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7. Synthesising your own kick from scratch 7. Synthesising your own kick from scratch
1 Let’s synthesise a kick using our Thorn CM synth. On a new MIDI track, create a one-bar MIDI clip, then draw a 16th-long low F note on every beat of the bar. Load Thorn CM on this track. Up in the synth’s Poly section, switch it from Poly to Mono – we don’t want to play chords! – then change Osc 1’ s waveform to a basic Sine.
2 This deep, subby sine wave will form the foundation of our kick. But listen closely – notice how the sine’s front-end ‘click’ occurs inconsistently on some notes, but not others? That’s because the oscillator’s Phase Mode is set to Random ( Rnd), meaning that the sine’s phase changes each time a new note fires.
3 Click the Phase Mode dropdown and select Gate. The sine now retriggers from the start of its cycle every time. But that nice ‘click’ that some of the randomlyphased notes had is gone! Previously, the sine was starting at different points in its waveform; now, it’s consistently starting at the click-less beginning of the sine’s cycle each time…
4 So, to shift the waveform’s ‘start point’, change Osc 1’ s Phase amount. At 25%, the sine starts a quarter of the way into its cycle, so we get that initial click every time. When synthesising melodic synth sounds, this type of click can be annoying, but for a kick drum, this gives its nose a pleasing ‘tick’.
5 A basic bass drum is taking shape. Time to add beefier harmonics with saturation – in Thorn CM, switch the Filter’s Mode to Dirty LP, then crank up Drive to around +18dB. Saturation greatly defines a kick’s timbre, so try out different drive flavours in your synth, or insert saturation plugins on the synth’s channel. 6 Play up and down the keyboard, and the kick’s pitch changes. Want pitch to remain at a fixed value? Deactivate Osc 1’ s KeyTrack button (the bottom-right keyboard icon). Now tune the kick’s body with Osc 1’ s Octave and Semitone controls – we pull Oct down to -2 to get back to our original pitch.
7 As with any synth sound, our kick’s volume shape over time can be altered via its amplitude envelope controls. In Thorn CM, raise Amp Env Release up from its current 25% position – this extends the bass drum’s tail, adding more sub weight. We want a shorter tail, though, so a tighter Release value of 15% is enough here.
8 Now let’s add punch to our kick. Just like how a synth’s amplitude envelope governs volume response over the course of each note, we can use a second envelope to alter pitch shape over time. Toggle Thorn CM’s Mod Matrix tab to pop it open.
9 Sound designers evaluate a synth’s potential for percussion generation via the speed of its envelopes – the faster the response, the more ‘punchy’ they are. Thorn CM’s regular Env 1 and 2 ADSR envelopes are OK, but we can use one of the synth’s custom MSEGs, which you’ll find down in Thorn CM’s bottom right – head there now.
10 Switch MSEG 1’ s mode from Loop to Oneshot, flip it from Steps to Curve mode, then detoggle Sync and drag its Speed down to the minimum 25ms. We now have a rapid, customisable envelope curve that will retrigger upon each new MIDI note.
11 Let’s tell MSEG 1’ s punchy downwards shape to sweep Osc 1’ s pitch: in Mod Matrix, set Source as MSEG 1 and Target to Master Tune. As you drag up the Depth amount to 50%, you’ll hear this shape create a punchier kick sound. The mod depth amount and envelope shape both exert the greatest influence over our kick’s punch response, so let’s go further…
12 Drag MSEG 1’ s bottom node to extend it later along our 25ms window of time, then drag down the curve’s centre to bend it into a tight exponential curve. For a ‘thuddier’ 909-style kick, apply a higher modulation Depth amount, and make the curve shape less exponential. An 808style kick features a less prominent punchy aspect, and a sharper pitch fall.
13 Time to add top-end ‘snap’ to our body kick via Thorn CM’s Noise oscillator. First, switch it On. Deactivate the Loop button so our transient only fires once at the start of a triggering note. From the Noise oscillator’s waveform presets, choose Percussion » Click 05. To tune it, raise the Pitch knob to 17.
14 Now let’s gently sweeten our kick with Thorn CM’s built-in processors. Head to the Effects tab, then turn the Equalizer module On. For more upper-midrange and treble presence, we’ll boost Mid Gain to +6dB at a Freq of 1kHz, then lift High Gain to +3.5dB at a High Freq of 3kHz.
15 Short ambience on the upper mids puts our synthetic kick in a ‘space’. Turn Thorn CM’s Reverb module On, then dial in these settings. Try switching Osc 1’ s sine’s waveform for character: a triangle wave adds more subtle odd harmonics; we also like the FM 05, Bell 05, Pluck 01 and Sub Saw waveforms.