Monster kicks à la Headhunterz

The combination of merciless gabber kicks and epic melodies has long been the hallmark of proper hardstyle. The kicks get special attention, because compared to other genres they take over the bass part at the same time and make pitch changes. Since drum samples are rather unsuitable for this, we simply build one with a synth ...

1 Foundation

The most important things when choosing a synth are a rich basic sound and a decent distortion section. Fortunately, our Thorn Solo offers both, so we load it onto a new track and select the square waveform as the basis for oscillator 1, which we transpose down an octave at the same time. The other standard waveforms sawtooth, sine and triangle also work.

2 Pitch modulation

With a sine, the kick sounds cleaner and reminiscent of typical 90s hardcore kicks, while the sawtooth turns out rougher. To make the sound become a kick, we connect ENV 1 to „All OSC Pitch“in MOD MATRIX and set DEPTH to around 40%. Lower all controls on ENV 1, only decay to about 15%. The higher the value the rounder and more sluggish the kick will be.

3 Filter

With variations of DEPTH you can determine how sharp the kick turns out. We don‘t need the NOISE and HARMONIC FILTER sections, for the FILTER we choose MODE Clean LP and turn CUTOFF to 1 o‘clock, RES(onance) to 2 o‘clock. In the MATRIX we connect ENV 1 with resonance, to -100%. So with negative modulation, so that the resonance is only ramped up after the click.

4 Distortion!

So far, however, the bass drum is still very thin, so let‘s take the next step: Activate the DISTORTION effect, turn MIX, TONE and DRIVE all the way up, FUZZ to zero and select Hard Clip at MODE. This brings us closer to the point. To do this, we activate the EQUALIZER, pull back the treble a bit and look for our favorite setting in MID.

5 Finetuning

Tip: It can be worthwhile to turn up the MID control only briefly. In our example, we have connected the mids to ENV 2, so that the control is briefly turned up. This creates a good base for the kick, and from here the fine-tuning takes place. For example, turn down CUTOFF to emphasize the effects of the high resonance. Or turn up FILTER DRIVE if you want it to be more brutal.

6 Even more brutal?

Also, the effects of the oscillator‘s fundamental waveform become much clearer now. Try all the waveforms to find your favorite. One more tip: for more bite, switch on OSC 2, but transpose it way up with OCT 3 and mix it in with only a little VOL(ume). Depending on your taste, you can also add another distortion behind the synth.