How Tuning Your Kick Drum Can Ruin Your Mixes 

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What's funny to me is literally everything is tuned perfectly these days leading to an overabundance of resonance that then needs to be taken out later. Some of the best drummers hit the kick out of tune up to a fourth above the fundamental and it sounds great, even adds to the feel of the song. Even a little detuning helps. One of your picks was a kick in A, one whole step above the root, you could also use an F one step below to create a pushing feeling. It's all about context but consonance is not always needed, check out man in the box by Alice in chains. A low E and D riff played together.

Been mixing for damn near 10 years but still go back and watch even beginners tutorials every so often. Your mindset on everything is pretty spot on with the way I see everything 💯

Depends heavily on the genre. There is a split right down the middle between EDM producers whether the kick should be in key or not. In techno, where the kick is usually very distorted and becomes part of the rolling bassline, its usually much better to have it in key. In Psytrance, the kick is a sine sweep from high to low and generally doesn't stop on one particular frequency. Deadmau5 went on a rant on one of his videos about kicks being short and just there to hold the rhythm and so tuning it is completely pointless. In short - I think it depends on the length of your kick. The genre. The style you're going for. I usually play with the kick drum throughout the production of the whole track and slowly nudge it closer to the perfect sound as I go. Just get the track going with anything close to begin with, then edit it. At some point when half the track is made and there are sounds across the frequency spectrum, then I might pick 10 or more kicks and audition them in the context of the song and see what works best. Some kicks don't have a fundamental if they are sine sweeps. If you use a plugin like Kick2 (awesome! Use it on every track) you can design the kick to stop and hold on a particular frequency for a while to give it a tone. Also, adding a hi hat or kickdrum beater on the top of the sample can affect its placement in the track as well. A great tip for finding out whether it fits in the track is to bring out the tone hugely with distortion and saturation, go over the top, bring out the GRIT and tone.. then adjust it with pitchshifting and take off the distortion. Layering kicks is difficult, but worth practicing. Don't forget to toggle the phase of each of your samples to see how they fit. You should never layer two kicks with big low end together, you're really looking for the top and bottom that work well together. Phase - yeah, always flip the phase on your kick and see how it fits. Check out some Psytrance kick tutorials if you're looking for advanced ways to fit your kick and bass together too.. it applies to all genres. Sidechaining to get elements out the way for the kick, also to blend it into the bass and add rhythm and bounce with the right ducking curve. I flip the phase on pretty much everything if you can get an extra 1% things fitting together. I have a huge checklist of mixing things I have built up over my time mixing to get a 1% or 2% here and there that adds up to a track and all the elements working together for a cohesive sound.

This channel is great. High quality information, reminds of the great Dan Worall. It's refreshing. I realized a bit late that MOST RU-vidrs only cares about clicks, comments and views to grow and make a living by monetizing clickbait shitty content. Seriously, thanks. This kick tuning nightmare reminds me of that famous ''Use your ears'' that everyone says and that I used to hate. It's the most irritating quote, and the most important one. The hell with asking yourself which key is that, or to use linear or minimum, or which hi pass slope. Feels like trusting your ears is the first and last step of audio processing.

another thing I learned and helped tons in my mixes, is that the length of a kick shouldn't be longer than an eigth note, to give the bass and other elements more space :) and yes tuning your kick makes work much easier, except you use specific patterns.

honestly I don't care about the so called fundamental frequency of a kick anymore... I just trust my ears. Also the biggest lie is that a kick drum only hits the "tuned" frequency, it's a swipe through the sprectrum and reaches the desired frequency just in the end for a very short amount of time. In my genre (drum & bass) we make kicks so short it often doesn't even have the time to reach that frequency anymore, so why even bother trying to make it match the key. More important is the context: busy kick pattern, it might be wise to use a higher short kick; moderate kick pattern, you can use a deeper kick. but in the end it's more important how it sounds together with your track

The pitch envelope of a kick is rarely static anyway, which is why I always get confused when kicks are labeled by key in a sample pack. It might have a G fundamental but unless it’s like an 808, the note probably only sustains for a millisecond.

Needed this video. Thanks Philip! Great content as always!

really glad you showed the sample pack example, happens so much. Great vid

Unless your kick is changing notes or spends a long time on a specific frequency, it doesn't really make sense to me to tune it to the song or have it in a specific key. For a Techno kick you can just mash/create two basic atonal kicks where one has a slight delay (as in it starts a tiny bit later) and then pitch them so they sound fat.

Really gr8 video, gr8 format, thanks a lot!!!

Love your approach and your videos. Thanks !!

Great video again. I am learning a lot from your videos. I hope you can create a video of how to fit the kick right in the mix with low end. Because when i mix my kick, it lacks a lot of ‘body’ at the end. It wont hit you in the chest/stomach. I am mostly ruining the original kick. Thanks a lot for this great content again

100% agreed. Also, pacing in this video was perfect. Really like how the editing improves constantly!

I think this is correct. One reason might be that in some cases, the tone / note that the kick drum STARTS on is more important than the note / tone of the body of the kick. So, choosing C instead of D means the kick starts, likely, on D (or something close) which is compatible with the key of G (either major or minor): it's the fifth, obviously.

Great video! This topic is actually in my list of 'TO DO' videos because it's something I notice I'm teaching a lot to my students. I'm finding myself using the root note less and less because sometimes the higher/lower pitch just fits so much better.

Nice video man, thanks for uploading. I always forget Span tells you the note for the frequency you're on

This is great advice, I do tune kick drums but not for harmonic reasons, for mixing reasons, if the fundamental of the kick is punching in a different area than the bass i I find it’s easier to mix. I always see people eqing the Shit out of kick and bass to get them to sound better together but doing what I mentioned above eliminates the need, leaving me with a more balanced, more natural track.

A great way is to pitch up two octaves and you can really hear the pitch Then tune the kick till it sounds good. The rules are, there are no rules Unless you want to sound like everybody else 🤔

This is spot on mate, and my ear agreed with you in every sense. To extend from this maybe in another video.. could you show how a sub bass is carved into the low 40s when you have a nice driving kick like the ones you selected here? Or is it a case of picking a clicky kick if you plan to go subby to leave that space?

Great work! In terms of sound design and sample selection; I've always found for both mixing and mastering; the BEST low end comes from arrangements that take into consideration the relative intonation of the fundamentals between the bass line and the kick drum; as well as how they're arranged rhthymically!

Love the Sundara's!

Good ol’ reliable, just use your ears. It will make you go a long way. I usually craft a kick with processing 909 samples, or less often sound design it with Operator or 3rd party vsts. Then adding layers like punch if needed, rumble, texture, atmosphere, short kick/low perc for groove. Then adding a bassline, various ways to make one. Basically, the kick sets the feeling of my track, unless I want to use a specific sound, like 303 for example, then kick would have to be dominant but still not overshadow the 303, but let the 303 set the feeling. Balancing those “supportive” layers and other elements can be hard, and sometimes it just falls apart or isn’t as interesting as I tried to make it.

Thanks for the vid! Totally agree: use your ears bro! Also every music style is different and requires adaption by hearing what makes a song great and not only which rule to follow.

Your kicks fundamental can stay in G. The pitch sweep is what maters. For example: The sweep could start at the fifth of G and sweep down. Now that you raised the kick to a note that sounds better to you what happens if the bass changes to that frequency? You have the same problem..

It could be argued that you’re better off avoiding a note in the scale as if the tuning is gmaj and the kick is tuned to g# then there is theoretically always going to be space for it. And as the intervals between notes at that freq it won’t sound out of tune …. Now I’ve typed this and it makes sense …. It’s bullshit. All of it. Too much thinking and not enough listening will ruin your mixes

Always use your great ears and compare that way, they will guide you

When people say to tune your kick, they don't necesserily mean to the root note, right? In key does not have to be the root.

I always tend to tune the kick to the key of the track but not necessarily the same route note. So if my bass is G then i would probably go for A# or F as both these would be in the same key but not clash with the bass which is at G

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Freemasons (F7 audio YT channel) has an excellent deep dive about why tuning your kick to the song is unnecessary, highly recommended!

So question there is not if you should tune.. But how should you tune? To the root note? Or any other key? Does kick tuned as a G (kick peaks at G), really sound as a G to your ears? Which part of the kick is more important when tunning? Bottom part (end of the kick) which interferes with bass? or mid part which interferes which with mids? Kick is so complex! What are best practices which makes kick to sound good to your ears?

is it necessary to make parallel compression besides this?

for music that comes after 2008 u must split your kick in 2 / 3 bands and work those seperatly and sum em back together flawlesly.

I've always known it as the kick should be in key, not necessarily the root note.. If have a backing kick I will always have it 5 semitones up.

I recently built an Ableton rack with the Meld synth and different "MIDI shapers" controlling pitch bend and volume to get more into the sound design of kicks and came to my personal conclusion that detuning the kick in its beginning really adds up to its quality. At least for my taste.

C2 is within the pentatonic of Gmin that's why you liked it, A1 is not, it's in the chord of Gmin but not the pentatonic. You can always play the pentatonic of the root chord of your track and it will always sound good. That's also why guitarists like to play pentatonic scales in guitar solos: It's easy to remember and always sounds right.

I never think about a Kick in sample Pack that is named G. I trust them glad to see a realy good explaing video about that from you thank mate will check now every kick for trueness 😂

It must suck for live drummers having to constantly retune their kick drum between every song, not to mention songs with a bunch of key changes!

2:30 you made an awesome build up

But layering 2 of these kicks makes phase issues, better use one & process well

amazing as always!

Ken you help mij wit mix leren

I want your headphones

....chord changes...oops drum now not in tune

Do not trust an analyser to find out the key of your kicks. Use your ear and keep the fundamentals in the right Octave. For instance C is never a good idea for a kick

I dont even tune my vocals and my song sounds great.

Bist du Deutscher?

No disrespect but this was a waste. The author pretty much messed about until he found something that fit. Something we all do. I thought it was gonna be theoretical but instead something I could've done myself.