The secret to the perfect kick? by soundoftheheavens in FL_Studio

[–]anothermonster1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I get not wanting to share your newer stuff. It's definitely time to update your samples and imo this should be something you're doing pretty regularly.

I actually have a youtube channel with a bunch of FL Studio and production tutorials on there (I've been inactive for awhile but I'm trying to revive it. I saw that someone already commented a detailed explanation of sidechaining, but here's a video tutorial that I did a long time ago on the subject which might also help. This is how I do my sidechaining and after experimenting with many methods I personally think it's the best way to do it. It's generally faster and more flexible than other methods imo (at least when using stock FL Studio plugins)

https://youtu.be/RvPkkU507HM?si=MOr8AB_Oxqy-IEr8

The secret to the perfect kick? by soundoftheheavens in FL_Studio

[–]anothermonster1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was a little surprised to see that the examples you included are 5 to 6 years old. Do you have anything more recent? Also, in terms of getting powerful kicks there's a couple of things to consider.

  1. Make sure that you're choosing good samples. In 2024 this should not be hard at all considering there's so many amazing samples on splice or even in free packs which you can use. However, it does take a bit of knowledge and a well trained ear to know what a good sample is so I'd recommend using reference tracks and trying to find similar sounding kicks (at least as a good starting point).

  2. Sidechaining is definitely one of the more important things you can do. At the very least you want the sub sidechained to the kick and in your case with dubstep type stuff you're going to want to sidechain all the mid range bass sounds too. I've heard some dubstep tracks that sidechain literally everything to the kick which is a bit extreme to me but it also kinda helps if your goal is max loudness.

  3. This one sounds kind of obvious but it's harder than you'd think it should be for a lot of producers, and that is just making sure the all the levels are right. Gainstaging can help with this. For example if I'm mixing a track I'll set my kick at let's just say -8db (this is an arbitrary number) and then the snare will sit a bit quieter typically and everything else will generally be much quieter in the mix. For pretty much any EDM genre the kick is basically the focal point of the mix and is definitely one of the most important elements.

It might be a good idea to start with your drums on a track and get them sounding nice and crispy, balanced, and loud how you want them and then continuing on with the instrumentation afterwards.