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how important is it for kick drums to be the right key?
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| ClearVision |
| I've made a kick drum using Ableton's internal sampler... is it important that it be in the same key as the rest of my song? If so, how do I go about setting the key, or modifying an existing sample? |
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| DJFreaq |
Changing the "key" of your kick involves changing the pitch right?
Well if you pitch your kick up or down, you'll either get too much sub sonic stuff... or you'll end up with a weak kick.
Besides. It's a kick drum. It makes a thumpy noise. IN MOST CASES. It doesn't matter...
Unless you're into tonal and tuned percussion. Then it matters. |
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| ClearVision |
| ah ok good, another thread here got me a bit confused about this. thanks for the clearification :) |
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| Speactra |
Use your ears...
I dont know how to find the key of a kick, but try to make a punchy sine tone with some synth and play a tone at the same time as your kick is playing.. You'll hear wich tone matches best. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| In dance music a kick drum is basically a sine wave (or some other wave that has been low-passed a lot) that moves downward in pitch dramatically and very rapidly combined with some brief "noise" in the mid and lower-high frequencies. A kick drum as a whole has very little or no definable pitch. |
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| nytrox |
| depends on the kick you use. if you put alot distortion on it, you can hear the pitch. sometimes it makes sense to choose the kick first, define it's pitch and to make the bassline according to that. |
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| ClearVision |
| thanks for the additional replies... Ableton's operator doesn't let you choose a key, but it does let you choose the frequency... So I looked up some charts that tell you the corresponding frequency for each key and went with 110 and 220 Hz (A) for the two layers of the kick. Not sure if this is the proper way to define the key, but it was the only thing that made sense to do... |
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| Derivative |
Kickdrums don't have a 'key' really. You can pitch them up and down and thats important. IT all depends on the other instruments in the track. You should experiment with tuning percussion. Listen to some Klute tracks like his remix of Concord Dawn's Morning Light and alot of those drums are the same hits tuned up and down.
A kick drum doesn't have harmonics (unless you distort it) but it does sort of have a fundamental frequency. Not during the attack phase of the kick because it is rapidly diving the pitch but as it levels out you can sometimes hear a humming tail. You can tune the kick drum on that. I'm speaking mostly of 808 and 909 type kicks or other kickdrums synthesized from sine waves.
This won't work for hybrid kicks like those Alphazone ones which are composites of lots of different sounds (sometimes hihats and snare drums). |
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| ClearVision |
| i guess i wont worry about this too much... i thought this was important, but not so... i will keep in mind the possibilities of tonal percussion in the future tho. thanks again for the help!! |
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| loopdon |
Tuning drums in Reason:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec...reasonnotes.htm
Not limited to reason, though. Even if you don't tune your kicks when it comes to tuned percussion like congas and bongos it is highly advisable to get them in tune..
I have the impression that tuning your stuff may make the difference between pro-sound and non-pro, if you get me...
why not give it a try? |
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| thecYrus |
| pitch/key of the bd is far from important. it's much more about the character of the kick which needs to fit into the tune to get an overall tight sound. |
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