What makes a perfect kick drum?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Oscar's video courses ► courses.underdog.brussels 🖤🖤🖤 Underdog Discord channel ► discord.gg/z5N9CTA 👾👾👾 Torc ► soundcloud.com/torcaudio 🏴‍☠🏴‍☠🏴‍☠ Patreon ► www.patreon.com/underdogmusicschool 🌱🌱🌱

[@SzilvayPeter]

Man, you keep addressing my most important questions without me asking! I was literally searching for the opportunity to ask about your kicks because they're always so good! And the kickdrums topic in general is indeed a very important one. Thanks for all this!

[@AutPen38]

I was impressed at how quickly you could identify what was special about each of these kicks, especially with regard to whether they hit you in the chest or the gut. I can usually only categorize them as "usable" or "rubbish".

[@B0K1T0]

I can usually only crank up the distortion and categorize it as "ALLES NAAR DE KLOTEEEEE"

[@BreakzTerrorist]

cause you are noob and he's professional, simple as that. No rocket science

[@ItsWesSmithYo]

Really usable = chest, usable = gut, have to listen 2x = rubbish 😂 u got this friend 🫶

[@dante7228]

You're really amazingly good at explaining whatever topic you decide to cover. I guess it's because you probably also love to dance, so you're feeling the music instead of only understanding or listening to it. Thank you for all your amazing content!

I spent 3 hours listening to kick samples yesterday. Perfect timing.

[@maxschaum9776]

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[@maxschaum9776]

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[@peterelfman]

I can't overstate how much of a learning experience this has been. All of your videos that I have seen so far have managed to expand what I understand by providing just a tiny bit more knowledge that somehow covers an enormous conceptual gap of understanding. I honestly don't' know how you choose your topics for these videos, but you're finding a niche and filling it remarkably well. Again, thank you for taking the time to put this together!

[@OscarUnderdog]

Cheers Peter! :)

[@nickwinwood769]

I second this!

[@benjamindover4614]

I third this :D

[@diogocunha4674]

fourth this!

[@3rdPersonProductions]

Fifth! Gogogo!

[@amaxlevin]

Wow! You're definitely in the right business, brother. You've really exposed the unique personality of each kick. Amazing information ⚡⚡

[@KrisCadwell]

I found this helpful. If you did a similar video for snares I would watch it.

[@Amistriotis]

This is brilliant... A real poem. Thank you for this... thing. I will most probably not make a kick drum, ever but I think this is precious anyway! ^_^

[@weyamusic]

The way you describe all these kicks makes them sound delicious

[@uberanmino]

I think doing this is really useful since it becomes easier to recognice what kicks are used for which types of songs when u listen to music

[@danielgonson]

This. Brilliant idea for a video. Things that took me years to notice and start understanding, explained in less than 30 minutes.

[@BobbyPMusicBitcoinGaming]

Lovely wine tasting of kicks! Subscribed!

[@InVacuo]

That was a lot more enjoyable than I expected 😅

[@diogocunha4674]

U re the feeling behind the technique

[@pablofriedemann5262]

I love you channel. Thank you so much for teaching us so much. Your videos like this are perfect in between to always gain knowledge or to still learn, if there is a day where you feel non productive or not motivated.

[@Anders01]

Great review and sample pack. I will check it out.

[@cryptout]

Yooo Oscar, bedank voor de code! I had this on my radar for a while, especially for Babicz's contribution to the sample pack but it was to expensive. BTW, trying to recreate a kick with Kick2 is a good exercise.

[@ild4099]

Do a tutorial on making hardcore/gabber kicks

[@kookiespace]

Wow, thank you so much for this video! I recently played my first public live set \o/ and I came away from it thinking that my kick drums really needed some work :D

[@patrickrowe6745]

I'm not sure why you chose to be the 'UNDERDOG' maybe with another name, your subscription numbers would be way up up. You deserve a much bigger support numbers. YOUR ARE ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THE BESTEST on KZbin

[@OscarUnderdog]

❤️☺️

[@Dubsize-D66]

Thanks mate thats so helpfull. Wanted to make a drum rack with kicks as a preset and noticed i dont know when a kick sounds good for the kind of music i make. Every kick was somehow good in some scenario but i could not make a good selection based on my needs. That will help alot

[@rybotekk]

Watched with big pleasure. Thankyou.

[@Calpasofficial]

Can you make so tutorial like this just for techno kicks? Because I'm struggling with the transients. Don't get it like the big artists like Ramon tapia or hi-lo... Would be suuuuper cool and thanks for your tutorials!

[@aegean_444]

You're amazing, it's so well explained, thank you !

[@DafterHindi]

we need this video but for snares

[@shave1669]

Man, this was a really good vid, and I'm adding it to the music production bag o' tricks.

[@DaddaPsy]

Great video! When demonstrating transients, it could be helpful to just highlight the specific area you want to show and hit Ctrl+Space, that way we will only hear the part we should focus on =)

[@adrenakrohm]

What are you doing here? 😁

[@DaddaPsy]

@@adrenakrohm I don't know, I'll show myself out. There's no place for psytrance here

[@rrrobart9]

BOOM! LOVE this brotha! Thank you!

[@treyhudson73]

As a wine professional, I'm already intrigued... As someone with at least 300 kick samples, I'm hoping to purge most if I can! After all, can't we tweek them like a MOFO?

[@thehottestbeatz]

Gotta love the good ol kick drum!

[@a.d.h.s.]

best 28 minutes ever!

[@Kazidgeridoo]

I agree with another commenter that the keyboard clicks are distracting when trying to listen to the kicks. Other than that the video is fantastic!

[@jtr11095]

You should’ve slowed down the master tempo to slowly hear the kicks with the 2 parts going on. Great video!

[@sherenko11]

Hello Oscar , thankyou fot gr8 education videos ! What us the name of tha track in the beagining of this video? Imprasive stuff!! Thankyou about all!!!

[@marihi8621]

i love this approach!

[@ARCASIAUK]

Great video. I produce dnb and find it difficult making kick drums without the click and body sounding totally disconnected. I use kick 2 but I wondered if there was a library of transients and clicks I could download to test out

[@adamntbk]

Listening to the space bar key

[@morsymusic]

Love this video! Quick question, have the majority of these kicks already been tagged with the Key on them or did you have to manually add the Key to each kick? Also does anyone know if Mixed In Key or another company has an app to automatically tag the Key's to single kick hits?

[@MortalVildhjart]

This was great, thank you!

[@iamnio2869]

Amazing!!! And until when is it possible to take advantage of the coupon discount?

[@Melbourne_confidential]

Great content, glad I subscribed

[@lottalakshmi]

Great video! It would maybe be nice if you’d put a little gate on your mic, so we wouldn’t here all the clicks of your mouse and keyboard..

[@MeeBilt]

Awesome video! So much useful information - I feel like a kick connoisseur 🍷🧀

[@Sm4rtS.L1nk]

Whats the banger in the intro background?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Torc, my techno project, follow on soundcloud 😁

[@DelasVC]

Nice vid. I wanna say though that kickdrums are probably the most complex part of a dance track. There are details to a kickdrum and how it work and where it's individual parts have to sit that are simply not talked about _at all_ in my experience. At least not on anything that can be found on YT.

[@imbombur]

How do you know it’s a nice vid when it was just posted 🧐

[@rossmitchell4352]

@@imbombur 😂. Caught.

[@DelasVC]

Cause what I've seen so far already highlights some good points.

[@adv8nturenick]

Is it best to just learn how to make your own kicks, or spend hours going through thousands of samples? Great content by the way, thank you

[@Bangers_mostly]

Hey Oscar! Perhaps you or some of your other viewers can help me! What order do you recommend a beginner watches your videos in? I'm brand new to production and I've just watched the 'First Hour of Making Electronic Music' video which was incredibly helpful. I'd love to subscribe to your course but it's a bit pricey for the time being so I'm relying on your KZbin videos. I'm just trying to understand simple structures and song progressions, so videos Like Hi Hat strategies (gears) and Syncopation are super helpful because they tell me where to place those notes. However, I've been jumping around - for example, I started with Dotted Bassline then half way through switched to the Moroder's Bassline video, then to Learn Any Synth, to Subtractive Synth, to finally this video. I feel like I should have done that in completely opposite order. Please help a newbie out :) P.S I've commented this on your other posts, I don't mean to spam you, I'm just hoping some views would chime in.

[@TheChameleon2008]

Please dont ever pay for these course since most the info can be indeed found for free on better channels or you use yandex to search for the things google wont show you.

[@Andry87M]

is it possible to create hard techno kicks (like alignment) with kick 2?

[@drydessert4198]

Are these shrimp on your (green) acoustic panels?

[@blackcurrantbitter8608]

ben sims or dj rush tutorial plz!!!

[@maxgamezmusic]

Your ear is amazing. I learned a lot and I appreciate you Amigo. Thank You!

[@Capeau]

click & repeat 09:09

[@shpongled587]

No more wine spit bucket bouquets for me, I guess.

[@RobertKgma]

Where can I get me some truncate kicks?

[@ClaireDelSol]

❤

[@Hermit_]

If u wanna techno, vengeance club sounds 3 => trance or club kicks, time stretch to fit your bpm. do nothing to it and you 're good. rumble is already on there too.

[@josetoqava]

esy baby

[@averyintelligence]

TIP: if u struggle to find kicks just go to splice and use the most popular ones in ur genre.

[@ratikanto]

mast aadmi ho aap

[@iammusicp]

all kicks had the same "click".... sounded like a keyboard space bar or something ;) - nice video though! 💪

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

That's hit midi keyboard.

[@jjones7837]

"Kick Tasting"

[@BrokenStitch]

Drives me nuts that I can't explain this to people.

[@Elnufo]

too much keyboard klickery to hear nuances in the samples, especialy the klick/ attack. sad.

[@partialobject]

I honestly don't get the recurring argument that producers should compromise on the pitch of their Kicks - or low end, in general - just because some people (and clubs, apparently) don't have the appropriate sound system to reproduce the fundamental. (I'm not sure those clubs have their priorities straight.) What we make aspires to be Art. If it doesn't translate on mediocre systems, then so be it. My opinion, of course. Having said that, awesome content as usual, Oscar. You're a treasure.

[@AutPen38]

Making tracks with kick drums that can't be heard by half the audience would be like Picasso painting half his pictures with invisible ink. By all means make music for your personal artistic reasons, but don't expect many people to like it if you ignore some of the usual conventions.

[@partialobject]

​@@AutPen38 I apologize in advance for the novel. Although I'm not convinced by the invisible ink analogy (low-pitched keys aren't inaudible, it's just that many people lack the equipment to hear them properly or at all), you bring up a fair point. What are these usual conventions, though? And what are they based on? Most of the suggestions about keeping low end above a certain pitch seem to be based on anecdotes or contradictory. Two examples: - Dan Worral, who's usually very thorough, remained awfully vague in a recent video when he gave a similar advice about keeping the main low end above 50 Hz for it to sound best. (I'm sorry, but "it just sounds better that way" doesn't cut it) - Björn Thorwellen of sinee.de, who's regularly playing his own Techno tracks in clubs (so I'll assume he knows what he's talking about) claims the sweet spot for Kicks lies between 60 and 45 Hz. Granted, you'll find 55 Hz in that range, but 10 Hz is a big difference in the low end. Is it possible that a lot of this ultimately comes down to personal taste? The Kind of Techno I like really determines the low end that I prefer, and how low I want it to go. There are tradeoffs involved, and I personally would sacrifice punch for depth. It seems a lot of Techno-people like their Kicks more aggressive and in your face than myself (in my circle of friends, for sure), and would therefore choose higher-pitched Kicks. And that's what they think sounds best and it's what they would recommend. I'm all for evidence-based rules regarding ideal frequency ranges for Kicks. It's just that I haven't seen a lot of actual evidence so far that would lead to anything other than anecdotal conventions. Thorwellen comes closest when he mentions limitations of club systems in his Kick drums online course. For now, I guess I'll just have to take his word for it or live with the risk your comment brings up.

[@AutPen38]

@@partialobject As I understand it, club speaker systems (and indeed home systems and small devices) are actually much better at accurately reproducing low frequencies than they were in the past. It used to be the case that bassbins had to be HUGE in order to transmit the "bass power" (and often had a cut-off point of 55Hz or so), but these days the technology in a bluetooth speaker, your phone, or a separate woofer, enables low bass to be transmitted pretty well, or at least adequately compared to the speaker technology of 30 years ago. It was certainly "conventional" in the past to roll off the bass at a higher frequency than it generally is today, because "It will blow the speakers" or "you just can't hear it on a transistor radio", but I presume that systems that can reproduce 30 or 40Hz without too much distortion are quite commonplace today, in clubs at least. (A lot of people also listen on headphones that can go very low. This just wasn't possible in the days of Walkmans and headphones that had a horrible tinny sound.) Another historical problem was that low frequencies caused problems in the cutting of vinyl records. If you had too much happening in the sub-bass region (below 60Hz, say), the vinyl-mastering process was difficult/impossible and/or the needle would jump out of the groove when the vinyl was played on a record player. Hence it was commonplace to roll off all the sub-bass frequencies when vinyl was the dominant playback medium. (12" dance mixes could include more bass, because the physical size of the record meant the grooves were spread out as there was only one track per side, but albums with 10 or more tracks, plus 7" inch singles, were forced to be "tinny" because the grooves were squeezed together, effectively leaving no "room" for the bass). Another issue not mentioned above is the "loudness war". Bass frequencies account for a lot of the volume in a track whether that bass is perceived or not. If the bass is mixed very loud (high peaks on a spectrum analyser) such that the overall mix is peaking near 0dBFS, the higher frequencies naturally have to be quieter or there will be distortion. But it's often the case that the highest peaks are way down in the low frequencies to the point that they are inaudible on most systems. Hence, the bass takes up all the "volume headroom", even though it won't get heard. Since most producers want to use all the headroom to get their tracks to sound competitively loud, it doesn't make much sense to use all that headroom on frequencies that can't be heard, since the track will actually sound quiet on systems that don't reproduce the low frequencies. There has to be a trade-off. For many genres, you certainly want "loud" bass, but you don't want it to be loud only in some contexts (e.g. in clubs, on your own system or through particular headphones) but too quiet in others (on Spotify/KZbin, or in someone's car, or on their phone). I think that's why producers can't agree where to draw the line with regard to modern conventions. It was easy to agree on the conventions in the past when mixing/mastering was for vinyl records played on jukeboxes and crappy gramophones, as technology set the limits. But these days there are so many different contexts (and technologies) for hearing music that there is no "one size fits all" approach for setting the frequencies and volume levels of bass. I'd personally be quite conservative/safe and "general" when mixing, with quite a lot of roll-off of the bass in the "old fashioned" way, but I don't make "bass music" with a particular market in mind. If you're making techno for headphone-users or nightclubs, you can presumably be more liberal with your subs. Good luck!

[@partialobject]

@@AutPen38 thanks a lot for taking the time to go into all the details, this was super helpful!

[@AutPen38]

@@partialobject No worries. I often find that typing out long paragraphs helps me clarify my thoughts for my own benefit. I like to think I'm pretty good on the theoretical stuff, but I'm just as bad at getting my bass sounds right as anyone else. It always looks so easy on videos!

[@pclairoot]

Quoi? un Flamouthc qui parle de pinard? Way to go Oscar.

[@jonborno8550]

the sounds your keyboard makes a really annoying :( sad - otherwise a very interesting video

[@starkid9736]

yeah, skipping the drum samples for hours,like back in those impulse tracker days

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

There is no perfect kick it's what ever fits your track, most wack kicks or drums sound dope with distortion anyway.

[@zian3694]

If you talk about one sample pack that will always work for you is- the one and only - SOUNDS OF KSHMR ( from my country - India 😎😎😎) . I know, we Indians are genius. Thanks me later.

[@ItsWesSmithYo]

These are the things we want to know, thanks boss 🫶😎🖤🐓

[@nnuae]

I've watched dozens of videos of producers creating drum loops and only understood half of what they're saying. I feel like this tutorial arms amateurs with the knowledge needed to actually take advantage of the rest of the educational content out there. It was very needed. Thank you!

[@DARTYM-ch6gy]

He is a great teacher in producing of music, I have took a course the industrial techno, it's really great course and excellent approach. Recommending this course who is like techno! Appreciate it Oscar for this course!

[@MadMosquito1]

Just a small suggestion: could you try to limit the volume of your keyboard in the mix? Especially for a video like this, it‘s a bit distracting

[@MikeS-1969]

Very useful, to the point and educational. Thank you. One small comment. Try to suppress the sound of you tapping the keyboard while playing the sounds for auditioning. It can get a little distracting at times.

[@Nova_Afterglow]

I came here to say this. The constant keyboard clicks made it hard to really focus on the pure kick sound. I made it about 8 min in before i gave up. I feel next time if you do this for claps or snares try and not record the audio of the keyboard and just dub in a voice over later.

[@MikeS-1969]

@@Nova_Afterglowthat would actually be ideal , but if it requires a lot of time ...can just sidechain compress the voice-over by the audio coming from the DAW and/or use a cardioid microphone.

[@tomsorbma]

Always like your content. A good follow on from this would be a deep dive into the replationship between different styled kicks (poppy/deep/long tail/short) and complimenting basslines.

[@IntiPeruCinema]

+ 1

[@AuggyM]

Ooo like a (specific) ‘rumble-tasting’ party/workshop , but covering general kick practices in different genres would be great to cover too!

[@musicandme4839]

Man thanks for posting stuff like this! Your keyboard noise blurs the transients of the kicks tho :(

[@AuggyM]

Oscar, LOVE your vids. You always inspire and encourage me to learn more w/ EM production! I really appreciated this video. However, I have a sprinkle of constructive criticism for you: ESP with this vid where u are tasting the kicks and replaying them in fast successions, could you find a way to mute or dim the sound of your keyboard clicks? The vid is still successful, but I found that the clicks slightly took me away from fully experiencing kicks. Esp w/ the kicks that have rumbles and tails that have mid-high(er) textures and frequencies. Sounds SUPER nitpicks, I’m so sorry; but hey, sound is the bread n butter of music production. 🤓 Thank you Oscar, for your extremely valuable vids, keep at it💯

[@rioceron4101]

Amazing... as always! Thanx! You are brilliant 🖖🏿👽👌🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

[@bwrp7977]

Would love to be able to hear the kicks better but unfortunately the obnoxious clacking of your mechanical keyboard (?) is mixed in with the audio.

[@karlstenator]

Great video. I've been asking Ableton Live developers for years now to have the Library indexer index the long string in the "Info Text" panel - so that, imagine you typed out your description of each of these samples in their info panel - live would index it, and then searching those words would return the item you're describing. Instead, they created 7 coloured categories and called it a day. FML. 😩 The custom Info Text is accessed via right-clicking a sample/VST within your session. The info text also seems to "stick" to the sample if you place it into your User Library then re-use it.

[@jacobmiller9885]

Dude… this would have been WAY better if the mouse click was excluded when hearing the samples.

[@TommiBenders]

Really interesting video, but the clicks of your keyboard are distracting AF

[@willievaughn6474]

Beautiful, amazing you are. Thank you

[@shalesetty6790]

Appreciate this Oscar. You describing how these kicks hit the body (chest v gut) explains their impact in such an effective way. I didn’t realize it but I’ve been dividing sounds this way subconsciously.

[@hanspeters1796]

If you can pick from like 10 billions of kicks, why would you need a "versatile" kick?

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

I have kicks that fit into Techno, Hiphop, Drum and bass.

[@hummahumma3585]

Because you don't have time to go through 10 billions of kicks before starting each new track 🙂

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

@@hummahumma3585 Honestly takes literally a few minuts to find a kick because I'll just EQ the drums anyway and use distortion.

[@Reallifejourney388]

Thanks again😊

[@SecretCailev]

Love your nails! I hate doing them myself. Im so bad and it gets messy lol. But what coincidence! I was just looking for some kick tutorials. How lovely! ♥

[@OscarUnderdog]

🥰

[@JoelLinus]

The Recondite Kick at 22:18 would be perfect for Industrial, quite Lo Fi but also white noisy, you can put a Reverb on it to freeze it infront of the white noise sound via automation, so that the white noise is audible throughout the whole track until you unfreeze it.

[@lisotunali3807]

who is stopping you? :D (i can send you the kick if you want it)

[@JoelLinus]

@@lisotunali3807 Hell yea

[@jerosajose]

Zack Edward's lost twin

[@redpeople2192]

...be mindful, not careful... - great advice. As always a joy to watch and learn from. I love how you are so respectful when listening to every kick. As an aside, I had always EQed out the low end of kicks to make space for the bass. Should I (in general) side chain the bass instead and leave the kick's low end?

[@gannein]

I didnt even watched the video but liked it already. Excellent concept and fine skills to teach complex concepts. Well done Oscar and thank you !

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

Its actually better for the youtuber that you like mid way through the video because if you like a vid straight after clicking on it KZbin does not count it as in the algorithm.

[@gannein]

@@HOLLASOUNDS hello you ! Thank you for the heads up ;)

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

@@gannein 😀

[@adtmsc]

This was SO useful, as a beginner producer this is the EXACT video i've been looking for, in order to proceed comfortably with my first projects

[@kookiespace]

good luck and have fun :)

[@MrJansteiner]

Perfect topic. Which has indeed puzzled and intrigued me loads at times. Thank you for discussing it here. 👍

[@Luraka1978]

This is definitely an AD dude 😆

[@OscarUnderdog]

I literally spent time Googling what an “A D dude” meant 😅 I’m a bit slow. Well if its an ad its a good deal for audiotent cause i didnt get paid a dime, i even bought the samples with me own money.

[@CatFish107]

I like this analogy. To take the next step, although there are entire galaxies of texture, flavour, and quality available in retail wine, brewing one's own has benefits not otherwise available. Love to patch different percussion from scratch. I appreciate learning the tasting terminology. Very helpful, even as a diy brewer / eurocrack addict. My favorite software drum is Trummor2 by Vult in vcv rack. So many sound sculpting parameters, and it spits out a copy of the amplitude envelope, which is very handy for ducking.

[@ResetRobot1]

Glad to see one of mine made the cut 😅

[@OscarUnderdog]

Hahaaaa legend 😁😁😁

[@vinsonjames]

5:20 He figured out how they made the arrow sound effect from minecraft lmao.

[@tresporros]

in old times, with AKAI MPC, I loved to tune every kick sample....mostly down, but you can turn so so kick into beautiful beast...it makes a big difference when down tuning samples (kick especially)

[@KenshoBeats]

Agreed 👍🏼 let the magical mpc converters do their work

[@luciferianjesuslover9453]

Wine tasting for kicks. Love it!