Synthesising kicks with BazzISM and Drumazon
Pim layers and processes synthesised sounds to create a dancefloor-friendly kick drum
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To ensure that his remix of Lights is dancefloor-ready, Pim adds his own kick drums sound, which comprises two parts. The first is a synthesised body kick created with the venerable Intelligent Sounds & Music BazzISM. “It’s really nice to use this for the low end of the kick because it’s just a sine wave. it’s really clean, and you can tweak anything you want,” Pim enthuses.
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To create a suitable top layer, Pim turns to D16’s Roland TR-909 emulation Drumazon: “This is just for a little bit of attack. I cut out the low-end with Pro-Q 2 to form a nice solid kick with the sub. I like Drumazon because you can tweak it lots and tune the bass drum – how much attack and decay you want and all sorts!”
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Pim EQs the BazzISM and Drumazon layers independently with Waves SSL E-Channel: “I’m basically only using the EQ section. On the body kick I’ve cut out some of the low end and some of the high frequencies, and I’m boosting around 60Hz because I like the sub frequencies in that region.”
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Pro-Q 2 is brought in again to low-pass the body kick after it’s been run through the E-Channel. “I’m using Pro-Q here because it’s more sterile whereas the SSL is more coloured” he explains. “I’m using it to pinpoint some problem frequencies and cut them out. There was some “oomph” in there I didn’t want so I made a little dip, and for the rest I just cut all the high frequencies.”
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On the Drumazon track Pim uses Nomad Factory Magnetic II to saturate the signal. “This is really my go-to plugin for saturation when I’m tweaking kick drums, it has a lot of crazy saturation and unwanted effects but for some reason on kick drums it sounds really nice.”
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The Drumazon kick is then high-passed with Pro-Q 2, then the kicks are processed together with another Magnetic II, gluing them together to make a cohesive composite kick. Another Pro-Q 2 is used to high-pass the signal, and another E-Channel is brought in for some subtle EQ tweaking.