making records, they can be considered interchangeable terms and this is why you will see a variety of terms used in plugins and hardware - Phase Invert - Polarity Invert - ( and used sometimes in the spoken vernacular ) Phase flip, Polarity flip If you do want to impress your producer mates though, always use the term Polarity invert, and chastise anyone using the other terms.

Exactly right - I recently checked the entire Beatport Top 10 and not a single track had it's kick drum tuned to the dominant note of the track's key or chord structure. Many in fact had tails with pitch falls in them ( beautifully shown by excite audio's Vision 4X ) with a fundamental tone moving like this, it never at a single value - many of these actually sounded the best. I think people often view the breakpoints on kick generator plugins as a reference here and that's not the case if there's movement - This and a mixture of sample pack creators zapping kicks through Mixed in Key ( which will always give a (quantised ) result no matter what ) and naming them incorrectly in their packs has caused this whole issue to gain way more traction than it needs. Many Psy Trasnce guys swear by all this and go into ridiculous levels of detail, but most producers don't realise that adding one of the 95% of EQ's that are not phase-linear during mixing to an individual kick or bass element will up-end the phase relationship you've spent ages aligning - None of this needs to happen Phase is so incredibly destructive in the lowest octaves that doing anything to cause a potential issue should be avoided. I always mention the 909 here - everyone from the Roland factory had it's kick tuned about 40 cents away from a western scale note and it's probably why it was so successful in tracks of every single key possible By ear always and then check using metering and other tools,

So gald it was useful . It's an ongoing project with Kicks - Some just have a magic and we're trying to find out why

This is an excellent idea for reference purposes. I don’t think it would work if you swap out the kick and bass though as there will 99% of the time be frequency differences. But to have a pack of samples that only have kick and bass for reference would be brilliant 😎

@@markevansdj Yip, exactly what I meant. A huge pack of 100 kick&Bass wavs with all the additional eq & compression settings in correct order. It would also be useful for effects like reverb and delay. I don't think people have the time to invest in mixing these days with music being a commodity. I imagine having to plant and grow your own coffee beans to make coffee would be hideous! The technical gets in the way of the creative for many and this would be a good compromise.

Believe it or not I had an email suggesting this recently for our 2025 Advanced Tech house release and I’ve just started testing for it - I appears this might be a brilliant concept in general and already we’ve created a basic workflow using negative match Eq functions .. Keep an eye on us with this and I’ll try and keep everyone updated

Good question - a couple of things to be aware of - 95% of the kicks I've now tested since this video are nowhere near the 'Key" label in their filename - and here I mean kicks from some of the biggest names in sample packs in terms of labels and creators. Not only that - even those that are, many are not completely hard-tuned to the exact note - they are sometimes up to 50Cents off - This is why you need to do exactly what you say here and check with your ears - I would even go so far as to remove key labels from packs of kicks so you don't end up with any mental bias at all as if the whole of the kick drum world is so terribly labelled, then we need to ignore the bad information. Many kicks have pitches that fall over time, which means the pitch of the kick is never static ( the pitch is a vector, a moving value ) ... Often these can be the best kicks as they never actually stay at any one pitch - I even emulated this on many of the kicks in our packs as they solved so many issues instantly. If your track is heavy on just one note, I would be surprised / amazed if you ended up picking a kick that was hard-tuned to that exact note as others will create more contrast and punch out better - And always remember - the magic sauce is often the length of the kick tail - Make it as short as you can for your given genre - there's a reason why D&B producers use incredibly short, punchy kicks, it allows all that bass to come through - you'll be amazed at how short you can make a kick for 4/4 music ... I recently went incredibly short for an mix between organic and progressive at 124 bpm and it was joyous to be able to get the synths and bass come through so well Now what is all the labelling happening incorrectly? - I asked a friend who makes sample packs for splice and he told me his methods - One involved passing the kicks through mixed in key - a terrible idea as that app is designed for musical parts, not drums. It also looks at frequencies way above the subsonic 1st harmonic of a modern kick drum so it will pick up on the lesser harmonics in a kick ( of which there will be several ) Another involved using Kick 2 and not understanding that the envelope controls are breakpoints and show just a part of a pitch curve - Whilst you can set Kick 2 up to make static-tailed kicks, most of the presets he was using had tails in motion, yet he thought the breakpoint he was using denoted the pitch - I had to show him the FFT plot from Excite Audio's Vision 4X against a static sinewave till he truly understood Once again - so much noise in this whole field Trust your ears and if you don't have massive monitors and subs, be aware you wont be hearing everything under 45 Hz properly, so invest in some decent headphones - most go all the way down to 10Hz and even below so you can get used to them and check the sub end with them really successfully Good luck - let me know how you get on

@@F9Audio Thanks James. You should win an award for the quickest and most helpful replies.

Thank you Stuart ! , Yes Halion 7 and Sonic 7 really solved a serious issue we had encoding libaries ( encoding - we had in the past gotten through 200 + patches only to find Halion had incorrectly saved them, rendering the whole set un uasable - this got fixed and Halion 7 even included a patch by patch validation system) , so we can now workforward to cover this format regularly

Thank you ! ... having a much needed mellow weekend now - this one was intense by the last week

Thank you - that means a lot to us all

Really enjoyed all the live recording in this - a lot of the Soca Snares in the pack were recorded with one of our 4 hand picked snare drums

@@F9AudioI’ve used it for two of my commissioned productions so far. Overwhelmed with the amount of content you guys have included in there. Top work as always! Looking forward to the instrument pack soon 🙌🏽

Oppps - THANK YOU ! , Just updated the second zip information - there's a really good fun page included with all the loops on too

Thank you ! Alessio, to see comments like this really means the world to us all

Thank you for all your support ! ... Really enjoyed all of this on'es production and salvation studios is a stunning place

That will come next few weeks - Videos eat time up like you wouldnt believe and this project ran over getting all the demo content boucned out for the 3rd zip file - We do have a major project that's slightly late with Akai on for the next few weeks, but we will drop a demonstation video for this soon as we can