And now…here’s the conclusion of David D.L.‘s tip covering the basics of kick drum synthesis…
OK, it’s time to get this thing to sound like a Kick! (If you have listened to it so far, it’s pretty much a dull low-pitched thud). The trick is to use the pitch envelope to make the sound rapidly drop in pitch.
Activate the pitch envelope & set it to 100% for a massive drop.
Set the Attack to 0 ms with the Initial Pitch and the Peak at +12 semitones. The Decay and Release times can be left at their default values of 600ms and 50ms. Lastly, set the Sustain and End pitch to -24 semitones which means that the pitch drops a whopping Three Octaves!!
If you want to add extra character to your bass drum, you can add a third oscillator
with its attack fading in (around 150 to 200 ms)…
…and play around with the various waveshapes, like 4-bit Sine, Saw 4 to Saw 16, Square 3 to 64, and the Triangle sound quite good. Or make your own waveshape!
Alrighty then. Thanks to David for this! Next we’ll swim out into deeper waters…
