Trance Production .com - Creating the Trance Kick - For some, it is an art in itself. The dream of possessing that elusive kick you hear in everyday professional trance productions. You may not notice how important of an element the kick is unless you have been producing for some time. The ability to keep the clarity, overall punch, and prominence throughout the overall mix is a pivotal part of the overall production.

Creating the Trance Kick

For some, it is an art in itself. The dream of possessing that elusive kick you hear in everyday professional trance productions. You may not notice how important of an element the kick is unless you have been producing for some time. The ability to keep the clarity, overall punch, and prominence throughout the overall mix is a pivotal part of the overall production. There are several ways to create this element, but the method chosen in this review is more amenable to the software based studio that is so prevalent among today's producers. Since the creation of computer based software studios, the opportunity to create sounds on a professional level has grown. Although the tools are staring them in the face, many producers find out that creating those coveted kicks is essentially a dark art. This approach, which I will brand "frequency based sampling", is what I will be attempting to cultivate you in.

You will need some basic kick samples. You can salvage these off the internet, mainly forums and cheap free sample sites, or many of the widely available sample CDs that can be purchased. Ever heard of a the term EQ? This acronym means "equalizer". One of the tools we will use Well, your going to need one. That, however, should not be a problem, as most software workstations come with rudimentary tools, which in most cases, includes an equalizer. An equalizer basically boosts or reduces certain parts of the spectrum, there are many types, but I won't dwell deeper into that topic, as it is covered in other articles on this site.
Whip out those kick samples, take a listen to the lows, mids, and highs on them. When you find a kick with a low that fancies your needs, import it into a channel and label it low. Do the same with mids and highs. Now that you have that done, you should have something similar to this:

3 Kicks in layers labeled high, mid, and low. (Cubase SX 2.0)

Now that you have the kicks lined up, you must make sure that they start on the zero cross point. This imaginary point is where the waveform data for the kick begins. Before the data begins, other artifacts may occur, or no noise at all. In order for the 3 kicks to start play at the same time, they need to each begin on that point. To find the zero cross point, you must zoom into the kicks waveform and find the place where the waveform begins, and set the samples start point to that spot. Then drag the kick back to the beginning where the kick originally started. Here is an example below (The "event start" bar is where all 3 kicks should begin):

The 0 start point, and where the kicks should begin.(Cubase SX 2.0)

Great, now you can grasp the point of the 0 start line and why we need to identify it. So take your sequencers event start bar, (in Cubase or Nuendo, it is pictured above) and drag it to where the kick begins. You can zoom in for for even more accurate results. After you moved the bar to the kicks waveform start, it should resemble this:

As you can see, the kick waveform data starts at the Event Start, which means its the first thing that plays if the audio data is selected. And it is now lined up at bar 1, meaning if all 3 kicks are at the 0 cross point and lined up at bar 1, they will start and play together in harmony. Compare the 2 previous pictures and you should be able to see the difference and what has been done to change that. Once again, it is all about dragging the Event Start bar (which can be done by putting your mouse over it, clicking, and dragging it left or right.)
Now comes the part that has no definite guidelines. It is usually decided upon the sample you are going to use. Equalization is how we will separate these 3 kicks frequencies. Below, is a display of my view of these 3 frequency ranges. Yes, the rules can be bent, if the overall results sounds better:

Samples, your going to need those puppies. Rip them from tracks, find all the kicks you can. You will not be using the kick itself, but morphing it as a element to create a whole new beast. Whip out your equalizer. Remember when we picked out the high, mid, and low kicks? Well we need to do a little work to each of them to achieve a harmonization of all 3 into a great kick.

Here, we see how the high is usually captured from the kick:

Here, we see how the mid is usually captured from the kick:

Here, we see how the low is usually captured from the kick:

Just keep in mind, you should call these templates as every sample unique and can be tweaked for a possible better sound. Take a deep breath, after equalizing the 3 kicks accordingly, play them all at once. Once you keep tweaking the equalizer and get a nice overall keep, export the 3 into 1 track. So you should have a sound file with the kick you just made. Whip out the compressor on the kick, for more information on this baby, refer to the compression tutorial. Here is what I use personally for a lot of my kicks in written form, but it may not work for you, and you may not like the sound at all: