Sonic Academy's Kick 3. Is it still the kick king?

Sonic Academy have finally released the eagerly anticipated update to their kick synth, Kick 3.
I don't like to do too many product reviews back to back but it seems to be kick season so let's take a look at it.
Is it still the kick king or is it now trailing behind the newcomers, Kick Ninja and Audija's Kick Drum?
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[@OMA_Music_Official]

Audija Kickdrum, linear phase eq at the sine source

[@adrenakrohm]

Yes, another useful feature.

[@DaddaPsy]

02:00 very clever way to demonstrate what phase rotation is for people that don't comprehend what it means. Great video man!

[@adrenakrohm]

Thanks man!

[@flatmoontheory]

Kick Ninja is superior IMO. Especially the ability to draw shaping envelopes for the FX section, what a genius feature.

[@adrenakrohm]

I said in one of the comments the best kick synth will be the one that wins the development race and Kick Ninja so far is far ahead there.

[@marceloribeirosimoes8959]

Can we add effects to a click only or vice-versa, to the sine wave only? It would be great to manipulate only the wave we draw and not change the sound of the click sample... ...mostly when we are adding some sort of acoustic texture...

[@adrenakrohm]

Yes effects can be added to any layer.

[@marceloribeirosimoes8959]

@@adrenakrohm NICE! Because in Kick 2 we can only add effect on everything at the same time... ...really frustrating, I must confess.. Thank you for answering me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@cryptout]

At this point I'm a collector of Kick synths 🙂

[@adrenakrohm]

Yep, we're definitely spoilt for choice these days.

[@DaddaPsy]

Regarding side-chain input. I think it can be of interest for those using Kick3 as their drum synth, like for designing snares and such. So if Kick3 is your snare and you want that snare to be side-chained to something else, I can see why you would want a side-chain input in the actual plugin

[@adrenakrohm]

This is where I'm stuck. Usually the big percussive elements (kick, snare etc) are the sidechain trigger rather than the destination. I think I need to think about this more. There must be a reason otherwise it wouldn't be there.

[@DaddaPsy]

@@adrenakrohm I have an idea! Why don't we just write an email ask them? Can't be that hard?

[@maltemassow872]

Its about you can trigger the synthetic kick from kick3 by your acoustic live drum kick while par example playing drums live

[@adrenakrohm]

@maltemassow872 yep it was explained earlier, thanks.

[@mit136speichenumdiewelt]

Thank you for the video. You have now used all 3 kick synths. What is your personal opinion on the 3 if sample import is not the most important thing?

[@adrenakrohm]

To be honest I didn't really want to give a favourite because everybody has their own needs and the perfect one is a mix of all 3. I would like the Kick 3 GUI, the Audija workflow, Kick Ninja sample import (I prefer this over K3), Kick Ninja harmonic mode and envelopes. So essentially my preferred one is going to be whichever develops faster.

[@mit136speichenumdiewelt]

Great answer! It just won't be possible to have a mix of three. For me it's about making a techno kick that will be used in a hardware sampler. I think the RAW version is what I need, no EQ etc. I'll probably try Audija first and if the others raise their prices I'm out anyway.

[@adrenakrohm]

For Techno, at this stage I'd go for Kick Ninja. The harmonic mode and envelopes are fantastic for dirty, gritty kicks.

[@philjohnston1064]

@@adrenakrohmdoes it have a reverb?

[@adrenakrohm]

Not sure if you're asking about Kick 3 or Kick Ninja. K3 yes, KN no.

[@deedeeqee]

Delay is probably there to emulate techno 1/16 rumbles.

[@adrenakrohm]

Yes that's probably true. Ideally though I'd prefer a pre-delay on the reverb in order to not waste an FX slot.

[@fallenleaf24]

I"m with you on the side chain.. I have absolutely no idea on what thats a thing other than it being possible xD

[@philjohnston1064]

As mentioned above it’s for replacing or beefing up kicks from a live recorded drum kit.

[@fallenleaf24]

@@philjohnston1064 thats fair then! & that makes sense!

[@adrenakrohm]

Yes, thanks for the info. I can sleep now 😂

[@BappinProductions]

09:17 I requested in the beta forum (which I recommend you join btw :D) for the editing window to be decoupled so that it can be moved out of the way of the main UI

[@adrenakrohm]

Great, thanks. The last thing I need is yet another Discord group 😅😂

[@BappinProductions]

05:28 you should have watched the official videos from Sonic Academy because they showed the reasoning behind this feature, which is for K3 to be used as a kind of drum replacer plugin. Let's say you have a drum loop, that isn't a simple 4 on the floor kick affair and the kick/lowend is a bit weak, you can design a suitable patch in K3 and then route the loop into the SC, adjust the parameters so that it only triggers on the kicks in the loop and voila, you have a new loop with a nice meaty kick underneath. Not super useful for psytrance granted, but K3 has been designed to solve problems for producers of a wide range of musical styles :)

[@adrenakrohm]

Ah! Thanks for that, it was driving me crazy trying to find a reason. Agreed, not for my use but I can see how it's useful now.

[@fallenleaf24]

I don't have Kick ninja & I don't think ill get it as I don't really being into Psydub, chill, trance, Goa & ambient its really only the import option thats appealing to me. Having played with Kick3 BETA a little while now I think its doing a great Job of replicating the kicks import so because of that its now high on my list. the work flow is much better than 2.. which I ditched for Audija!

[@justinbraveheart26]

I hate the interface, gui and especially the fonts. Same shizzle with the anna vst from them.

[@adrenakrohm]

Which of the kick synth interfaces do you prefer?