Jump to content

Kick Tuned to Song Key


Recommended Posts

Hi!

 

Please can you clarify if I use right technique to make Kick Drum fitted into Song Key?

I use NI Battery as sampler. I pitch 36 semitones above and check what exact note pitched kick drum corresponds to.

Let's say I determined kick is in E and song key is F. So I alter kick +1 semitone and seems to be fine.

 

But what if E is a song key and I use G tuned kick drum?

It is all about electronic music where kick is sine sweep powered.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
it is minor third, so can be kick and song key in chord like relationship or it is all about to hear?

 

I´d say in 50-60 percent of the times it is preferable to have the kick and bass tuned the same to get them to sit, 30-40 percent it is nice to have somekind of tonal relationship between the kick and the bass, like for example the one you mention, and ten percent of the time it is nicest to have the kick tuned plain wrong, especially if the tone is very subby, then you just get the feeling of something sound odd and a bit fresh, but because it is so subby you do not pick up that it is actually disharmonic so easy.

 

And then of course not all kick really carries much of any key, so then you do not have to worry about this at all :)

 

Or you can have a kick sending out a bit of several different keys by boosting it on different frequencies that relates to certain keys, or layer several kicks which have different keys, so it really is a subject you can get a bit of lost in, or a subject you can simply ignore as well. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like to layer my kick my drums personally. first i'll choose a main kick for its "sound" which i'll EQ out the bass at around 120 Hz then i'll layer it with a plugin such as bazzism which is AU for a sub type kick (or any percussion sound you manipulate it too, but in this case a sub kick). Eq the higher frequencies out of the bazzism kick and match the pitch using a graph you can google describing what frequencies are what notes ( http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html )
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Huh?

 

Most kicks don't have a pitch. And what pitch there might be in the sound usually bends/changes over the course of the attack. So trying to tune a kick like it's a pitched musical instrument makes no sense. I mean, yeah, there are some kinds of tracks that sound good when the kick sound has a more constant pitch and creates a kind of drone. But it's not used that often because having a constant pitch continually sounding down in the bass range doesn't allow the actual bass notes to move very much without creating a muddy mess.

 

There's a reason that kicks are usually more like a thud than a note, and now you know why. It's the reason that you never see a drummer in a band of any kind retune the kick drum between songs.

 

On raising the kick 3 octaves to determine it's pitch... Wrong-o. Any low sound tuned high enough will give the perception that it has a pitch. You can tune a thunder sample 36 semitones up and it will sound like it has a pitch. So forget about that method of tuning up a kick to ascertain pitch, especially if you're using a tuner to figure it out cuz chances are the tuner is going to be wrong.

 

The BEST way to tune a kick is by ear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...