Designing the kick drum sound

11:50 “We always start out by finding the right kick to complement the feel of the track,” says Hans. “Some tracks need a more punchy kick, and in this case we wanted to add to the whole live feel, so it sounds more like a live kick drum.” Daniël: “It really sounds like a kick drum from a drum kit. We wanted to give a bit more beef to it, so here’s one of our favourite plugins: [Soundtoys] Little Radiator. You can hear the kick’s now got a bit more distortion, a bit more beef.”

The kick is processed with EQ for low-end attenuation and transient shaping to shorten the tail. “We have a lot of bass because of the bassline,” says Hans, “and you want room to let the bassline breathe. The kick in the low end has a long tail.” Daniël: “Later, when we had everything together, we thought this kick could have a bit more punch, a bit more top – especially when I was mixing. So we layered a [Roland TR-]707 kick on top of it.” Hans: “It’s nice to have a kick that’s really deep in the mix, but on different kinds of systems, it tends to not be noticeable as much as you’d like, so this extra punch makes it feel much more balanced.”