808 kick/boom question

  • if i want a real bassy booom, i usually just add a deep sinewave to my kick.
    problem is: that sinewave is a single pitch - it would be nice to have a sweeping sound to make it sound more natural. is there a vst that produces a sweeping sine, or how do you get your boooming kicks?

  • i get a sampler and load a program with a sine wave also i load another program with a kik sound with lots of TTTTT sound(no bass)
    i program the kik track and duplicate it and asing this duplicated track to the sine wave sound, then i changes the notes of the sine wave with the pitch that i want
    you have to program the sampler that when you just stop to press the kay of the keyboard tyhe sound do a fade out
    also i do a group track and assing both tracks(kik and sine) and aply a eq and compresion on the grup track


    hope this help!

  • Quote from lj;27505

    not really, but thanks anyway.


    i can get a fade out and i can tune my sinewaves to different frequencies pretty easily, but my problem is: i want the sweep!



    ha ha cool!
    i wish help you but i dont undertand the word "sweep" cose my translator didnt give me a good translate, ???

  • can't you just use any half-decent synth vst for this purpose?


    - set the synth to a single osc with sinewave waveform
    - set the synths modulation envelope to apply to pitch
    - set modulation env to have a very fast attack, fast-ish decay, low sustain point (near bottom) and slowish release (make sure the amp env is similar to this)


    this way you should get a thump/click at the start of the trigger(depending on speed of env) and a 'boom' which decays in pitch after the note off.

  • Quote from dv;27469

    i get a sampler and load a program with a sine wave also i load another program with a kik sound with lots of TTTTT sound(no bass)
    i program the kik track and duplicate it and asing this duplicated track to the sine wave sound, then i changes the notes of the sine wave with the pitch that i want
    you have to program the sampler that when you just stop to press the kay of the keyboard tyhe sound do a fade out
    also i do a group track and assing both tracks(kik and sine) and aply a eq and compresion on the grup track


    hope this help!


    I got you hermano thanks it actually helped me alot

  • Quote from lj;27458

    that's what i was saying: it sounds much better if it fades out AND at the same time sweeps to a lower frequency.


    So, use an envelope follower ;)


    On a real 808 kick, the attack part of the envelope comes from the trigger routed into the audio path and filtered.


    Incidentally, I've just built a clone of a TR808 kick (straight from the original Roland schematic), and also added a few mods that are not in the original circuit, such as pitch CV, and also replaced the 500KΩ decay pot with a 1MΩ, now it can decay eternally, when I wind it right up it starts pitching upwards. I'm going to clone the snare next, I wonder what fun I can have with that..

  • Quote from LektroiD;30987

    So, use an envelope follower ;)


    On a real 808 kick, the attack part of the envelope comes from the trigger routed into the audio path and filtered.


    Incidentally, I've just built a clone of a TR808 kick (straight from the original Roland schematic), and also added a few mods that are not in the original circuit, such as pitch CV, and also replaced the 500KΩ decay pot with a 1MΩ, now it can decay eternally, when I wind it right up it starts pitching upwards. I'm going to clone the snare next, I wonder what fun I can have with that..


    wow, impressed by your knowledge. i, on the other hand, have no idea what an envelope follower is. :-/


    at the moment i'm experimenting with a sampler: loading a sine sweep into the sampler and tweak the adsr settings. i'm not there yet but i hope it will finally get me a fading sine sweep that i can layer under my kicks.

  • Quote from lj;31000

    wow, impressed by your knowledge. i, on the other hand, have no idea what an envelope follower is. :-/


    at the moment i'm experimenting with a sampler: loading a sine sweep into the sampler and tweak the adsr settings. i'm not there yet but i hope it will finally get me a fading sine sweep that i can layer under my kicks.


    Basically the ADSR is your envelope; (A)ttack, (D)ecay, (S)ustain, (R)elease. It is mainly used for shaping the overall sound, be it amplitude, filter, or pitch. It can be applied to many other sections (or modules) of a synth, but the envelope applied to the amplitude is the main ingredient to build the body of an 808 kick.


    I work mostly with modular synths, but I'll try to describe it for a hardwired synth as best as I can. Most hardwired synths have two envelopes, the most common being the one that shapes amplitude (volume), and the other usually shapes the filter. If only one envelope is present, you'll find the rest of the sections of the synth have a switch, or variable to assign to the envelope.


    The way to shape the amplitude envelope for a 808 bass is as follows: Use a single sinewave oscillator. Attack wants to be on zero, so the front end of the sound punches (if you lift the attack rate it will ramp the front of the sound - no good for a kick)! Decay is where you get the length of the sound, so play around with this depending how long you want your boooooom. Sustain wants to be at zero, release wants to be quite short (but not off entirely) so you when you release the key, the sound fades quickly.


    Apply only a small amount of the same envelope to the oscillator pitch (it doesn't need much at all).


    The front end of the kick is basically the sound of the trigger routed through the audio path and filtered. To recreate this, use a noise oscillator with the attack, sustain & release off, and very slight decay. Route this through a non resonant filter. It won't be perfect, but it's the closest you'll get without using an analog trigger source.


    I would highly recommend reading up on basic synthesis techniques, probably the most important knowledge you'll gain as an Electro producer ;)

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