The Perfect Kick Drum without EQ? (Enhancing Drum Samples)

Sample hunting for Kick Drums is a giant waste of your time and ears. Instead learning the effective use of dynamics processing and saturation can alter the samples you have to suit your mix. There are tools built right into Ableton live that can do this such as Compressor, Multiband dynamics, Saturator, Overdrive, and more.
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00:00 - Intro
1:04 - Compression for Attack
3:58 - Saturator as a Clipper
4:51 - Multiband Dynamics for Attack
7:02 - Overdrive for Flavor
8:24 - Soft Sine Saturation

[@matthewhayter1005]

This is such a good example of what makes Seed to Stage lessons so good and so unique in KZbin land: it's about tools, not 'tricks'.

[@josipvulic5471]

Thant Expansion Trick... not too many people know to use multiband compressor in this way. Great insight for those who want to keep things Simple and Local within Live. Thanks Anthony!

[@druthadude]

Dude. This is some mad genius audio scientist stuff. I sampled a random kick from vinyl and it's amazing what it came out to be. More videos like this please! Kudos.

[@airfixx_8952]

0:05 - Genuine LOL moment!!!! Having a shit day and that cheered me right up! Bless you, Anthony!👊

[@skelhain]

This was desperately needed! The best kick sound I was able to create was my head banging against the wall. Seriously though, it's incredible how much my understanding and appreciation for Live's devices has increased, especially during the Sound Design course. There is not much else a producer needs. The insane hunt for 3rd party plugins is finally over for me. Big thanks!

[@hefsabawatt7393]

WE NEEEED a full Multiband Dynamics Deep Dive!

[@SeedtoStage]

I deep dive every ableton device in my Ableton Courses! seedtostage.com/

[@SHONSL]

This is why I love Seed To Stage. You learn tool fundamentals through applications.

[@Rhekluse]

This video should be called "How to Polish a Turd". Great stuff!

[@bcornels]

Thanks as always for what you do! Can’t wait to dig into this one

[@MP_Soundbox]

I can't believe how much everything you explain in this video transfers to overall understanding of compression and control of dynamics. So enlightening!

[@picas256]

You are the best teacher ever. Thanks for this gems!

[@aearlobe1566]

All your vids are helpful - this one Wow, just what I needed. You Rock!

[@ellyy6568]

I've been reading about Berklee for years and I've read from the students the only good courses to take there are music production courses (which they also offer online). I've thought about it a lot and today I did my due diligence and found a post asking what the best courses were and someone commented and said he had tried ALL of them and listed them out. He said once he got yours it was the last one he ever bought. Me being skeptic because I've never heard of such "youtuber" when I've watched damn near everyone on here I decided to come to this video. I have to say without a doubt this was one of helpful and clear videos I have ever watched on Ableton. You are underrated. 100%. Plus you don't have a funny accent that I'd have to listen to for 100 hours so I might have to snag the package.

[@SeedtoStage]

wowee can you link me to that comment?

[@laurencelstewart]

Honestly the most engaging production tutorial i've seen. Subscribed!

[@kighyuga]

I’ve been waiting for a video like this for a while! All Ableton plugins, nice and simple, thanks so much!

[@spectralcheerio]

you have the single best channel for production knowledge on youtube. thank u ❤

[@felippebueno6046]

truly amazing, man! you're a genius and a hell of a educator. thanks 🙏

[@ghash5158]

Awesome! Another classic Seed to Stage homebrew sound design tutorial.

[@Fuxhoernchen]

Man, this way eye opening! Heartfelt thanks!

[@josueperez4274]

glad I just found this channel, this is the man!

[@RickySweum]

This is unbelievable, WOW! Thank you for teaching this.

[@lateralshiftmusic]

This was crazy!! Totally gonna use these techniques on my kicks from now on, thanks so much !!

[@cinereous88]

Once you have done all your processing i would recommend rendering it out and using fades to further tweak the envelope, all of that dynamics processing tends to add a lot of unwanted tail to your sound

[@mallencolly]

This is one of the most useful videos ive seen on kick drums. Thank you

[@Thayne2222]

Such a rad video. I've made tons of kick samples but never approached it with this workflow (but I'm about to lol). Would love to see a similar vid on snares hats and other percussion processing. Thanks for all you do man!

[@CNTRRNDM]

When you added Overdrive I was like😲🤯

[@oddLavin]

amazing content and didatic as always, thank you so much! I can't wait to see the perfect bass without eq 😆

[@dreamer-1973]

Nice tutorial and explained very clearly, Thank You👍

[@leowalless9328]

Excellent as always! I really liked your careful choice of sample, so that you were able to demonstrate the changes so clearly. Super helpful vid. Thanks :-)

[@leowalless9328]

Oh yeah, and I've been pretty clueless about the ways in which the multi-band compressor can be used, so that was a fantastic expansion of my knowledge

[@Beatamins]

Amazing bro, nice done!!

[@hoptoad5367]

this is so helpful! Thank you for helping my drums hit harder

[@dabboq]

Awesome and really helpful vid! thanks so much

[@jakobgeorgaudio]

Thanks man, this is great knowledge

[@daddelpaj]

This guy knows his stuff! Great video!

[@thetylersherman]

Craaaazy good demo, gain staged from start to finish for proper A/B comparisons... good stuff. Definitely going to be playing with MB Comp a lot more for tonal shaping rather than just defaulting to OTT for everything.

[@PhilippEmilHerrmann]

Thanks, great explanation and a real help!

[@sparkytmp]

Another great video mate.

[@GuidoGautsch]

That was awesome! I would have approached this totally differently, probably mostly using Simpler to just carve in that initial transient and and using the drive of the filter stage. Your approach is much more elegant

[@fabricevp8384]

Seed to Stage lessons bringing it !….yet again ! Recommend the courses !!!

[@germainfraisse4763]

wonderful tutorial, thanks a lot!!

[@pabloromero6901]

this is exactly what I needed to watch. NONE of my drum samples been scratching that itch lately

[@kristianandreasen3230]

Thanks, I really needed this after spending too much time on trying to find the perfect kick sample

[@mkeats3077]

Great tutorial. Thanks!

[@WDIPJordi]

Highly educational, thanks!

[@gooneybird808]

Dude Perfect timing for me..thank you

[@jamesmeustache7740]

seriously insane tutorial thank you so much

[@commiekiller3000]

An Image-line (stock FL Studio) plug-in does pretty much everything you went over and more in one plug-in called “Maximus”. It’s a powerful and informative compressor, clipper, limiter, and gate all in one plug-in. One of my favourite features is its intuitive dynamics editor which lets you draw how you want the signal to be progressed. It does have a saturator, but it’s not the best, although you can route any given band to your preferred saturation plug-in if you really want to. I like using it especially for my kick and snare before sending my percussion BUS. It helps keep what needs to be on top on top while preserving character and fidelity. It’s also good for monitoring a master chain or BUS-making sure the stereo field is clean while taking care of dynamics and transients.

[@theoppositeistrue]

Dude, you’re a beast. Articulate, clear, and charismatic as always

[@theoppositeistrue]

I have an additional question, which may end up just being a personal preference thing. There are all kinds of "EQ cheat sheets" that map where certain sounds typically live on the spectrum like sub -> bass -> mid range, etc., and following those guides within moderation has made my mixes sound better. However, on the current song that I'm working on, I find that the kick sounds the best if I do not filter much high end. Do you ever find yourself not only "going against" typical EQing techniques but actually disagreeing with said techniques (on a song by song basis)? Could you possibly give an example where less-than-common EQing strategies are useful, or point me in the direction of a video you've already uploaded that might cover something like this? This video and your audible sub bass video + effect rack fixed a song that I was annoyed with in like 5 minutes. I hope to soon grab your mixing and mastering lessons from your website, because you are seriously a great teacher. Thanks dude.

[@tyeblee23]

😂😂😂😂the beginning really spoke to me. Thank you 🙏 S2S❤

[@whoami133]

insane video, thanks!

[@youtubeimi6480]

10:10 Cool trick to mention. If you don't want to group something, but also want to mute multiple FX at once you can use the 0 ( Zero ) on the keyboard to bypass ( turn them off/on ). Great Video Seed as always 😎😎

[@daviddobronyi5490]

this is possibly the best production channel

[@exaktdaneben]

Thank you for this nice concrete explaining. Some overplayed kickdrumsample is after that punchy and unique.

[@giovannicescutti1751]

This is one of a few tutorial that are actually usefull and that I watched until the end😂❤

[@Az3r0]

Spectacular tutorial.

[@Mnogomerniy]

Очень крутая методика работы с семплом! Спасибо!

[@supreemo_official]

I started doing this to make my kick stand out more i used to use eq to shape it but this works and sounds better plus it saves time!

[@bazzauk208]

This is fantastic

[@AiBoru]

Awesome! How about next video of the EQ process of that same kick?

[@wworsxx]

This is insane!

[@prok3jpeg]

Thank you, dude.

[@TC-lk2ev]

Thanks!

[@REYNmusician]

Lovely!

[@Artek604]

Awesome as always! One thing that could've made it even better is if you bounced the result at each stage & compared to the original sound, to visualise the impact :)

[@gd_xl]

Would love a video involving drum buss if you don’t already have one!

[@deadbloomer]

Great video.

[@macbeanfxdl]

thanks a lot !!!!

[@azmaelurbankiz2576]

yes, I do like your teaching style.. will your live performance course teach me how to set up a drum sequencer within Ableton Live? A look at the curriculum left me wondering. ✌️

[@danno94]

incredible

[@feandin]

Haha, intro got me laughing & then it just got better 🤙🏼

[@andrewcampbell8938]

Really good video

[@mihovil5806]

Very cool

[@isaacanthonydj4124]

I am trying to use my TR8s in live and studio, i use your advice to maximize what is already in TR8s. Need to figure best saturation settings, beast machine!

[@JoachimPastor]

top as usual

[@paweld9745]

DOPE GEMS

[@BetoStudioX]

Jackpot sample hunt

[@DaCashRap]

Incredibly helpful! I was hoping you would freeze-flatten the result to compare the waveforms.

[@SeedtoStage]

While it’s definitely satisfying to see results, it ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s what it sounds like that matters!

[@DaCashRap]

@@SeedtoStage that I totally agree with

[@bitspacemusic]

Very informative. You did use a ton of filtering.

[@joeearz8556]

🔥🔥🔥🔥💯

[@tentacle0]

this is a great tutorial for how to manipulate the characteristics of any sound. however, in practice, I have had way better luck scrolling through 100 kicks *in context* until I find one that sits in the mix perfectly, versus tweaking a kick in isolation like this. things like upwards expansion of the highs and overdrive might sound great on a solo'd kick sample, but are really arbitrary without context around it.

[@grodspott]

Awesome tutorial! Learned a lot! But would you or anyone else mind explaining whats going on with the fixing of the clipping with the saturator? I dont get it

[@GuidoGautsch]

Yeah, that one had me scratching my head too. I think he's essentially using it as a limiter, brick walling that initial loud transient to keep the volume under control. Could be wrong though...

[@Mr.Meowgical]

MVP

[@stiffyBlicky]

awesome, question, why use the multibhand dynamics over a regular old EQ that emphasizes the "high" frequency?

[@larkhallpaul9381]

very eye opening... does saturator's digital clip mode act as a genuine hard clipper or is it not quite the same?

[@Saamw2Xb]

im thinking that the sub might have been altered a lot. Isnt that a concern after this kind of processing? is it possible to just drag the subs up after ?

[@slawomirbialecki2275]

Di you try how it's sounds ih the club?

[@KimonoEtrange]

Great tutorial but is it me or for the ratio of 1 : 0.50 you are actually reducing dynamic? Everytime you have a db come out you get half of it as in 0.50? Thank you and keep up the good work

[@HollerAtcherBoi]

3:00 why do you use RMS comparisons for a kick drum? For something that quick, wouldn’t dbfs peak be more appropriate? It was clear that the “after” example was much louder.

[@JaguarPanda]

Maybe i am wrong, but it seems to me you can achieve the same kind of expansion on the high end using a dynamic Eq like proQ I'd do anything to avoid using ableton's multiband compressor, i'm not comfortable at all with it visually speaking lol

[@athornsound304]

This is suck an awesome video. I’m assuming you can use these same techniques on improving a snare or clap?

[@da4mula885]

Really good, but I don't know how to apply this to sample browsing, or with regards to it. Imagine doing all this and than choosing a different sample, hope you don't have to readjust every single parameter to it. Maybe there is some reduced preset-like manner of these devices that you can apply while browsing without biasing certain samples to sound better?

[@SeedtoStage]

Each sample is different so each sample needs different treatment. But if you know what these devices do, it’s faster to simply tweak your effects to your liking than to hunt through a million samples.

[@da4mula885]

@@SeedtoStage oh great! Thank you

[@lucaslavaine1287]

3:43 min you said, that you added 8.00 db to the first 20ms of the sample. I think, that the output gain is adding 8db to the whole signal, not just to the transient before the compressor engaged ? Maybe I am wrong

[@SeedtoStage]

It is adding 8db to the whole signal yes. But I’m also reducing the signal with the compressor. Because the compressor can’t push the signal down until after the attack stage, the end result is that I’m essentially adding 8db of gain to the first 20 or so ms of the sample. See what I’m saying? I am also adding 8db to the signal after the release stage too but commonly that is also a desired effect

[@huwevans2653]

0:01..... YES lol

[@BiologicalDataScientist]

Totally me 😂

[@NealCaen]

do you watch The Truth Factory?

[@bennyfairfax1]

04:50

[@runawayhorsesambient]

You bashed the original sample countless times, oblivious to the fact that the original sample sounds like a kick drum and your end result sounds like a kid bouncing a volleyball in his school's gym. "This kick Is not gonna cut It in modern productions": maybe it doesn't want to, maybe it goes "ugh" at the modern productions you talk about. Still, a great tutorial, tight tools and techniques, theory on point and explained effectively.

[@starkid9736]

LOL

[@bestdisco1979]

Nice video but it’s just too Ableton specific. A shame.

[@GuidoGautsch]

Most DAWs have equivalent tools that will achieve the same result or there are plugins that do the same. Nothing Ableton exclusive here

[@demian1ndr800]

brutal